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 :-)