Wanted step through scooter - no really.

I need to ride my bike.

I cannot ride my bike until I am fully weight bearing and have then
built up some balance and strength.

I am not going to be fully weight bearing for, let's just say 'a
while'. This pisses me off.

I am going not so quietly insane at being unable to drive or ride.
I've started shouting abuse at passing bikers when I'm stuck in the
ambulance going backwards and forwards to physio. I need some form of
personal transport.

I was sitting thinking about small light bikes and the possibility of
managing one, but in my current condition I'd only drop it and we know
how that turned out last time.

So, an old step through scooter - small, light, easy to get out of the
way of if I drop it. It would let me trundle to town and back, so I'd
not have to be reliant on the ambulance to get to physio. I could rig
up some sort of mount to hook the crutches on. I would have a measure
of my freedom back, which would stop me from completely losing the
plot.

Is this a good idea? Has anyone had one? What are they like? Would it
still be too heavy?

 

I think you know the answer to this, without the necessity of getting
a volley of abuse from UKRM ... !

Paul.

 

If you must have some form of personal transport that isn't a car, get
a quad ffs. It's not like your leg's rushing to heal itself, & a low
speed topple on a wet drain cover or patch of diesel may be all it
takes to ensure it never heals. Much easier to stick your crutches &
shopping on a quad anyway.

 

http://www.mp3.piaggio.com/index_eng.html

No seriously, I've only had a go on a 125 twist and go, and while being
more like a bicycle, all that plastic adds up in weight terms.

The Honda Bravo comes in at 89kg dry, which seems quite light, but is it
light enough?

 

Great thing about the MP3 is that you have a little button which will
lock it in vertical mode as you come to a halt. So as long as you think
ahead you should never end up having to support it with your legs.

 

http://tinyurl.com/q2lzln [WS]

 

Honda C90? Light enough for me to carry. Interesting handling but not
fast enough to be dangerous (well, not very).

 

One of the benefits of the full leg cast (no pin) was as soon as they
took it off and put me in a backslab, then I knew it was strong enough
to ride on, so I did.

Paul.

 

I rode a C90 once. And crashed it. Fortunately, on the way back from the
delivery.

Ghastly things.

 

They use those as taxis in Benin. The dudes wear yellow shirts, flag em
down and they take you where you're going 3 up with a gas bottle and some
chickens. 3 people, 3 taxi bikes and you can have a very entertaining
road race to the pub. Bits of the bike drop off as you go along. But they
do seem to last well even faced with the obviously top quality, smoothly
tarmacced, rural African roads.

I also crashed a C90 as a passenger. I was on the way back from the witch
doctors. He swerved to avoid a huge python.

 

I've been a passenger on a C90 taxi in Hanoi.

 

For such a small and shitty scooter they have a good load capacity and
seem to be fairly resistant to the most hamfisted and mechanically
unsympathetic owners.

Maybe I should get one......

 

Hanoi Rocks ...

<dons coat, legs it ..>

Paul.

 

I had a C90 when I was, err ... sixteen. It was crashed lots, off-road,
then I sold it to a friend, who crashed it on the road. He died and
that was the end of my motorcycling for 20+ years.

Indeed.

 

My very first bike, we made them into MX bikes for the local quarry. Great
fun, many scars

--


Nige,

BMW K1200S
Range Rover Vogue

 

MP3 Nina

--


Nige,

BMW K1200S
Range Rover Vogue

 

we seized about 10!!

--


Nige,

BMW K1200S
Range Rover Vogue

 

Tibia fractures restrict ankle mobility, I can't physically bend my
ankle onto the pedal. I've driven twice and I'm really not safe to be
driving, I had to make an appointment to brake. There's no way I could
put enough pressure on to do an emergency stop.

 

I picked up the shopping trolley for a few hundred quid, 3 years old
and only 670km on the clock. It had been bought by a lady who rode it
for a few months, scared herself silly when it snowed, and parked it
in the garage.

It does a good job of taking me the 3 or 4 miles from the village to
supermarkets and shops in Weston. Only weighs 65kg and does around
130mpg. Not very fast, especially uphill, but 40mph on the flat is
plenty in town for short trips. The light weight and low CofG means
that a child could get it up if it ever fell over.

Chinese scoots are cheap and plentiful, often to be found in local
newspapers and cards in local shopwindows. Quality is a bit variable
but they all use the same Bautian engine. Get a luggage rack and a
cheap top box.

http://www.chinesemotorcyclepartsonline.co.uk/ keeps plenty of spares.

 

I bought a Vespa ET4 recently and am having fun on it.
Very twitchy compared to my Hornet , and with 10hp it's very slow too but it
still manages to be entertaining and is a doddle to ride
Being a metal bodied scooter it's not particularly light compared to
something like a Peugeot speedfight but that actually helps to keep the
centre of gravity down.
Something like that could be worth a look and at the cheaper end of the
market they don't seem to depreciate at all unless crashed.