A trip to Melbourne on Aprilia's Scarabeo 500 IE A Boomer on a Thumper 5,000 Kilometres in 6 days may seem alot, especially when you factor the rider is of an age where he can access his superannuation plus the whole trip is being done on a scooter. Brendon 5,000 Kilometres in 6 days may seem alot, especially when you factor the rider is of an age where he can access his superannuation plus the whole trip is being done on a scooter.
It is the time of the year when our resident baby boomer D'Arcy packs up & heads of for his annual pilgramage to the Mecca of Australian Motorcycling, the Philip Island Moto GP. This trip is usually done on large capacity motorcycles (or an airplane in recent years) but this year he insisted on doing it on a 250cc scooter.
When D'Arcy does his interstate rides it is basically keep going until the destination is reached, we knew he needed something supremely comfortable, capable of sitting on err umm lets say 100km/h  , handles in a manner that involes rather than commutes the rider. More importantly it must be capable of kicking motorcycle butt through hills when he meets up with his bike riding mates in Melbourne. This is important as his baby boomer mates are going to be on big bikes & serving up a bit of lip to D'Arcy riding a scooter.
To silence the critics we haven't mucked around & D'Arcy's mission of proving the cruising capabilities of a 250cc scooter are going to have to wait. I know these guys, if two cockroaches were crawling near each other they would put numbers on them turning it into a race, plus they like nothing more than to have a scooter related dig at us whenever they come up for holidays. With our desire to serve up a can of "scooter flavoured whoopass" we needed not just grunt but a combination of handling & grunt. We looked into the HQ scooter arsenal, reached for the biggest hitter we had, the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile of Scooters. Aprilia's Scarabeo 500 IE.
The single cylinder 500cc Scarabeo isn't the most or least powerful 500 out there, it is however one of the best handling and able to comfortably cruise at autobarn speeds if you ever wanted to ride one to Europe. It is not a bulky cruiser in the vein of a Maxi scooter, it's storage is almost maxi but what draws us to the Beo 500 it is very similar in proportions to the Scarabeo 250 or even Sportcity 250 for that matter. Back to back rides through my favourite 270 degree test corner it was able to comfortably cruise through at least 10 to 15k's quicker than an equivalent capacity but much more expensive Maxi. Best thing was on the way back it was able to filter traffic at the lights while the maxi was lane bound unable to squeeze through the gaps. Perfect for the job.
You may have done the maths & worked out the trip from Gold Coast to Philip Island & back is less than 5,000 kms. Thing is the Beo 500 (nicknamed Beowulf) is brand new & we need to rack up 1,000 K's to get it past 1st service. It only arrived yesterday and thankfully one of our customer volunteered to throw a few K's on it. "Don't come back with less than 400k's on the clock now y'all hear" were our parting words & he compied with a smile taking the Beo for a lovely ride through the Gold Coast Hinterland.
We will keep you up to date with the trip as it unfolds, that is if D'Arcy remembers to phone. Anyway we have done our job & the Beo is ready. Shame D'Arcy isn't.
published 2/10/2008 |