Tiny motor club

My downstairs neighbour Sam just bought herself a new scooter, a very nice little Lambretta V-Special 200. I have no idea what the '200' in the name signifies as it's 169 cc. So today we took our tiny bikes out for a ride and to practice some skills, me on my 125 cc Grom.

I got my motorcycle license at the end of 2024 after an unnecessarily protracted period on L-plates. I'm happy to put that behind me now and look forward.

We headed out to a slightly undulating carpark at the back of Flemington Racecourse to practice some low speed skills. Riding smoothly in first gear while doing tight figure-eights on a hilly surface is a good challenge. Sam practiced some emergency stops and I did some hill starts (the trick is to give it some herbs).

We had a little go on each others' ride. The Lambretta feels wide and the seat is quite a bit higher than the Grom, but it's not noticeable once moving. Riding it is like cutting through butter with a warm knife, except that a scooter does not resemble a warm knife and carparks are quite dissimilar to butter.

A loop home through Ascot Vale and Maribyrnong had some fun bits, especially the uphill curve of Van Ness Drive. At one point I had a flashback to the learner's course when a Volvo caught in a right-turning queue went to pull out in front of me as I came past in the left lane. My lane positioning was pretty good (if I do say so) and I saw it happening and eased off the throttle. They saw me and stopped before following through with their manoeuvre.

This was my first fun ride with someone else and fun it was! We'll go out together again soon.