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Cuts post haste

I’m not going to mention the ‘w’ word but so far it’s been kind to us, which means getting out and dirty with scooters hasn’t been as cold as it sometimes is.

So far I’ve reassembled my Li, sent my GP up to the Midlands with young Sticky to use for a technical article (finally with a working rear brake, see page 88) and discovered that the steering bearing race on my Rally appears to require replacing!

By the way, if you’ve got any projects lurking that will need registration you’d be advised to press on with them ASAP. That’s because the Government’s latest money-saving scheme is to close 39 local DVLA offices around the UK, the plan being to centralise everything and persuade people to do more by computer (or the few remaining Post Offices). While this is still only a proposal at the moment, when the DVLA press office did eventually reply to me they couldn’t tell me how this would affect examinations of classic vehicles. They do welcome our comments though, so I’d get writing if I were you…

On the positive side it looks like annual SORN renewals are to be scrapped, so do it once and that’s it until you tax the bike again. On the negative, the Department for Transport is proposing to exempt vehicles of historic interest (vehicles manufactured prior to January 1, 1960) from statutory MoT test. Now while this may save us £30 or so a year, such a proposal comes with a potential dark side – and it has nothing to do with automatic scooters. After all, a good MoT inspector should spot a balding tyre, worn bearings, fading brakes and a mulitude of other potentially dangerous aspects, let alone stop death trap imports from even getting on the roads. I personally don’t think it’s a good idea.

Anyway, fitting in nicely with Dave’s Nostalgic Custom Corner this month (page 44), those who spend their time on the t’interweb will no doubt have heard that the well-known 1980s custom scooters Wake and Dazzle have surfaced and been sold. The buyers have been in touch and promised to keep us informed as to their progress.

If any other readers  have an old custom scooter that they plan to revamp feel free to drop us line with details and pictures. And while we’re at it, there’s the battle of the accessories on pages 30 and 70 from the 80s to the 60s – which one does it for you?

Finally, legendary scooter rally patch man Paddy Smith set off for a scooter tour in Europe with his sons to celebrate his 60th birthday at the end of 2011, which you can read about from page 136. Hopefully it’ll encourage others to write to us with your tales of touring both home and abroad. We know plenty of you do it, so why not share it with us all and encourage others to do likewise, whether specific holiday or an extension of a rally weekend? If you’ve never done that kind of thing before, take it from those of us that have; there’s no better way to see the world than from the saddle of a scooter.

And don’t forget to take some holiday snaps of your scooter (with or without yourself) for our Wish You Were Here pages.

Cleaning up at the polls?

As a southerner, and indeed a Londoner, I can guarantee you I’m not a northerner with an anti-London stance. I say this as I’ve commented on Transport for London’s proposals before, as well as Westminster Council’s parking policy, but I do so because it is often the case that if wild ideas work in the capital there then smaller, local town councils often following suit, citing the nation’s major city as an example of how to do things.

And so to the latest policy of Boris and co to clean up London, which is to ‘persuade’ drivers to switch off their engines when at a standstill in London. While this of course makes perfect sense when parked or loading (with the price of petrol as it is, I’m always amazed by people sitting in their cars with the engines running for ages on end!), and even in heavy traffic, the thing that worries me slightly is what their next step will be?

This is all part of a package of measures to improve air quality in London, cut harmful pollution and clean up the city ahead of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (for which the politicians want to look good of course), and it follows on to the recent update of the Low Emission Zone regulations which now ban vans and campers registered prior to 2002 (both privately and commercially owned) from entering London without paying a £100 per day fee.

Of course none of us want to breathe in pollution, and as an asthma sufferer who commuted regularly into London on a scooter, and dispatched there for a while, I’ll be one of the first to agree how dirty it is. Wearing a white scarf on the scoot was really not a great idea!

However, while the campaign is initially aimed at all drivers including cars, buses, coaches and taxis, how long before it’s extended to bikes? And then how long will it be before the LEZ applies to older cars, bikes and scooters too? After all, a politician is only noticed when they are doing something. Ban the lorries one day, the vans and campers the next day, then get car drivers to turn their engines off? Now what can they do after that to keep their name in the papers and the public eye?

By the way, we do have northerners writing for Scootering; Barrie up in the North East and Richie in the North West. And neither of them dislike us southerners as far as I know either. In fact Richie’s bought me a drink or two before... although it was a shandy!

Andy