23/04/2025
Our post this week is dedicated to our scootering friends! Scooters have many advantages for road-riding, particularly in heavy traffic (commuting and weekends), cafe/lunch runs, social riding. And at the other end of the spectrum, like any bike, they can definitely do iconic roads (see photo!). Here's some key pointers:
1. Because of our scooter's smaller wheel sizes, we need to be good at anticipating problems on the road surface in plenty of time to take action, like buffering and slowing down (to better pick our line through the problem). In addition to potholes, we need to completely avoid cracks running in line with the road, tar snakes, painted lines, metal covers, grates. A useful technique is for us to look ahead 5 seconds then bring our eyes back to the front wheel to check the road surface, then push our eyes ahead 5 seconds etc
2. Quick stops: because of the smaller tyre sizes, we need to practice the technique of set-up and squeeze, so that we don't accidentally lock the brakes (most likely the front brake on our scooter). If our scooter has ABS, we need to know what ABS feels like when it cuts in so we know how to react to that. The best way to practice this is to a group coaching session ('track day') that includes braking practice sessions on one of the smaller, tighter race tracks like the carting track at Eastern Creek and Marulan in NSW. There are a lot of companies that offer this (we don't, we ride public roads)
3. (fyi some scooters aren't built to allow this) We need to sit forward with our knees against the knee-board. There's two benefits for us: the bike is more balanced front-to-rear (remember that scooters have their engine and transmission towards the rear wheel) which means they will handle better on the road; and also the scooter will be more stable because you're also 'holding' it with your knees (like riders of manual motorbikes also 'hold' their bikes with their knees-in to the fuel tank).
4. Highway scootering can be a problem on the smaller-engined scooters, because other road users coming up behind us typically can't judge the distance to us very well, and they are speeding. If our scooters can't hold the speed limit, the best option for us is to ride back roads which are more fun anyway (again, see photo!)
5. Touring backroads on scooters is great fun. But we need to think carefully about how we pack our scooters: there's luggage options that attach to the knee-boards. And there's some very effective backpacks that rest on the seat behind us so there's only a light weight on our shoulders, even when they are fully loaded.
Otherwise, everything else that is in our eBook applies when we are scootering! One last thing we'd like to emphasise (we have the same message for manual road-riders) is check your tyre pressures every time you ride: wrong pressures can cause a scooter to handle poorly.
