Toronto scooter clubs on a roll

TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR

As the popularity of scooters has grown in the GTA, so has the membership of the clubs devoted to them.

Andrew Meeson

TORONTO STAR

From the fattest, chrome-laden cruiser to the sleekest sportbike and rarest vintage café racer, the parking lot behind the Tim Hortons on a recent Thursday night bustled with activity and sound.

Wedged in between the café racers on one end and the sportbikes on the other end of the asphalt expanse behind the doughnut shop were several dozen candy-coloured machines of the Toronto Moto Scooter Club.

The TMSC is the largest of the clubs in the GTA dedicated to all things scooter. Founded in April 2006, the organization has grown to more than 625 members, with all the accompanying growing pains of an overnight success.

With the number of scooters sold each year in Canada nearly doubling in the past four years, the clubs devoted to them – such as the TMSC – have seen similarly rapid growth.

Club member Julie Hayden remembers how, when she first took up riding five years ago, it was tough to find people to go riding with.

"There was next to nobody on the street," said Hayden, who rides a Scarabeo 200. "So when I saw someone, I would get so excited I would almost fall off my bike waving."

Now, there seem to be as many types of scooter clubs in the GTA as there are scooters, from vintage scooter enthusiast clubs to women motorbike rider clubs to clubs catering to riders living elsewhere in the GTA.

By joining these often-loose affiliations (only a few hundred have paid $20 to be a full member of the TMSC), people with a passion for their kind of two-wheeler find a place to learn about better riding techniques, the principles of going on safe group rides, and a place to hang out and talk about the good and bad of scootering.

As the largest scooter club, TMSC has a more formal structure than most, with a treasurer and secretary. The formal organization became a necessity when they started selling full memberships.

"When you have money changing hands, you need to make it more formal," said club president Dr. Benny Chang, who works at an AIDS clinic in Toronto.

The TMSC, like all scooter clubs, offers group rides where members can share the experience of seeing different parts of the city or surrounding area from the seat of their favourite two-wheeler.

To be safe as well as fun, these rides need both a leader and a tail gunner to help keep discipline – especially for newbies who may be unfamiliar with proper technique.

Because the TMSC has expanded so rapidly, it doesn't have enough experienced ride leaders or tail gunners to guide the 20 or 30 people who show up for the rides. Many have been turned away.

"Last year the only people doing it were the organizers, so there were only six of us," said Chang, whose own ride is a glittering Vespa GTS 250.

This year the club has focused on training members to be group leaders and tail gunners to keep up with demand for the group rides.

Not surprisingly in the Internet age, those who can't get satisfaction simply set up their own club by posting an announcement on websites such as myscootertrader.com (set up this summer by TMSC's Hayden) or meetup.com.

Glenda Jowsey, a 50-year-old mother of two university-age children, set up her own scooter group, ScooToronto, about a year ago because the TMSC didn't have enough rides suitable for her 50 cc Yamaha.

"Basically, I had to found my own scooter club so I could go on rides," she said.

Jowsey's group, which claims more than 150 members, also has clinics on riding safety – and welcomes non-scooters, like electric bikes and even a Honda Gold Wing, as members.

"We don't have to have the same rides or the same routes to reach the same destination," she said.

Many of her group's members also belong to other scooter clubs, including the TMSC, so they can choose from a wider number of rides.

"It's a short riding season," Jowsey said. "You have to maximize your opportunities."

The meetups for scooter clubs, which you can find easily on the web, are also great places for members to share tips on getting the most out of their hobby.

At the Tim Hortons parking lot, Chang enthused over his GTS, pointing to modifications he has made to the bike: crash bars, a Givi top case with pulsating brake light for safety, a reupholstered backrest and seat, a windshield.

He also found out how to wring another one horsepower out of the Vespa's engine with an aftermarket electronic control unit to remap the fuel and air mixture and aftermarket pipes.

His grips are also electrically heated, allowing him to extend his riding season into colder months. Chang said he knew nothing of motorbikes before getting into scooters.

"I was always more of a car guy," he said, noting he rarely drives his Lexus now that he has a Vespa.

In the parking lot, the chatter among club members revolved around the differences between the scooters and the motorbikes that surround them – most preferring the scooter set which tends not to have such a macho attitude.

They also talk about the type of rides each has – the advantages and disadvantages to each and, of course, the spills they've taken on Toronto's less-than-scooter-friendly streets.

Roy Powell, a retired motorcycle safety instructor and TMSC member who rides a Suzuki Burgman, has been a member of the club for a year and a half.

He keeps a watchful eye on the group rides to make sure no one gets in over their head.

He used to ride motorcycles, but gave them up for scooters because he saw too many of his friends getting killed riding too-powerful motorcycles.

Powell finds scooters much more relaxing. "But they're no safer," he warned. "They're motorcycles – you can hit the pavement at 100 km/h just as hard and get just as badly abraded."

But, he conceded, a lot of it is attitude. "You don't see scooters going down the road at 130 km/h doing wheelies."

Eric Chappell, hanging out with his sportbike brethren at the far end of the Tim Hortons parking lot, would beg to differ.

He doesn't see a lot of difference and has no reservations about sharing space with the less-aggressive-looking scooters next to him.

In fact, he said, he has even walked over and talked to scooter club members about their machines. "We can't help but go `Oh, that's so cute'," he said, laughing.

Chappell said his fellow sportbikers – who ride Ninjas and Ducatis, among other brands – wouldn't say no to riding with scooter clubs.

"They'd have to keep up though," he said. "It's no fun for them riding with their wrist pinned forward as far as it can go."

In the end, though, he said they're more similar than different.

"We both have two wheels, we both face the same issues," he said. "We all share the same dangers."

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