Not Loving My Scooter - What Can I Do?

[barrkel]

The Vity at 40+ is almost like riding a kick scooter, any sideways body movement will trigger an equal and opposite reaction in the scooter and then the steering will adjust to straighten up, which you can feel in your arms. It doesn't feel positive at all.

The Vity is like a motorized office chair in multi-lane traffic jams though, super easy to find a way around and through the jam, with a tight turning circle, and even light enough to yank around if you're really stuck (e.g. parked in). It's best for inner city travel without any dual carriageways.

PS125 I had after the Vity was substantially more stable, much nicer to ride at 50+. Not as stable as YBR125, which felt more like a bicycle. SH300 is somewhere between the two - I'm comfy doing long motorway trips on the scooter, once your neck muscles have adjusted to the wind blast. And then bigger bikes actively need effort to change direction.

So yeah, not the right scooter or bike for your trip profile.
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Bikes: S1000R, SH350; Exes: Vity 125, PS125, YBR125, ER6f, VFR800, Brutale 920, CB600F, SH300x4
Best road ever ridden: www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2MhNxUEYtQ

[Teflon-Mike]

BCF.... Marriage guidance AND motorbikes, what value you get.

As said, the 'rule' that she is laying down that you cant have anything 'more' than a scooter. is at best based on fallacy and nebulous fears... yet to get past it woman needs educating.

The horses comment was, I suppose because statistically, riding horses is something like five times more likely to result in death or serious injury....

B-U-T... that is a nice rural pursuit, and folk have few qualms about sticking their pampered princess on a 16 hand colt and letting them loose over the fences... they imagine mint juleps on the tail gate of the range-rover with a fortnams & masons hamper and lots of Jolly "Darling Buds of May" yokals going "Hoo-Ray" etc... give lad a 50cc moped they imagine Hairy Hells angels taking over the town, ton up wheelies past the post office and A&E looking like the butchers after a bad party with Sweeny Todd.... ie illustrating boith the gulf between 'Real' Risk and 'Perceived' Risk, and emotive vs rational reasoning.

You, like most, YOU, are probably up against both. And trying to counter EITHER, especially individually is likely an exercise in laying grounds for divorce and or a trip top the nut-house!!!

As webby, you HAVE to recognise the underlying reasons for her stance, which is that 1/ she loves you and doesn't want you hurt, and 2/ doesn't trust you.. or at least trust you, on your own NOT to realise all her fears and turn in to a total tit.... she probably suspects or believes you to be anyway, the moment her back is turned....

FACTS: you is on two wheels, whether on a push bike or a scooter.. in either case REAL odds you is going to end up minced meat is still as or higher than if you were on a big bike.... in fact look at Dot.Gov stats and push bike is INORDINATELY more dangerous per participant hour or mile than a motorbike... especially risk of less severe injury.

You have an 11 and 9 year-old.. they have push bikes? How resistant was the Mrs to them when you walked round Toys Our Uz?
Does she make them wear a psycho hat when they go out on them?
Does she go hide in hedges to make sure they are still wearing them when the kidz is down the park with their mates?

A-N-R them hats wont save having to apply the savlon to their knees or elbows after they have set up a plank to try jumps or whatever...

When my eldest were approx 13/14, No1-un came home one day telling me how "Mountain Bikes MY lyfe/... maaaN" wavin a magazine about expecting me to buy him a £1000+ carbon fibre down hill push-bike 'cos 'all mi maytez.. maaan!" I actually signed him up with local Cross Country club, and Time Trial clubs, and watched him stop boasting about down the park antics but winning trophies for his endeavours... BUT...at some point you have to let them off the lead and risk the carnage of them running wild, and just be there to pick up the pieces after....

Judging by the number of buckled wheels in my shed, that CAN be a LOT of pieces... B-U-T... they would (and did!) bend as many wheels or forks or frames down the park, where I wasn't on hand with a toolbox and band-aid! Arthur Ransom.. If Duffers will drown, better drowned than duffers.... pays your money and takes your chances... or theirs!!!

SO....

Is she your missus or your MUM!

Start there. She don't want you mince-meated.. but she probably has few qualms, mostly based on error and ignorance, sticking precious progine on push-bikes... and is quite happy for YOU to ride one.... BUT facts and stats say that she is WRONG.. break that gently!!!!! (They don't like being wrong... tits say they never IZ!)

After that.... a motorbike, following riles of the road., is actually not as dangerous.. AND MORE, properly trained and properly qualified a BIG bike is even LESS dangerous.... statistically.

Which is the basis of argument to get 'permission' to get trained, get a proper licence and get a bigger bike..... B-U-T.... you have a LOT of work to do on her first... and you MUST get past the irrational fears and errant ideas FIRST....

IF she is truly worried about your safety, THEN... she needs to truly evaluate the risks, and that probably has rather unpalatable implications on letting you OR kidlings loose on push-bikes.... BUT that's another issue for after...

Main one is upfront LIFE is fraught with risks and NO-ONE has yet got out of it alive, so WHAT RISKS is she most comfy with? For you OR kidlings?

Will she be there watching their drinks to ward off spikers, or hailing a taxi when they are 15/16 and headed up Broad St? Just how much risk does she REALLY think she has ANY influence to reduce or remove? And when it comes to moat-ie-boiks? Can she do much at all, and if anything? Making sure you are trained and qualified IS that not as much as she might do?

And on that trust.. everything has to be passed by management.... B-U-T little anecdote for you....


I worked with a chap who toddled two miles to work each day by push-bike.... after going swimming curiously enough. In the garage he had a Honda CX500 Silverwing, and he used to stop and drool over the row of big bikes in the works bike-shed, and grumble about the Missus... not liking his 500.... and being loathe to 'let' him ride it....

About the time I got my VF1000, he got a Kawasaki GPz900... story behind it was that 'She' had grumbled for YEARS about his bike, and told him she should get something 'smaller'... he ended up, I think at Sheldoin M/C's, or maybe Cradley Kwak, and a test ride on a GPz9...

Salesman suggested, after much muttering about the size and the missus, that they ride back to his house and see if it would fit in the garage.. He was trying to put the salesman off, for all his enthusiasm, I think... ANYWAY.. they pulled up outside his house, and his missus came out to look.... Apparently he tried to stand infront of the 900 badge so she couldn't see it.. futile, woman see EVERYTHING! especially when you dont want them to! Then she said, in broad Sheldon Brumigum... "AW KAY, shoe me you pootiin' it on t' staand!" Grinning as women do thinking she had winning strategy.... So he did, and it went up and on... so she told him to try it in the garage next to the washing machine where it would have to live... so he did.. and struggled... but not as much as he did with the Silver-Wing.. "Theyre!" she anounced "Towd Ya you needed a smaller boik! Ya cun pork That wun!" SOLD.... he couldn't believe it, and still couldn't a month later when he was coming to work on it, muttering about warm up, "But the woyfe, MAYDE me!" HE said "She wanted to wash the bedding, and didn't want to move the boik!"

So who knows, sometimes the reasons against mask something else... and in his case it was that missus wanted to be abole to get at the washing machine LOL BUT you may have a LOT of digging to do to get to the 'nub'

Work on the trust issues.. which begs some honesty and importantly, on SELF honestly admitting to yourself where the bullchit starts... and building the confidence that you wont be a total loon the moment her backs turned.... BUT that is where it starts whether you want a better tiddler or a big bike, or just less ear-ache.... the bike and what kind or size of bike pretty much small potatoes in that bigger picture....

And whether Walsall to brum or Walsall to Stafford or Stafford to Stoke, or John O'Groats to Lands end, the issues are the same and changing the destination does NOT change the underlying arguments... which NEED to be tackled....

ho you choose to do that, or not, is your call......
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[dynax]

Great job Tef perfect logic of the female mind
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Mike.
Bikes: Xena, Bridget,Florence
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmihUc0xXxYbR4_0l-F1FzA/videos?view_as=subscriber

[Teflon-Mike]

[One Ball 1971]

You could always put cards in your spokes and pretend?
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Z800 2016

[Polarbear]

I actually found a scooter fun to ride but that was probably because it felt like it weighed a couple of pounds compared with my bike.

Whether it be in you head or what you aren't happy and little wheels are shit. Just think of the (lack of) gyroscopic effect compared with and large wheel, it isn't going to be as stable.

Why not find a local training school that does open days or some sort of day where you can go round and try their bikes to see what suits you before doing anything thinking of changing for something you are not sure of.

Take wifey with you, the instructors might be able to allay her fears.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[stevo as b4]

I just saw some clean/retro dressed mod dude revving out his Vespa PX125 on the ring road while I was walking home from the work house. I fully approve of such behaviour and the nice billowing blue clouds he was making.

Scooters are OK round town at least IMO!

[Easy-X]

Scooters are a bit dull:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNugmdbBfxU
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Nobby the Bastard]

[annemarie]