The World's No.1 Scootering magazine

New look? Much appreciated!

Following last month’s revamp of the magazine we’ve received some great feedback and comments from many of you, via email, letter, telephone and in person at the Isle of Wight. Thank you very much one and all for both your positive comments and constructive criticism too. I’m fully aware that there are a few creases to iron out over the next few issues, but hopefully we’ll get them sorted and will continue rolling onwards and upwards at full throttle.

The Your Shout section of the rally reviews appears popular – so thanks to everyone who’s talked to us so far – as does the extra space given to feature scooters, as well as the new Understanding... feature. Apart from anything else, I’ve had two ladies tell me so far that they never usually read technical articles in the magazine, but they read that one and enjoyed it!

We’ve had some great suggestions for future articles from a number of you too, for which we’re very grateful. Please keep the suggestions coming as after all (warning – cheesy cliché ahead!), it’s your magazine so please do tell us what you’d like to see in it. We can’t make any promises, but we’ll do our best. As for the couple of negative comments, and I do mean a couple, they are very similar in that both readers mentioned it was difficult to find their favourite articles in the magazine. Sorry about that chaps, but hopefully it will all fall into place soon and in next to no time you’ll know where to find everything you want once again.

Stickers

We all like a freebie every now and again, don’t we, so it wasn’t surprising that the sheet of stickers on last month’s front cover went down well too! I saw some already in place on scooters by the Isle of Wight, and for those that are going places with their scooters and Scootering stickers, remember to take a photo and send it in to us for our new Wish You Were Here page. We’d love to see all the weird and wonderful and exotic places you visit.

Speaking of freebies, by now you should hopefully have found your free double-sided A2 poster inside this current issue of Scootering. We trawled the archive to find the glass plates from the 1950s for the Classic side of the poster and came up with a gem from London past. Meanwhile, the other side features a brand new custom Lambretta, Pulp Fiction, which made its debut at the Isle of Wight Rally.

Turn to page 14 and you’ll find the chance to win a whole load of Tucano Urbano clothing for yourself, while elsewhere in the mag you’ll find extensive coverage of the Isle of Wight rally, the second part of Understanding your Clutch article on Vespa large frame clutches, a pair of beautiful accessorised Lambrettas, a radical Vespa chop and plenty more to keep you entertained. Enjoy...

Isle of Wight

Sticky makes an interesting point in his review of the Isle of Wight rally about how readily people put it down for one reason or another. He put me on to an internet forum thread too where people were debating the rally and a comment was made, quite rightly, asking why some feel they have to make an excuse as to why they did or didn’t attend. How many other events do people feel the need to justify their attendance at?

I was talking to a friend while on the island and we both agreed that there was something for everyone with an interest in scooters there. It’s like a regular rally but bigger; more chops, more mod scoots, more street racers, more standard PX Vespas, more autos, more Maicomobils (okay, so there was only one Maicomobil, but that’s one more than I’ve seen at any other rally this year)... you get the gist. And the beauty of it being an island is that you can be part of it for as much or as little as you like. You can be on the campsite near Ryde and be in the middle of it, or find a little B&B on the other side of the island with your friends and only turn up for the rideout on Sunday. Or just spend the weekend chilling out on the green watching the spectrum of scootering ride past you at some stage or another, and that’s a spectacle you’ll rarely see anywhere else in the world.

£1000 challenge article and the law

If you’ve not seen it yet, part two of our £1000 challenge article can be found on page 30 and yes, I’m sure some voting slips must have got lost somewhere! But joking aside, one thing became apparent to me as I rode home from the IoW; if current proposals emitting from the European Parliament regarding how we in the UK are allowed to ride our bikes and scooters were to be passed into legislation and law, then none of the three scooters we created would be legal. No extended forks or cut panels, no fitting Lambretta mudguards to Vespas, and no bolting extra seats or Lambretta exhausts onto Russian trikes. Such laws could also affect what accessories you bolt on to your scooter, whether you’d be allowed to fit a tuning kit and the French Government’s proposal to force us all to wear dayglo when riding would affect everyone from the sharpest Mod to the troupe of monkeys on this year’s rideout!

Check out the news item over the page for more details and also Scootering’s website at www.scootering.com for information about online petitions to sign and a protest ride on Sunday, September 25. You know it makes sense.

Andy