Scooter Rosa 2008

It's not quite as large as the Laughlin River Run, but it may be someday. It's a three day event sponsored by Revolution Moto in Santa Rosa, a local scooter dealer that sells Piagio, Vespa and Aprilia. The Big Three of the scooter world.
On the first day, which I attended, they block off the street, there is a bike show, barbecue and an outdoor scooter movie. The next two days are scooter tours, first through the wine country on Saturday and to the coast on Sunday.
As I have said I like scooters, but scooter people sure do dress funny. I didn't see any black leather jackets or chaps, no fringe, silver conchos or do-rags. There were hardly any beards in the crowd. I did see shark skin suits, narrow black ties, mohawks and cloth jackets with enough patches to satify any boy scout.













The scooters were very cool, one looked so much like a target that I think I would be a little worried riding it. Seems like some scooter riders are really worried about where they've been. Others either ride a lot at night or are afraid of the dark. I wonder if the charging system on a scooter can handle all those lights.




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There was also a Piagio MP3, the odd scooter with two wheels at the front. I have written about this oddity, but I had never actually seen one move about before. The owner rode it about and did a series of "S" turns and figure 8's. I guess if you had one of these, you would be doing turns and figure 8's just to prove the thing would actually do those things.






In the motorycyle world there is a type of bike called naked bike or a hooligan bike, these are bikes that have the fairing stripped off and are "naked." I believe there is a similar type of performance oriented scooter that makes up a subset of the scooter crowd. There was one bike at Scooter Rosa that fit that moniker. When the guy rode it in he put his jacket over the scooter, I though that was a trick like the dirt track boys do to hide some exotic engine mod. So when the guy took the jacket of his scooter, I was there to photograph those exotic modifications. I was surprised to see that there was a seat under the jacket and the engine, in typical scooter fashion, was nowhere to be seen.






All and all I had a great time at Scooter Rosa 2008. I saw the future, I'm sure scooters sales are going to explode. The scooter culture is alive and well. I've poked a little fun at them but believe me it was from a glass house. After all I didn't see dozens of police officers, no traffic stops, no one was wrestled to the ground and no one went to jail.





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No one went to jail?...
OK, scooter people it's time to pep it up a little!