For Liz Fennell, only 18 and living on Saltspring Island with her family, it was true love. Even her father wasn’t going to tell her otherwise.
It was three years ago and Fennell got on her first scooter, a 1984 Honda Aero. It was for sale in Duncan and her dad was with her.
“I loved it at first sight,” she said. “They let me take it around the yard a few times, and it was so much fun.”
“I wasn’t scared or anything,” Fennell said. “It felt safe and it felt right.”
She purchased that scooter and has not looked at any other kind of personal transport since. Now 21, living in Saanich and working at a Victoria hotel, she rides a new, but retro-styled Yamaha Vino to commute, get around or just have fun.
Even heading back to Saltspring to see her family she can avoid almost every part of the highway and still make the ferry with her scooter.
“That feeling on a scooter, especially if you are riding with another person, it’s just so much fun,” Fennell said. “It’s so much more fun than being boxed up in a car.”
And on the Victoria Day long weekend, May 17, 18 and 19, she will get together with members of her scooter club, the Vapours. They will play host to an expected 300 scooter riders from all over Western Canada and the U.S. for a weekend rally.
It’s part of what dealers and enthusiasts say is a growing movement toward small-engine, two-wheeled transport. The bigger, more powerful motorcycles are a specialized market and holding steady.
But small-engine machines, like scooters, are starting to come into their own.
Jeff Simpson, vice-president of SG Power, which sells motorcycles, scooters and marine engines, said since the early-2000s scooter sales have steadily increased, from about 10 per cent to nearly 40 per cent of his unit sales.
Simpson sees it driven by a number of factors.
There’s the economy. A 50-cc engine scooter starts about $3,000 and is laughably easy on gas.
There’s driving ease. Most scooters are fully automatic, so they have no clutch or gears to change. It’s just twist the throttle and go.
And scooters, generally, are about as safe as a bicycles. A 50-cc engine won’t reach speeds much more than 60 km/h. And with almost no snow, Victoria’s climate makes them practical year round.
Simpson said he regularly makes scooter sales over the phone with parents of university students. They have called from the Prairies and even Eastern Canada. They want to buy their son or daughter some transport and want to know about the riding conditions and whether a scooter is practical.
But he said the real turning point in scooter sales for the dealership happened in 2004 when it took on Vespa as a product line.
Vespa, according to afficionados, is the classic scooter. They are still hand-built in Italy, with a steel frame and body, and no plastic. They are more expensive than the Japanese models, but are still in demand. Starting price for a Vespa is about $4,000.
“Vespas do have a prestige,” Simpson said. “The scooter culture was all new to me because I had always been into motorcycles.”
He said after the Vespas arrived, the dealership started seeing more women. Many came in with tales of Mediterranean holidays in countries such as Italy, France or Spain. And they remembered riding or seeing Vespa scooters.
“They had some sort of long-lost memory that wouldn’t go away,” Simpson said. “And there is something kind of romantic about riding a scooter.”
As far as the practicalities go, the engine size determines the licensing requirements by ICBC. Anything with an engine, 50 cc or less, and an automatic transmission, is defined as a “limited-speed motorcycle.”
The machine still needs to be registered and have a licence plate, but for the rider, the only permit required is a Class 5 (car) driver’s licence or class 7, learner’s permit. If it’s bigger than 50 cc, you have to get a Class 6, motorcycle licence.
It makes sense since some scooters are getting up to 250 cc or larger, easily capable of highway speeds and more.
Jeremy Vail, a self-proclaimed scooter enthusiast or “scooterist,” and the scooter specialist at SG Power, said his own, three-wheeled Piaggio scooter, with a 250-cc engine, will easily reach 130 km/h.
Vail also said one segment of scooter culture is all about modifying, “modding” machines to get a bit more zip out of them. ICBC, however, has requirements about reporting on modifications.
Japanese scooters, with their mass-produced, easily obtained parts are favourites with modders. That’s especially so for the skeletal-looking Honda Ruckus, with its easily accessible engine and open-tube frame.
And since all scooters are small, enthusiasts can do their tinkering in spaces as small as an apartment kitchen.
Vail, with his exotic three-wheeler, like Fennell, with the Yamaha Vino, is also a member of the Vapours and looking forward to the upcoming rally.
It’s a chance to talk about scooters, check out some custom jobs and go for group rides, he said.
“It’s the high holiday for most scooterists,” Vail said. “It’s birthday, Christmas and New Year’s all in one.”
He also said the rally is putting Victoria on the map for scooter lovers.
No other city offers the same freedom of scooter movement to such a great variety of spots: City streets, seascapes, forests, hills, farmland.
In contrast, Vancouver attempted a scooter rally last year and organizers kept the riders out of Vancouver for fear of their safety. Instead, they were limited to Richmond and Surrey.
“Wherever you go from the Empress, out to Metchosin and back, or up and down Dallas Road, Beach Drive, our roads are safe, not too many stops, they are twisty, windy and the vistas are amazing,” Vail said. “Victoria is great for scooters.”
The Vapours Scooter Club is on Facebook.