A scooter may not strike you as a serious means of transportation, especially in the car-focused transportation infrastructure of the US. However, for folks living in Asia and Europe, scooters aren’t just a means of mobility, they’re a way of life. With that being said, those of you who’ve been reading my stuff over the course of the nearly half-a-decade of me writing for RideApart would know that I’m in fact not based in the US, but in the Southeast Asian country of the Philippines.
Here in the Philippines, scooters vastly outnumber any other type of vehicle on the road, especially in the nation’s capital of Manila. Owning a small-displacement two-wheeler is seemingly the only solution to escape the near-constat gridlock every rush hour. On top of that, they’re really easy to park, cheap to maintain, and quite frankly, tons of fun when navigating the dense urban landscape. So when I decided to bite the bullet and get a scooter, it had to tick the following boxes: affordable, reliable, practical, and stylish (emphasis on stylish).
