TheScooterScoop

(Milan, Tony, John, Kevin and Me on camera… This is how our trip began)

7 Miles x 21 Miles… Four hours… 120ccs… That’s what it took for us to circle the whole island of New Providence (Nassau Bahamas). You may recognize this as the little island most American land lubbers get dumped on during a cruise out of Florida. We left the boat with great expectations and barring a couple annoyances, we really did have a great time.

The riders consisted of Tony, a 2-wheeled jockey with over 50,000 miles under his belt. He was the only one to NOT have a close call. Milan, a hog rider who is relatively new on two wheels (3700 miles). John a REAL newbie on 2-wheels and myself with about as much road time as Milan (yes… Mr.ScooterScoop with less than 5000 miles. Dissappointed? I work from home, so my commute would be a scooter ride up a flight of stairs.) We all banded together to take on the Island by scooter. The first place we went was also our first annoyance…

The rental shop. Just off the boat there are guys in the little market trying to get you to rent. Looking for a ‘better deal’ we passed them up and went straight to the scooters just outside the market. We placed our request for 5 scooters and proceeded to wait… and wait… and wait while others were snatching them up right in front of us. The scooter rental lady said “We’re waiting on gas”. After :15 minutes Kev said “I’m outta here” and Milan and I began our tirade. “WHAT’S THE HOLDUP?! It’s hot as hell and the clock is ticking!” We had already paid at that point. They tried to stick us on some 100cc beaters and that was the point where we had enough. We demanded a refund and were set to wander the streets. I decided to make one FINAL attempt, I mean… I wouldn’t have a story for “The Scoop” if I just gave up. I pointed out some pretty nice looking (relatively speaking) Kayaks and said “Give us these 4 right here”. Why they didn’t offer them in the first place was a mystery, but I suspect that they prejudged us as a group of rowdy riders ready to demolish their newer scoots. They couldn’t come up with any more excuses and finally handed them over ($80/each which included a $20 deposit).

We were issued a set of cheap jockey helmets and proceeded to find a grubbary. All of our bikes worked well except Milan’s which wouldn’t idle… at stops it just died. Good enuf… “Let’s roll!”

First stop… Grub at a local Bahamian grill. We all bellied up to the table for conch salad, fruit punch and other local fish and chicken. Food wasn’t bad… expensive, but not bad.

Tony doesn’t like to play it safe… Orders the Turtle Steak and LIKES it. Service was dead slow. Figured they were waiting for the turtle to get there.

Next stop? Bacardi headquarters. Sadly, they are closed on the weekend. We used the wallet-on- a-scooter-seat tripod to capture this shot. This photo was taken just minutes after I nearly bit the dust. What happened was, I was watching out for John. Since he was new I felt it was my obligation to point out the many scooter swallowing pot holes in the road. Well, I looked in my left mirror… saw John… took my left hand off the grip and pointed down at a hole when suddenly I hit an equally menacing pot hole at about 45 MPH. The impact made my front wheel twist to the right and jerked the bar out of my right hand too. For a split second I experienced time dilation. I thought, “Get ready to slide” which was overtaken by “Pull out of it!”. I placed both hands back on the grips, grabbed the brakes and wobbled left and right with my tires squalling like whipped dogs. I let off the brakes to correct the wobble then applied them again until I finally stopped. John looked rather shocked that I managed to stay upright. So was I. Doubly sobered at this point, I caught back up with the rest of the group and we got our Bacardi photo op.


Here’s my Kayak. Chinese I presume, but couldn’t find any info on it after 10 minutes of Googling. I managed to get about 84 kph (52 mph) out of her and we still had about 1/4 tank of gas when it was done. Yes… That is my personal helmet, not the jockey helmet. I figured since I took my scooter to the airport (yes with all my bags), that I might as well bring my helmet, jacket and gloves with me. They would have REALLY come in handy had I taken that spill earlier.

Then we stopped on South Beach for another little photo op. This was about the halfway point. By now we had just about gotten used to driving on the wrong side of the road. The ride filled the senses with views of mansions, abandoned beach condo projects, and homes spanning the range in between. Smells of sweet, salty air, mixed with local grills made our mouths water and the stench of roadside dumping and sewage treatment tickled our gag reflex. We had ridden though a small rain, John’s first. He never imagined those little drops could sting so bad and while it was hot out there, being in motion made it feel fine.

To get to South Beach you have to get off of the main road which is highly recommended because traffic was so bad and the view was no better. I talked to a couple of locals to find directions to a road further south. They were all very friendly, even away from the tourist areas. One man explained that the way we wanted to go was “Very far away”. This is relative of course. For someone born and raised on a 21×7 island it was a trek. For many American commuters, it’s half their daily ride to work.

It was shortly after the South Beach stop that John nearly rear ended a car and at some point during the ride Milan laid his scooter down during the dreaded “quick stop on a gravel road” trick. Still no injuries and after this dangerous ride, that’s all you can ask for.

While on South Beach I had to show off my jacket patch. Click on any of the photos to see ‘em up close. This was one of the last photos taken on our ride. The final leg of the journey was pretty uneventful until we got about 2 miles from the dock. The guys had enough with their smelly helmets and took them off to balance the discomfort they were already feeling on their backsides from the cheap seats. While we were making the home stretch John’s hat blew off. I was last in line, so I spun around to get it. I hopped off the scooter, and waited for the cars. One stopped and I went into the street. As I approached the hat I noticed a small, wiry, shirtless guy headed in the same direction from across the street. He was mumbling something and gesturing like he was going to retrieve the hat for me. I said “I got it, thanks” and bent over to grab the hat. When I stood up he said something about “gimme money” and then snatched the hat out of my hands. Not a whole lot of details here besides me yelling “Gimme the F*ckin’ hat!” before the locals started to descend on the scene. Boxed in by cabbies yelling “Give the mon ‘im ‘at back!” the addict finally held it out for me to snatch back. It was then back on the scooters and onward to the docks.

We returned 4 hours and 3/4 tank of gas later, exhausted and sweaty (that last bit of traffic put an end to the 50+ MPH speeds we reached earlier and now it felt HOT). It would have probably been 4.5 or 5 hours if we weren’t lane splitting at the very end. All that traffic on 2 lane roads makes you REALLY appreciate a scooter.

Over all it was a good ride. We saw about as much of he island as you could possibly see in a day. Would I recommend it? Sure! It’s an adventure and it was nice to get away from the counterfeit Cuban cigar vendors and drug peddlers near the dock. Would I do it again? Eh, maybe another island… next time? The Caymans!