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Scooters Alleviate Parking Issues, Get Great Gas Mileage
October 18, 2007 - 11:00pmWelcome to Alfa Tomato, a column about cars.
The word “scooter” has some less-than-cool connotations. I think “scooter,” and I see senior citizens rolling very, very slowly down the dried fruit aisle of a grocery store. Or I see packs of pubescent boys sailing down sidewalks on their silver Razor scooters, performing tricks and skinning their knees.
The Ithaca version of the scooter is far from dried fruit and bleeding knees; scooters in Ithaca have a trendy, eco-conscious vibe. In fact, a group of scooter enthusiasts, dubbed the “Scooter Commuters,” meet at the Gimme Coffee in Fall Creek most Sundays — and, being true Ithacans, participate in the Ithaca Festival Parade.
“Something about Ithaca is conducive to scooters,” said Anthony DeGreif, the owner of Ithaca Scooter and Cycle. “It has to do with the close proximity of Ithaca College and Cornell University to downtown Ithaca, and it has to do with the fact that scooters are much easier to park than cars.”
David Kay, a member of the Tompkins County Curb Your Car Coalition and a die-hard cyclist since 1978, vouches for scooters — “They’re fuel efficient and make a lot of sense,” he said.
After realizing that she spent the “best moments of beautiful days” cooped up driving her car, Kathy Luz Herrera, a Tompkins County legislator and an electrician at Cornell, took a motorcycle training course — and learned how to avoid obstacles on a Suzuki 250. Soon after the course she bought a Vespa, what she considers “the BMWs of scooters.”
“I ride scooters more for recreation than anything,” Herrera said. “But I do appreciate the scooters’ great gas mileage.”
Herrera said she gets about sixty to seventy-five miles to the gallon on her scooter and added that $2 in gas buys her a long ride — a bargain that puts SUV owners to red-faced shame, no?
Last spring, when gas prices spiked to three bucks a gallon, DeGreif said that scooters sales at Ithaca Scooter and Cycle spiked, too. Since he opened in Feb. 2005, DeGreif said that he normally sold three to five scooters a mont. With the gas price hike, DeGreif sold seven scooters in five weeks.
In addition to getting gas mileage that blows most cars out of the water, many newer scooters outdo older scooters in terms of having low emissions. Under provisions mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency, newer model scooters have less-polluting, lower-emission four-stroke engines, as opposed to the two-stroke engine found in many older scooters. DeGreif explained that four-stroke engines are better for the environment than two-stroke engines because, basically, less unburned fuel exits the exhaust pipe.
But, environmental consciousness with scooters comes at a cost. Many four-stroke engines have less engine power than the traditional two-stroke models.
Either way, I wanted to experience a scooter in action. How zippity-fast do they really go? How snazzy do they really look? Will I be splattered with bugs if I ride around on one for an hour? So, I met DeGreif at Ithaca Foreign Car Service on the corner of State St. and Meadow St., where DeGreif has a small scooter showcase in addition to his Sage Rd store.
DeGreif gave me an open-face helmet to wear — the law in New York State — and warned me that he likes to ride his scooter “like an asshole sometimes.” “Riding like an asshole,” he explained, means speeding around turns, revving the engine at stoplights and zooming from stop sign to stop sign — fun! His excuse for such reckless behavior? He’s raced motorcycles and scooters in California, Florida and across the Northeast.
Before we pulled out onto a rush-hour traffic ridden Rte. 13 in DeGreif’s Twist N’ Go 2005 Verona VR 150 T, he went over our test-drive route: we would go up Rte. 13, make a right turn off at the Cayuga Heights exit and then go down Rte. 34 into Fall Creek and into downtown Ithaca. DeGreif noted that the TN’ G Verona is a discontinued model and was replaced by the TN’ G GS 150.
Even as we sat in traffic, I realized how riding a scooter can spice up the doldrums of a daily commute — it’s way more exciting to drive a scooter than anything with doors.
However, as we climbed Rte. 13, I did notice that the Verona’s four-stroke engine is less than powerful. After the ride, DeGreif, too, said that a line of cars trailed us as we put-puted up the steep grade. Coming down Rte. 34, however, we hit about 65 mph. At this point, I realized I’d be roadkill if we hit one pothole the wrong way.
DeGreif said that he has fallen off of his scooter “more times than he can count,” but he noted that insurance on his scooter only costs him $90 per year. I asked my Dad, a car enthusiast and previous motorcycle owner, about insurance for scooters and motorcycles, and he said, “You might as well not buy insurance on a scooter — just get a cemetery plot.”
The TN’ G Verona looked like anything but Seinfeld’s George Costanza’s red Rascal. In fact, I think “scooter,” and I see the ending scene of Amelie, or little old men on Vespas in ancient Italian villages, or just a regular-Joe or Jane Ithacan taking a step to reduce his ecological footprint.
Contact jdinapoli@cornellsun.com if you would like to suggest a car I should test drive or would like to have your car — be it a rusty old Geo Metro or a fly Ferrari F50 — featured in Alfa Tomato.