Is Baron King?

We are in the midst of our Baron scooter test. I picked it up in November, be honest, hardly rode it as it was raining in my area like it was a rain forest. It sat for about 2 months and when the weather got decent, the Baron wouldn't start. We've had our mechanic change the carb and do some clean-up and it seems to be working fine, now. The speedo said 50mph on my way home today.

Like most new vehicles, it's nice to have something new to putt around on, but I do notice a huge difference between pricier models such as Vespa, Aprilia, Honda and the like. Our windshield cracked, the right rear turn signal fell off and we've got a few stress cracks. When we were unloading it, the bottom caught on our ramp and cracked the plastic undercarriage. While I don't expect it to be as keen as a $6k scooter, I do wonder who is buying inexpensive plastic scooters and what they want out of them. I doubt that this will be a collectible scooter, and I think it would be generous to think that someone could get 5 years out of it without replacing lots of parts. Yet, maybe for most of the buyers of these scooters, the short-termness is OK. Not everyone looks to own the same vehicle dozens of years later. (One of my Vespas is 9 years older than I am!).

Keeping that in mind, we'll write our fair and review of the bike. No scooter that I have ridden is without merit. Some are definitely better than others, but scooter riders vary in their expectations, and I need to do away with any preconceptions when reviewing such bikes.
Honestly, before I got involved with Scoot!, I wouldn't have guessed that I would be riding all these different scooters, let alone actually *liking* some of them. You can teach an old dog new tricks!

Mike & josh have both seen the proofs of the Summer issue and we expect to have it delivered on Friday (Cinco de Mayo!). That weekend is the Classico Moto Italia rally, but we'll likely have to work through one of the days stuffing magazines.

The deadline for submissions for the Fall issue (can you believe it?) is June 14. If you want to submit rally reports, Show Us Your Scoots photo or anything else, send it in by that date.

An unrelated note: I just bought a PS2 (I know the PS3 is coming out, but this was only $139 brand new), and I am obsessed with "Getting Up" and all the butt-kicking and graffiti-ing. The soundtrack is awesome! Maybe the best part of the game. I'm looking to get some of those games with scooters on them, although real life scootering is much more fun!