50cc scooter hell

For some reason, this innocent looking, slightly feminine 50cc scared me. It's pink speedo with its marshmallow numbers suggested a bike that wouldn't bite- but I know scooters,and this was no exception. Skittish to say the least, it's half flat front tyre did nothing to keep me in a straight line on the road. Automatic with only one gear it took me from nought to scared in 2 seconds. In fact, I never knew how fast it went because the speedo showed an informative 0pmh at all speeds.
But it gave me the freedom of Auckland's streets, and after pumping the tyres up, I was grinning from ear to ear, dicing with the traffic and only just about managing any incline steeper than flat. It might be a girl's bike but it just goes to show, two wheels, even these two wheels, make life great.




I almost crashed it twice, both times by nearly sliding down sudden steep gravelly cambers into the soft verges. The scooter attracted little attention, except from a Glen Innes yob who lobbed a bottle at me from a moving Holden. I had stopped to check the map, the empty green bottle smashing inches from my back tyre. I thought about chasing after them - but the pink marshmallow numbers reminded me that wasn't a sensible option.