Any Moped owners here?

[BiggJawn]

With gas threatening to hit $3 a gallon by summertime, I'm looking into alternatives.

My experience with Mopeds is that they're toys that indulgent rednecks buy for their kids, or used by said rednecks when they get their DUI, are cheap little dangerous POS's that fall apart in 4 months, drop parts like I drop hair, can't be repaired and do NOT get 100 MPG like they claim.

Is that about right?

Also, anyone here using a bike w/a booster engine? what's the milage? How's the tyre wear?

I'd forgo the motor and just pedal, but I have no shower at work and I don't think they'd go for me smelling like baby wipes.

[Susang]

1. I ride a scooter

A 2002 Honda Metropolitan. It has a 4 stroke engine, so it's environmentally friendly and it gets 100 mpg. I wouldn't drive anything other than a scooter now that I've owned one for two years. I adore mine!
Here's a picture of one:


on edit:oh yeah, you only need a driver's license for scooters with a 50cc or less engine in most states! :-)

[BiggJawn]

3. Nice! Could you ride it on a 40-mile round-trip commute?

I have a driver's license, and could get a MC endorsement (I rode BIG bikes until 8 years ago) so that's no problemo.
I live about 16 miles from work.

[Young Socialist]

2. I used to ride one before I could

afford car insurance. its a great way to get around and the can get a lot more than 100mpg. I used to fill the tank on mine so infrequently that I never monitored it.

[1monster]

4. I owned one in the late seventies and early eighties which I used for

transportation to and from work... a forty-mile round trip, five days a week.

That was when traffic was light.

It was damned scary then. Now it would be suicide.

I stopped riding all two-wheeled vehicles (including bicycles) for about ten years after someone hit me from behind one evening and fled the scene.

The bike went one way, and I went the other. By some miracle, I escaped with only cuts, abrasions, bruises, a very sore head, broken glasses, and about half my hair fell out the next day (thank God I had lots and lots of hair!).

People in cars, trucks, and big rigs, had no respect at all for the little moped hugging the shoulder on the road. I had people pass me so closely that I could have reached in through the passenger side window and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

A big rig passed me one morning running me off the side of the road, drove on for about a half a mile, and then pulled over. When I got close, he jumped out of his cab on to the road right in front of me. An executive from the offices where I worked happened along right about then... another Thank God.

I had lots of hair-raising experiences.

After about ten years, I finally got back on a bicycle, but stick only to my residential neighborhood. No more mopeds and no more highways on two wheelers for me. Not even my husband's Harley.

edit: for clairty