Rattling around the garage
This month Bodger gets himself very worked up and angry about the thought of scooter rallies full of cars. Read his ill-tempered rant at your own peril…
There’s a phrase which has recently crept into circulation in the scootering world, and it’s annoying the hell out of me. It’s not a big one, and at first glance it seems innocent enough, but when you stop and think about it, it strikes at the heart of what many of us still understand our little world to be. The phrase? “It’s all about the scene”. There I’ve said it. Now I feel soiled.
To many people that’s just a phrase, like ‘keep the faith’ or ‘once a Mod, always a Mod’, but when you stop and think about it, it’s actually quite insulting to a lot of us. It suggests that the actual scooter itself isn’t a necessary part of attending a scooter rally, it’s more important to get there by whatever means possible?
Now, before you all start reaching for pen and paper (use email, it’s quicker!) I appreciate that not everyone can ride to a rally, some for perfectly acceptable reasons. We’ve mainly left our teens in the distant past, and some of us might not be physically capable of riding the miles needed. I get that. No argument, park your car next to me anytime.
The other popular excuse is that they need to bring the family with them. Now, this is where I start to struggle and I must admit that I’ve never really been convinced by this. If the other half is so much into scooters, then surely they should be riding too, and I’ve never accepted the scooter rally scene to be a place for children and never will. Given what me and my pals get up to at rallies, I’d not expose either of my kids to the alcoholic misbehaviour of my club, amid a constant barrage of obscenities and chain smoking. It’s fun for us, but not a great example for them… not that I’m suggesting everyone behaves like us.
All that aside, the concept of ‘It’s all about the scene’ is inherently flawed. Without scooters, there would be no scene… the scooters ARE the scene. If everyone turned up in a car or camper van, would it still be a scooter rally, or would the penny finally drop that this whole ‘get there by any means’ concept has messed it up for everyone? Somehow I doubt it. As long as they could pull their patch covered jacket off the parcel shelf, put on their hat and boots and wander around like they own the place, they won’t care. And there’s nothing anyone can do about this. Or is there?
Well…. I hate to admit it, but for once I don’t have any ideas for a solution other than trying to attend rallies that actively discourage other forms of transport. Sadly those are few and far between, and even then I’ve heard of scooters being pulled out of vans a few miles from strictly scooter events, which, although within the letter of the event, misses the spirit of the event by a country mile.
All I know is that I’ll keep riding for as long as I can, it’s not ‘all about the scene’ at all, it’s actually ‘all about the scooters’. The clue is in the title of the event…
Perhaps it’s time for some brave soul to host a ‘scooterist rally’ – or ‘scootourist’ as a friend of mine christened them – where it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you’re seen to be there. Everyone can then park their motors in a car park, and hold competitions such as ‘Who has the most expensive transport’, ‘Who has the CD with the most predictable tracks’, the ‘Most original excuse’ and ‘Naffest scooter-related rear window sticker’ before sitting around reminiscing about the bad old days when people had the temerity to go to rallies on actual scooters.
To wrap up, I’ll leave you with this observation – always remember that no good rally story ever started with the words “Well, there we were, travelling to the rally in the car and…” Even if I get there, having stopped for petrol half a dozen times and mended three breakdowns, I’ll still have had more of an adventure than you can dream of. Till next time.