The Red Devil

It all started sometime in April of 1971. I was just a little military brat living in Puerto Rico with my family. My dad had purchased a shabby Cushman motorscooter from one of the locals. He fixed it up and used it for transportation to and from the base. That's when I first got bitten by the "bug". I developed an interest in all motorscooters . For years I'd wanted to get one but my parents would always say, "No, you'll get killed!". My dad didn't have his Cushman very long since he had trouble keeping steady on the numerous gravel roads on the island. I think the clincher was that a friend of my dad got killed on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle in Puerto Rico. His name was Red and I believe he was riding around drunk. He ran into a ditch and didn't see the barbed wire strung across. My dad said he was beheaded. Well that put a damper on my plans to get a scooter. As I got older I longed to get an Italian brand such as a Vespa or Lambretta. As it turned out my first actual bike was a Honda XR-75, a dirt bike. My parents brought it home as a surprise. I had a blast on that bike and was good training. I still wanted a scooter and in the summer of 1986 I got a Honda Elite 150. That was also a lot of fun but still not a classic scooter.

After moving from Southern California to Nebraska in 1988 I gave up hope in finding an Italian scooter. Then, one summer day in 1993 I set out to the local Honda shop to find some cheap 2-wheeled transportation. I was hoping to find piece of "tupperware", another Elite. As I gazed around at all of the bikes I noticed something familiar in the furthest corner of the shop. At closer inspection I knew it was a Vespa, a 1980 P200e. It was in top shape with only a little over 500 miles on it. I finally found my first real scooter! For my birthday I treated myself and picked it up a few weeks later. The shifting mechanism was quite foreign to me compared to my old XR-75. Instead of the familiar left foot shifter the whole left grip twisted while clutching to move into it's four gears. It was also my first 2-stroke (well, I don't count the moped I had briefly!). Two-stroke motors have a lot of torque. When you translate that into high revs and letting the clutch go too fast you can get a wheelie! You can still see the deep grooves carved into my rear rack from the wheelie that came from my very first ride. I don't know how I kept that thing from coming down on it's side but I recovered and soon learned how to shift properly.

Years have gone by with my "P" and it's still a joy to ride. My wife has her own silver 1979 P200e and we acquired a nice little 1980 Bajaj in 1998 (We have since sold it). Hopefully, our stable of scooters will continue to grow. The Internet has brought a lot of us scooterists together. My wife and I have been able to start the King Beez Scooter Club with others, that may not have been happened without the aid of this great system of communication. I know we will continue to grow as a club but most importantly we've met some really great people and that's been the best part of it all.