THE LAST WORD

BOOT SCOOTERING!

Cindy Bennett, Member #4170

On Friday 18th November my trusty Tiger was scheduled for an early 10k service at Team Moto Triumph in Moss St Springwood prior to her departure for South America. I booked a loaner bike and had high hopes as at the previous service in July I had a Triumph T120 power machine, and they also had a BMW F900 as another loaner. I would be happy with either thank you very much! Tiger duly taken in, I was told that my loaner of the day was a scooter – what? My face must have shown my abject disappointment as service dude Grant qualified it with, but it’s a BMW 400cc scooter – you will have fun! I shelved my plans for a ride to Canungra, and instead headed from Springwood to Westfield Carindale for a coffee and a bit of light shopping, hey I may as well live the scooter life and there was an awesome storage area under the seat for any purchases! Hopping onto the scooter for the first time I was surprised at how smooth the take-off was and how much instant acceleration was available. My only previous scootering was in Bali with my friend Hera on a 100 something cc machine. Getting ready to brake at the first set of lights, it was interesting just having to use the brakes – not realising how much I use downshifting the gears to slow down! Anyway onto the M1 and then the Gateway, whoa I am suddenly at 100 + kph! How did that happen? There was a bit of wind but the scooter felt stable on the highway at speed and the only thing was the windscreen could use a bit of upward adjustment to make it a tad less buffering. The seat was a wonder in comfort and one could happily park the proverbial on it all day long! So into the bun-fight that is the Westfield carpark and having no gears to change made the slow putt about looking for a park very easy, with the size and relatively light weight of the machine allowing me to find a sneaky park close to my favoured entrance.