I am scootergirl, hear me roar!

OK, I promise this hasn't turned into a scooter blog...much. Just let me get it out of my system over the next week or so and we'll move on to more important issues - like THIS.

But I have to do just a leetle rant about last night's excursion, another of those 'holy shit, that was FUN!' experiences that the scooter seems to bring on an almost daily basis.

You see, not content with being tertiary educated nerds on little scooters, Tezza and I decided to join up with other nerds, and whizz around the city in a pack - 14 of us, blatting around Melbourne town and looking seriously silly!

What's more, Tezza and I, complete with L plates hanging off the back, were by far the nerdiest of the nerds - UBER nerds if you will. Not only are we on our 'Ls', but we're also the only ones with 50cc bikes - the rest having 90cc and up. There was only one bit (110kph freeway section) that we wussed out on (and, for the record, it was Tezza doing the wussing - although I have to admit that the plan, which involved 4 people riding abreast behind us to ensure we didn't get mown down didn't sound all that appetising...) and for the rest of the time we more than held our own.

Funny how the sight of 14 scooters riding in convoy makes people stop, stare and then piss themselves laughing. Can't possibly think what might be humorous about that scene. At least it means people see you, and the constant horn honking from cars around us left no doubt that the Melbourne Scooter Club (we even paid our $2 each and bought the official stickers!) were on the loose.

I feel the need for a Tim Allan-type grunt right now but a scootergirl type snigger might be more appropriate - let's not get TOO carried away in the moment ;-)

Not all that goes brooooooooom is made of speed.

I resent the automatic implication that scooter rider = speed freak.

Tezza and I have discussed this many a time and I am proud to stand on my soap box and say that I do not like going fast on my scooter. There, I've said it.

Sure, I like zipping around - but zipping is very different to belting down a freeway at a zillion miles an hour - 60kph is the upper limit of my 'feeling more or less ok about being a moving projectile with very little protection' threshold.

So to all the Goonanism and Flash hoons who are raving about bike racing (yawn, boring!) let it be known that speed is not everything.

Hence the fact that I felt only mildly inferior last night when I found myself burning off a guy on the street near my home.

Why inferior you may ask? Well he won of course, but the fact that he was on a bicycle made it sting just that little bit more.

And on a slower note...

Ok, so cycling is not quite scooting... but I can at least manage 15kph on an uncomfortable seat in the rain. ;-)

Was sent the following. Laughed my tiny ass off. Thought maybe the world wanted to know.

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Cyclists are the biggest sandbaggers and secret trainers around. They'll say anything to soften you up for the kill. Don't let this happen to you. Study this handy rider's phrasebook to find out what they really mean when they say:

"I'm out of shape"
Translation: I ride 400 miles a week and haven't missed a day since the Ford administration. I replace my 11-tooth cog more often than you wash your shorts. My body fat percentage is lower than your mortgage rate.

"I'm not into competition. I'm just riding to stay in shape"
Translation: I will attack until you collapse in the gutter, babbling and whimpering. I will win the line sprint if I have to force you into oncoming traffic. I will crest this hill first if I have to grab your seat post, and spray energy drink in your eyes.

"I'm on my beater bike"
Translation: I had this baby custom-made in Tuscany using titanium blessed by the Pope. I took it to a wind tunnel and it disappeared. It weighs less than a fart and costs more than a divorce.

"It's not that hilly"
Translation: This climb lasts longer than a presidential campaign. Be careful on the steep sections or you'll fall over -- backward. You have a 39x23 low gear? Here's the name of my knee surgeon.

"This is a no-drop ride"
Translation: I'll need an article of your clothing for the search-n-rescue dogs.

"It's not that far"
Translation: Bring your passport

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Love and Hugs
GBFSB

Trucks + rain + scooters = bad and soggy.

In my unfettered enthusiasm to scoot everywhere I go I decided to learn how to scoot in the rain on possibly the most pizzling soggy wet godforsaken day in the history of the universe (slight overstatement but you get the gist).

Having splurged out on scooters last week Tezza and I had decided to be sensible and wait until we got paid before getting some extra bits and pieces for our scoots. Unfortunately one of these 'optional extras' that we were scheduled to buy today was waterproof pants...

Scene 2:

9am Thursday morning, Scootergirl enters postgrad room, dripping happily. Squelches over to Tezza's desk and grins like idiot.

Tezza, having arrived a little earlier (after abandoning his bike somewhere completely inconvenient on the other side of university because he was too wet to scoot any more apparently) is equally wet and quite concerned about his students hassling him for having a visibly damp crotch.

Scootergirl takes shoes, socks, raingear etc off and sits in front of heater in pathetic attempt to dry off, politely suggesting that they go and buy raingear that afternoon before the scoot home. She also warns Tezza that if he ever has occasion to be scooting next to a truck in the pouring rain that keeping the feck away from it is not a bad idea, unless he really wants to be covered in more water than he thought existed in the world.

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I love scooting!

Karma at work

Went to an Avril Lavigne concert tonight (long story involving a mate and a free ticket and a spare evening and a need to feel very very old and to hanker after a cup of milo, a jazz album and an early night).

Anyway.

Went with mate, drove in her car to Rod Laver arena, paid twilight robbery price of $9 to park car in secure parking and went to concert. 1 hour and 15 minutes of concert later (the last 20 minutes of which Avril had completely screwed her voice over in - funny how the 'everybody!' bits increased exponentially during this time and at exactly the tricky parts of the songs) and we're walking back to the car. A bumper sticker catches my eye - i'm sure everyone else has seen it but it was the first time for me and I liked it - entertaining on so many levels:

"Your karma ran over my dogma".

Anyway.

Carry on back to the car and my mate stops at the drivers door and says 'oh fuck'. Sure enough her window is wound down and the door is unlocked. Weird thing is, her drumkit (acoustic), drumkit (electronic), industrial grade minidisc recorder, mobile phone, stereo etc are all still there - and there is no damage whatsoever to her car. We can only assume someone disturbed them and they buggered off before nicking anything .... but just maybe they read the same bumper sticker as me on the way there.....

Brrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooooom!!!! (putt putt putt)

The name of this blog could very well take on a new meaning.

I have just this week purchased a sexy little 50cc scooter and am happily flailing around learning how to avoid trucks, cars, buses, people, other bikes and, yes, trams. Please wish me luck (and lots of it) to ensure that I (or my next of kin) don't end up blogging about literal tram spotting (or scraping spots of alice off the side of a tram).

I have long hankered after a scooter with which to zip around on - I fully expect it to be a short-lived phase i'm going through but i thought, what the hell, you only live once (possibly for a shorter time with the assistance of a motorbike but who's splitting hairs?).

My mate Tezza and I embarked on our scooter odyssey together. Not content with having matching laptops (he was first) and schoolbags (I was the trend setter on that one), we now have identical black Bolwell Jolie scooters, matching jackets and - thank god - different coloured helmets. We are trying to come up with names for our new scooter gang - 'geeks on bikes' sums it up but it's not catchy enough. Does anyone have any suggestions?

So I called my mum and told her I had bought a scooter - her first response was 'darling, did i tell you about my cousin who has been in a coma for the last 15 years because someone opened a car door on her while she was on a scooter?'

Me: "Ummmmm, no, I don't think so, but thanks for that'.

After wobbling around my neighbourhood for a day or so, I took a deep breath and scooted to uni yesterday, a distance of about 4kms as the crow flies. There was minimal trafiic and I took the quietest roads I could think of but I still shat myself whenever I had a car 'coming from behind', so to speak. But my god, what a buzz it was! Got to uni in one piece, grinning like an idiot and buzzing all over the place. The fact that I had hardcore helmet head was a small price to pay. Also got a real buzz out of pulling up at the lights and having another biker (on a real bike) doing the 'eyebrow raise' acknowledgement that I have craved for so long. Now I am truly cool!

Got to uni and was joined a few hours later by Tezza, also grinning like an idiot. He had ended up at uni having 'taken a wrong turn' while testing out his baby, which he got today.

We were standing around our new office (the excitingly named 'postgrad research precinct' - unfortunately its exciting name doesn't really make up for the fact that I have been ejected from my cosy private office into open plan hell) and one of the nicer admin ladies comes in to chat to us - she sees Tezza's helmet and starts happily telling us about the injuries she sustained (splintered femur, 5 months in hospital, bone grafts, walking stick yadda yadda yadda) after being driven into by a car when she was going at 30km. Off the bike, through the windscreen and into another car.....

At this point Tezza and I were considering taking a bus home to our respective houses. She finished her little anecdote by saying that if you ride a bike you just have to accept that you will be injured at some stage.

This story was also pretty consistent with the advice of the dealer who sold me my bike, who said, 'just remember, everyone is out to kill you'.

Thanks for the tip - trying hard to keep my nieve enthusiasm going - maybe it's time for another ride :-)

Look out Siagon Here we come

Time to check the Tortoise and the Hare blog again

http://www.uberflash.blogspot.com