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London crawling

I used to live on the outskirts of London and when I left school at the tender age of 16, I commuted into the West End every day by train for work. It took me less than a year to realise public transport was crap, but fortunately I’d progressed from a Vespa 90 (via a 50) to a PX125 by then, so that became my commuter tool of choice. I continued to work in London on and off until I started at Scootering in the 1990s, but I still use a scooter as the easiest way to get across town.

You’ve probably read that in recent years Westminster Council has started charging bikes to park in its ‘motorcycle only’ bays. Westminster encompasses most of the West End of London, its southern boundary is the River Thames and it includes places like Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Carnaby Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly and Paddington. Since the charges were introduced I’ve only ridden into the borough for a quick meeting here or there and parked it at my destination where I can watch out for traffic wardens.

Now last week I was due to go into London for work and my scooter was my first choice. However, I couldn’t find any details of parking times on Westminster’s website so I enquired via email. The reply suggested I needed to pay, regardless of times (use a mobile phone to register a credit card and a bike’s number plate and then call  each day you wish to park. The £1 per day charge covers you in any parking bay in Westminster).

I responded that I didn’t have a credit card and that I wasn’t allowed to register my work’s mobile phone for payments. Okay so it was a little fib, but I wanted to know what the response would be. It was basically; sorry, but you can’t park in our ‘motorcycle only’ bays. It seems I had three choices; 1) If I could find a motorcycle space in a Westminster underground car park, I could park for free there. Those in Soho where I was heading don’t have bike spaces. 2) Buy a ‘scratch card’ type parking permit from a Westminster library, park my bike in a car space (at car rates) and stick the ticket on it somehow. 3) Don’t visit London’s West End. Of course I had to, so I took the train which, for the 70 mile round trip, cost me over £18 for the ticket plus a cab home from the station at my end.

On arrival in London I walked past a ‘motorcycle only’ parking bay and was doubly infuriated. Firstly that restrictions only apply until 6.30pm Monday to Saturday. But also that at 7pm, cars are allowed to park in Westminster’s motorcycle bays. This was evident when I left to get the train home at 10pm; a 4x4 squeezed between two scooters in Soho Square, cars parked so close to bikes in other bays you doubt they’ll get out without nudging one and creating a domino effect. Yes, I know it’s only £1 per day (at the moment), but it’s the principle that an obvious solution to congestion and underfunded public transport is made more awkward by bureaucrats.

With the VCB hosting the World Vespa Days rally in 2012, the thousands of scooterists from around the UK and the rest of Europe planning to attend should be warned that any sightseeing in London is best done on the Sunday – presuming the ‘motorcycle only’ parking bays aren’t full of cars of course.

This month & next

So here we are with the December edition of Scootering that I started writing in October and most of you will receive in lateNovember. Nevertheless, may I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Joyeux Noel, etc. etc. Indeed you will notice some seasonal influence in one or two areas of the magazine this month (starting with the cover), for which I make no apologies. A little festive cheer never hurt anyone, and for the moment at least Christmas Day is just about the only one in the whole year where the majority of the country resists the urge to go out shopping somewhere or another!

Speaking of the cover, if you’ve not yet turned to page 22 yet then do so for that’s where you’ll find the feature on 20th Century Toy – one of the most eye-catching custom Lambrettas I’ve seen in a long while. In fact all of our feature scooters this month are pretty damn stunning in one way or another... as they are most months come to think of that. You’ll also find some impressive scooters in our Bridlington show review too.

You’ll also discover a couple of auto reviews in this month’s mag and there’s a very good reason for that, which is, they both offer some of the latest technology to be found on scooters today. The semi-automatic gearbox of the Suzuki Burgman and the traction control of the Piaggio Beverly are as important as oil-injection was for the Vespas of 1967 or electronic ignition of the Lambretta GP in 1969, if not more so.

Speaking of new, the scooters of the future (both 2012 and beyond) can be found in our Milan Show review beginning on page 34. Writing this editorial before I visit the show (the report of which will be hot off the press!), I can’t say too much as I don’t know what’s there, although I’ve been told to expect an interesting prototype or concept scooter from Italy.

In the Practical section there’s an interesting look at scooter gearboxes from Sticky, part two of which will be in next month’s magazine.

There will also be our now regular free wall-planner in the January edition of Scootering, as well as the rest of the news from the Milan Show, some more high quality custom scooters (including a very neat liquid-cooled Vespa smallframe), a Blast From The (black & white) Past and loads more. Enjoy...

Ride safe,

Andy