Where are all the young people in the scooter community of riders today? Scooters are for the young and the young at heart. They are relatively inexpensive to purchase and maintain. While there are expensive scooters, there are many reliable affordable options. Scooters were ideal transportation when we were young and they still are today. So why don't we see more young people in our club or on the road?
Speaking from personal experience, I had a 7 mile commute to my summer job waiting tables at the country club. I didn't have a car when I started and depended on someone to pick me up and drop me off. (I had bicycled the route several times, but arriving at work all red-faced and sweaty while donning a tuxedo shirt did not provide good tableside presentation.) A scooter or even a moped would have been ideal transportation. My mum was against it. (She was denied her preferred VW Beetle in favor of the late model "Yellow Submarine" Buick that her brothers purchased for her.) I am the eldest among my siblings and had to set the bar for my younger siblings. My family was not wealthy and my father worked hard. I was led to believe he didn't have spare cash to buy another car, nor did I have an older sibling to lean on. (The family financial situation miraculously changed when my sisters wanted a car ;-/ ). It was up to me to get myself mobile. Having been summarily denied two-wheel transport, even though my father had been a Vespa rider in his youth. I set about spending more money on resurrecting a car from the junkyard to be roadworthy than would have been spent on a new moped or small Japanese scooter. I did learn to weld, wrench, and restore through this process. Nobody made me do it. I WANTED to be free to travel, to make money, save for the future, and to spend my earnings as I pleased. When you live outside of town, transportation is a requirement for these things.
So I postulate that it is not the parents denying their kids the freedom of motorized transport. Parents do perhaps implant a notion in their children that motorbikes are "unsafe". That stereotype is hard to break. Growing up my friend from next door and I built all kinds of motorized contraptions from parts we could beg. So parental denial didn't really work for me in the end. If you want to ride badly enough, a youngster will find a way. None of these contraptions were road legal, but it got us the taste of what it would be like to ride a dirt bike. My father just smiled at these attempts, but could not by marital oath go against my mother's wishes. (For goodness sake my old man is now doing the same thing we were doing. He's now the crazy one flying airplanes and strapping engines onto bicycles at 80 years young trying to regain his lost youth.)
My first day at my first professional job I was introduced around the office. Stephen was my cubicle neighbor and once pleasantries were over he quickly asked me, "Do you ride?" I wanted to ride, but hadn't been nurtured to do so. Stephen said something to the affect of, "We'll soon fix that. We have a lot of riders in the office." We spent the rest of the winter finding a >500cc suitable motorcycle, and by April the engine was rebuilt and I was a happy young man. It wasn't a scooter like I initially dreamed, but it had two wheels and it was MINE to ride with my friends. Mum couldn't deter me any longer. With my new mentor's coaching, I became an alert and competent rider. The camaraderie of biking with those friends has lasted to this day. Stephen doesn't ride as much as he should these days, but he is still the youngest at heart of anyone that I know and hold dear.
Not a year after I bought my first motorcycle, I bought a bigger one! Included is a photo of Stephen and I together at the Americade Touring Rally. You can see the stupid smile on my face. I was living the dream! There was nothing to stop me, a young professional man in his twenties with an engineer's salary could buy pretty much whatever he wanted. So what keeps a young person from wanting to motorcycle or scooter? Where are they? They do not seem to emerge from high school drooling over two wheels these days. As a young professional, they have the money to buy a car and an inexpensive scooter. Why do they not? Have they not been properly introduced to what a joy riding can be?
Today's aspirations have changed. As a young person if you want to interact with a friend, or the rest of the world for that matter, it can be done online. Stuck in front of a mobile device or computer, kids don't have to leave their homes to escape and do things with other kids. There's no desire to get out for an adventure and roam around. Video games provide interaction with friends. Video chat and texting provide lackluster interaction with other people. Food is delivered, friends don't look one another in the eye when talking. There's no hanging out at the community storefront or going down to the café for a snack anymore. Seriously, I don't know how young people even manage to date anymore? If you can't get alone with your date what's the point?
The recent Disney movie Luca as brought the Vespa brand name and image to the youth of the world. The classic outline of the Vespa is now instantly recognizable to children thanks to this movie. The protagonists of the movie dream of escape and adventure on a Vespa, and spend most of the moving scheming to get the scooter of their dreams. I won't tell you how it ends, but the impression left on young viewers is obvious. I can ride my bright red Vespa past a group of kids, raise my helmet and shout "Silenzio Bruno", which causes the children to erupt in the same response with fists raised and cheering. Likewise a more obvious attempt at gathering young riders is the anime series Super Cub. How could Honda not have sponsored the production of the beautiful animation! The series follows a lonely and awkward high school girl's life be transformed. Koguma, the main character, makes friends and becomes a confident young woman because of her new found abilities. The camaraderie she discovers is one that every scooterist finds once they start riding with friends. This is the kind of media influence that the scooter industry needs to get young riders dreaming of two wheels. Umpteen years from now, will we see a spike in sales as these young impressionable minds come to driving age?
There are a few gearhead youngsters around. I applaud them. Cheap powerful cars are available and scooters are laughable to them. I'll show up at the coffee shop with a full parking lot, and still find a place to park my scoot. The young boys probably scoff at me under their breath while driving their +200 hp rice burners. As long as they are enjoying themselves, I don't mind what they are doing. The point is that they didn't choose a scooter or a motorcycle. At present we're more wealthy today in middle-class America and a comfortable all-weather car is in their financial grasp (or their parents). Parents will actually go out and buy their kid a car. I was appalled when I learned this was common practice. These young kids didn't earn the car, they don't respect it. I'll see them later on in the year, and learn that the car given to them was totaled. It is a different world today, but I try to do my part. My nieces are city-dwellers. They would do very well on scooters. I can always encourage and inspire them by allowing them to sit in the saddle even if their parents won't let them go for a joy ride with me.
I think we do very well as a group of middle-aged greying folks along with our retired friends choosing transport. The kids look at us and how are they not inspired! We're having the time of our lives and is it that they just don't understand why we're so happy? Is it because they've been denied by their parents, they've been given a more comfortable alternative, and they don't view the freedom of the open road and adventure the same as we do?
I'd like to see more young people in the scooter scene. We've got children of well established scooterists involved, but not many others. There are both older lifelong scooterists and new enthusiasts that have discovered the joy at middle-age. People aren't getting married at a very young age these days from what I've seen. I can't see that it is the care of young children that holds back the 20 to 30 year olds from scooting other than lack of desire. They haven't been tempted. They haven't been nurtured to desire the clean and fun transportation that a scooter provides.
How are the young people reached? The demand for good scooter manufacturing is driven by the market. It wasn't long ago in India that a young suitor would insist on a scooter to be included with the dowry. In a densely populated environment scooters are much more common. We see new scooters as a joyful toy packed with technology today, but is that really bringing in new riders? I'm not sure it does. Will the promise of economical, environmentally friendly transport attract new riders? I'm not sure that will do it either, in America at least. We'll just have to keep doing what we normally do as a club. Scooters are a parade wherever we go, no matter how many of us there are. We wave, beep, and smile just to let everyone know that we are having the time of our lives!
