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Scooter / Moped for commute
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r8jimbob88Free Member
Evenings folks,
Following on from my last post about the cheapest PCP car deals….
We’re moving house soon and the wife is going from walking to work at the moment to a 12 mile each way commute. We’ve budgeted to get her a season train ticket which is about £1,800. She would walk to and from the station at each end.
We’re just weighing up some alternatives and she’d consider getting a cheap Scooter if the price is right. Neither of us have any kind of 2 wheeled background (apart from mountain bikes, obviously!).
Commute is mostly quiet roads, mostly 30 zones but with a short 50mph zone. Downhill all the way to work and uphill all the way home.
So any advice and tips of what to look for? Any recommendations or what to avoid? Budget of around £1,500 and I’m guessing a 125cc would be most sensible. Second hand is fine. Would be kept garaged.
Cheers
sc-xcFull MemberI took the plunge…and got a Scomadi TL 125
CBT 5 weeks ago, just clocked up my 400th mile. Don’t know why I didn’t do it years ago…
if I could figure out how to post pics from a phone I could show you how cool it looks…think big Lambretta (which I will graduate to when I pass my full test)
my my commute is 8 miles each way, halved my journey time.
r8jimbob88Free MemberJust had to google that. Whoa, that’s pretty damn cool looking. Definitely the look I’d want.
So, how fast are these 125cc’s? We’ll be living in the Peak District so lots and lots of hills too. Would they cope alright?
Latest Singletrack VideosFresh Goods Friday 697 - The Sprunnng! Edition
Fresh Goods Friday 697 - The Sprunn...sc-xcFull MemberComfortably cruises at 45, hasn’t got the bells and whistles of the more modern looking scooters…but I wanted to at least pretend I was a mod!
kiloFull MemberI’ve gone from a motorbike to a 250 scooter for my commute when I’m not cycling, really like it but I’m used to motorbikes. Budget 3-400 for decent kit most things by Honda will be pretty good, see if you can get an sh in your price range. An old c90 will be bullet proof and worth a look but may be a bit slow in e 50 limit. Both the sh and c90 will have bigger wheels than a fake Lambrettaa – make the road come alive, etc. Anything looking like a lambreta will have a slight hipster tax
winstonFree MemberCommuting by scooter in the winter can be pretty hardcore – I did it on a CBF125 whilst racking up my 2 yr probation for a full ticket (you can’t do this anymore) in freezing rain, snow and ice, though it was a longer commute (30 miles each way) and it was a bit epic with a couple of falls
You will need to budget for good waterproof kit and probably more than a few daily train tickets (a luxury i didn’t have)
On the plus side its great fun and you really get to ‘learn to drive’ but on a January morning when its -2 outside and dark its something you really have to want to do.
I loved it
tjagainFull MemberMy advice forget the scooter for t’missus. In winter its a miserable experience even with good kit – and good kit could easily cost a grand and will be at least £500 add in a good few hundred for training and it soon racks up and do get proper training please if you go down this route.
breatheeasyFree MemberYeah, I had the same thoughts – looking for something simple/easy for when I couldn’t be bothered to get the bike out (or the weather was too crap) but then realised a scooter was just as dangerous on the icy days that I didn’t want to cycle on!
Still tempted, but mainly as I’ve got 10 years still to wait for a proper car park pass!!!
lottoFree MemberI considered a moped, reasoned it was cost prohibitive. Now considering an ebike. Struggling to see a down side, employer is happy to allow bike to charge on their premises so takes away range anxiety issues.
woffleFree MemberMy advice forget the scooter for t’missus. In winter its a miserable experience even with good kit – and good kit could easily cost a grand and will be at least £500 add in a good few hundred for training and it soon racks up and do get proper training please if you go down this route.
This.
I know of two people who started commuting by motorbike or scooter last year and both stopped about two weeks into last winter when the weather turned. One because he came off and broke his leg, the other one because it was so utterly miserable despite shelling out £££ on all-weather gear.
There is one chap now who use a scooter to commute to our train station. He absolutely terrifies me – in his mid to late 30s and just started using his scooter this summer just gone – it’s only a matter of time before he kills himself or someone else. Zero sense of himself or the bike – wobbling all over the place, driving like a madman at 30pm out of the station, pottering up the hill at 15mph as he weaves from curb to centre line in a 60mph zone.
So – decent kit and training +1
I’ve now got between a 2 mile or 5 mile walk/run to the closest station. I did consider one of these for the winter when I CBA:
My ride is on very quiet country roads in the main part. It’s slow so I’m less likely to kill myself and most importantly it’d provide some shelter and road presence.
My wife has said that unless I can guarantee it’s not going to make an unholy noise on starting up, it’s not going to happen 🙂 Waking the household and the neighbours up at 5:30am with something that sounds like a bee in a biscuit tin is a no-no apparently…
kayak23Full MemberStability-wise and likely a little more grip on winter roads you have a few options for 3-wheelers.
Man they’re fugly but maybe an option. I see one round my way now and again. Still freaks me out seeing it corner…
RustyNissanPrairieFull MemberI did 18 months of Rossendale to Rochdale scooter commuting some years ago on a tuned Piaggio 80cc thing.
<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>Traffic was a nightmare and we were skint so made sense at the time.</span>
Binned it a few times on ice, gently slid into the side of a taxi that pulled out on me and then it was finally killed by a guy not stopping behind me and squashing the scooter into the back of the van in front whilst I rolled underneath it.
Was an absolute laugh though when not being killed on it!
finephillyFree MemberAnything Honda is good CBR/CBF if you want gears or the 100cc scooter (i forget the model). I don’t have a motorbike in the UK though as its wet n cold and a car is the same price! Ebike would be worth investigation if she’s up for it.
cbikeFree MemberTJ is right. I discovered that scooters cost more to run than a transit van.
12 miles is electric bike territory and weirdly in winter more comfy than a scooter.
kiloFull Member– and good kit could easily cost a grand and will be at least £500
Oxford Montreal jacket and trousers start at just under two hundred, an fifty quid Frank Thomas helmet will be fine on a scooter as will dewalt work boots, that leaves about two hundred quid for a pair of gloves then if the budget is £500 😉
retrorickFull MemberI like my scooter commute. 12 miles each way. Way cheaper than the car. When is raining I wear a big agu cycling cape over my motorbike gear which keeps me dry. Wish I’d done it years ago rather than using the car.
TheFlyingOxFull MemberBudget 3-400 for decent kit
Probably about right. I’m commuting 30 miles each way at the moment, kit is important. Doesn’t have to be super expensive to be good though. I’ve got a Weisse textile jacket, Weisse gloves, Oxford textile trousers and a set of Oxford waterproof overs. About £200 for the lot if you’re lucky on Amazon/eBay. I used camelcamelcamel to get my gloves for £14 – they’re £70 RRP, jacket was last of line and £99, down from £299, trousers about £50. They’re very warm and importantly very waterproof. Even in the torrential rain we had last week I got home after 45 minutes of some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever been in and I was totally dry.
Helmet is another expense but again doesn’t have to be fortune. I’m in a Nolan that got rave reviews in the bike mags. £99 again due to being last one in the shop, should have been about £170 I think.
mogrimFull MemberDon’t forget on a scooter you can get a skirt/blanket thing to cover all your lower body, makes a huge difference to the temperature and means you can just wear normal trousers (or in your wife’s case, a skirt). Get some muffs and it shouldn’t be that grim. You’ll still need a decent jacket of course.
Obviously if you’re wearing normal trousers you’ll be less protected in the event of coming off, but then the skirt does actually provide a fair amount of protection.
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