My scooter at La Barrillette

Thirty Seven thousand Kilometres later

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I have had the same scooter for about 37,000 kilometres and yesterday I finally decided to sell it off, after years of frequent use. I sold it off because whereas the usual service was about 270 CHF the quote for the latest service was 500 CHF. 

The scooter near Nyon, with the Alps in the background

This wouldn’t be so bad as you don’t change brakes every year. It’s bad because the scooter is old. For at least two or three years I felt that it had less power than before. It accelerated more slowly, but this might be due to me gaining a little more weight. I think it has more to do with scooter age. 

This scooter was also crashed into, while I was on it, stopped at a pedestrian crossing. I was fine but the scooter needed the back to be fixed. I rode it for another 10,000 or more kilometres. 

I asked another garage if they would buy the scooter but a scooter is considered as worthless after 25,000 kilometres. If you want to sell a scooter do it before you reach 25,000 kilometres. 

The beauty of driving a scooter, compared to a car, is that you can park anywhere. In some cases you can park meters from where you want to be. The other advantage is that you can go through traffic without waiting with the cars. 

As an experiment when driving to Geneva I did behave like a car, and for a drive where I usually use a third of a fuel tank to go to Geneva and back, I used half a fuel tank, one way. Scooters are highly inefficient if you drive them like a car. I never did that again. 

I drove over 9000 kilometres on a single set of tyres and fell three times. I thought that it was due to my scooter driving skill declining but it was due to not changing the tires after 3000km as you’re meant to. I eventually did get the tyres changed and it felt like I was riding on a monorail compared to before. If you start to fall, change the tyres. It is a great experience, so it’s nice to feel the difference, but I advise you to change tyres every three thousand kilometres. 

Driving a scooter, compared to driving a car, is a lot of fun, because you lean into turns, you overtake, you feel the wind, you feel the weather, and you feel a certain amount of freedom that you don’t get with a car. If I replace the scooter I want to replace it either with an e-bike or with an electric scooter. The advantage of both is that their carbon footprint is low. The advantage of a bike over a scooter is range. A bike has an extended range, compared to a scooter, especially when used by a cyclist. My bike rides to Geneva are 50km and the range of a scooter is 37km. 

And Finally

If the scooter service had not been double the usual price I would have paid for it to be maintained and used it for another two years, but at twice the normal cost of a service I’d rather not fall into the cycle of normalised 500 CHF services. This isn’t a classic Vespa, this is a conventional scooter that is 17+ years old with 37,000 kilometres. It has served a long time, on borrowed time, since after the crash it could have been considered dead. It’s the second time that I have used a vehicle until it is “end of European life”. Last year I end of life a Mercedes A class, and this year it’s the scooter. 

The scooter will now head to Africa for a second life there.