(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Here’s a little slice from the Associate Press… not the whole thing, just enough to bring up some cool things about the article. It mentions the NYSC and the Jedi Knights. It also mentions some important statistics and trends in the scooter market today. Great job Desmond Butler!
High gas prices lead to U.S. scooter boom: “Scooter riders are also mobilizing in ways never seen before. Riders are joining clubs, setting up Internet message boards, and even lobbying city governments for more friendly laws.
One club, the New York Scooter Club, meets Wednesday evenings at a bar in Manhattan. They discuss mechanics, the relative merits of classic metal-framed scooters vs. the newer synthetic models, and the simple joys of scooter travel.
After the gathering, the members mount up for an 8 p.m. ride around town. On weekends, they organize day trips out of the city on scooters, first popularized in the 1960s and ’70s by movies like Federico Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita,’ and The Who’s ‘Quadrophenia.’
A scooter boom has been under way over the last few years as the vehicles came back into fashion. Retail sales in the U.S. have shot up from 12,000 scooters in 1997 to 113,000 in 2005, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council, a promotional trade organization. But this spring, the boom has turned into a bonanza, with more and more people realizing that scooters can get up to 100 miles per gallon and can weave around traffic jams.
‘The phone has been ringing and recently the calls begin with talk about gas prices,’ says Aaron Peterson, manager of Vespa Soho, a Manhattan dealer of the most classic Italian scooter.
Sales at the Chicago-based Genuine Scooter Company, one of the country’s larger scooter dealers, which owns the popular Stella brand, have been doubling annually for the last three years, with even faster growth projected for this year, according to owner Philip McCaleb. The Stella gets about 90 miles per gallon…
… Some of the scooter clubs aren’t as practical. The Jedi Knights, a scooter club for Star Wars fans founded in Ann Arbor, Mich., has spread to more than a half-dozen cities. In New York, the club recently built a speeder-bike modeled after the vehicle featured in “Return of the Jedi.”
“The Jedi Knights are about taking ourselves lightly,” explains member Gregory Heller. “We are into ‘Star Wars’ and into scooters and that’s a pretty high level of dorkiness.”
On a more serious level, Heller helped organize a charity for fellow scooter riders suffering after Hurricane Katrina. He is also active lobbying the New York City government for designated parking for scooters and motorcycles, which frequently get knocked over when competing with cars for legal parking.
Sat, May 13, 2006
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