TheScooterScoop

scooter club: “It takes a big person to ride a small Vespa scooter — or is that actually the problem?

Long after the sleek Italian motor scooters and their ilk where all the rage during the British Mod movement of the 1960s, it seemed uncool for a full-size person to sputter around on a vehicle that, to the untrained ear, sounds like a lawnmower and, to the untrained eye, looks like a toy.

Dave Medrano, 37, a Long Beach native and founding member of the Hard Pack Scooter Club, has been riding for more than 20 years. Most of that time, people have found his passion laughable.

“We are in a Harley world,” he said. “You were kind of a wimp if you rode a scooter.””