BLOOD EAGLE

A name you'll never forget!

New blood

Melvin got into scooters through his daughter, Samantha. “I saw how much of a good time they were having. I’d heard the stories about the rallies, and the night dos, and it sounded like great fun and too much of a good time for me to miss out on!” he explained. That was it. The seed was sown and without wasting any time, Melvin purchased his first scooter, a Vespa PX 125 (with a 177 Pinasco kit), and started riding with Samantha and her boyfriend, Terry Brady.

In 2017, as Melvin started to get the miles under his belt, he went on the Dutch Lions Rally with the Halifax Elite S.C. The ride was one to remember, “On the way over a problem developed where I couldn’t get my scooter out of the gears and I was having to jump it through the gears. After a lot of effort I eventually got there, and after not having the best of journeys over, as you can imagine, I was ready for a pint!”

A chance not to be missed

Having settled in, and after sampling the local beer, Melvin bumped into one of his old pals, Bob Wood. “Bob’s meticulous about his scooters, and his attention to detail and accuracy is something else. He was chatting in the bar with several other scooterists, when I overheard the topic of the conversation, which was about the possibility of him selling his scooter. In somewhat of a mild state of inebriation, my ears pricked up when I heard Bob mention the asking price for his scooter to the e guy he was talking to. At this point I knew I had to o make a move.” said Melvin. “As we all know, you can buy somebody else’s problems when you buy a scooter. Knowing this was Bob’s scooter and how well he looked after things, I just had to get in on it.” When the fella Bob had been talking with left to have a think about the offer, Melvin seized the opportunity, and went straight over to Bob and told d him he’d have the scooter. “We agreed a price and d shook hands. Then, two minutes later the chap came back and said, ‘I’ll have it’. Bob, being a ma an of his word, apologised and told the fella he’d sold d it to me. I sobered up the next day, and then all I had to do was contact the wife to organise the payment,” said Melvin.

Foundations

The scooter was originally painted orange and pale blue, and Melvin wasn’t keen. “It’s that thing where people see you on a new scooter and tend to think, ‘Oh, that’s Melvin on Bob’s scooter.’

Melvin knew the engine set-up was spot on, so the mechanical side of things was pretty much sorted, or so he thought. “I was riding back from Cleethorpes when the exhaust blew up. I managed to make it to Doncaster and call the missus, who organised recovery. However, it did give me a chance to pull Bob’s leg by telling him that he’d sold me a dodgy exhaust. He was mortified about the whole scenario.”