and there's nothing any of you can do to stop me! bwah ha ha ha!

actually, i'm in the mid-stages of researching my first major vehicular purchase. any scooter peeps out there with advice or horror stories, hit me.

now, i have a knee-jerk hatred for repro anything. i like perfect vintage. i am a spolied brat who thinks she's rich, but i am not. i want a perfectly restored somethin from the mid '60s that i can go to the eagle on and throw makes and models around and stupid crap like that.

however. in grilling all the chicks (and one dude too rich and old and obsessed with restoring rare scoots from the 40s to count) i know who ride scooters and/or choppas, one point becomes clear. the pretty, old bikes need fixing all the damn time. a feat which sounds really boss once you have any kind of knowledge about engines, but not if you want it to pass emissions so that you may actually ride the thing this year.

a friend who owns lots of heart-stopping custom choppers fully understood this reluctance to buy new, and intimated that even she got her first bike new, just cause she wanted one, and all the fancy shit came later (mid-'60s totally rebuilt triumph, drool) when she knew more and could care for them.

while learning repair, search for parts, etc. sounds fun, it sounds like a hard start. i know too many people who got a crappy vespa shell off ebay and it is still collecting dust.

i don't know how to fix anything yet, never even seen a scooter engine. and i'm gonna want something reliable to ride to learn. so it seems like the thing to do is to grudgingly buy a new, retro-look bike, learn to ride it and keep it up, then, if i'm good, sell it a few years down the road and buy my fantasy babemachine.

and and and, i'm gonna need to get a licence, pay insurance, and what's the point if it's always broke?

so, i'm a goin' test-driving, specifically this little number: