Welcome to The Angry Bees Blog

Let me welcome you to The Angry Bees blog. My wife Nancy and I got our first scooter (a new Vespa LX150, pictured on the left) a little over seven months ago. We spent a long time looking for the right scooter and visited most every scooter store in the Seattle area (more about our search in an upcoming post).

Ultimately, we chose a purple, aka Daring Plum in Vespaspeak, that was promptly named Vinny. Working at the University of Washington, I could hardly have chosen anything other than purple. When I added my yellow armored jacket, it was the closest I could come to the Husky’s purple and gold. but I digress.

The original plan called for Nancy and I to share the scooter. I would ride it some days, and she would ride it others. That plan lasted exactly two weeks, when it was back down to Seattle Vespa to purchase Guido, a baby blue LX 150 for my wife.

We had both taken the written motorcycle test at the DMV, we both had our learner permits and were free to scoot around the neighborhood.

Safety is a very important aspect to scooting. Having the proper equipment and training and is a must. Before taking the scoots out, we made our way to Seattle Cycle to stock up on helmets, gloves and armored jackets. I started with a full face helmet, but Nancy felt claustrophobic and chose an open face. I’ll let her post on her experience and why she switched to a full face, but let’s just say winter is a bit chilly in an open face design. Nancy also has a story about the importance of the right gear.

While on the subject of safety, we highly recommend and encourage everyone to take one of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s classes. In Washington State there are many subsidized classes that run for $100 per class. I took the experienced rider class from Motorcycle Safety Company (http://www.motorcyclesafetycompany.com/) while Nancy took the beginner class from Evergreen Safety (www.esc.org). Nancy’s class was dedicated to scooters (they were supplied), while mine was a byob (bring you own bike). We’ll each post our experiences, but we both learned a lot and highly recommend them to anyone who is riding a scooter.

That’s it for now. If you leave in the Northwest and are interested in scooters, we welcome you to learn more about The Angry Bees SC.

If you aren’t in the area, but would like to join, guest post or just read along, welcome.

Feel free to drop me a line at david@theangrybees.com.

David