In part two, follow my adventures from Southern Vietnam and onto Cambodia in my quest for scooterist’s paradise.

Ahhh. The Yamaha Vino. It’s what you get when you wrap Italian styling around the reliability of a Japanese engine. While the copious use of chrome is a little chintzy for our taste, the Vino is a very capable scoot and offers an affordable alternative to that well known scooter starting with a “V.”

The Honda Ruckus and Genuine Scooter’s Buddy battle it out in Motorcycle.com’s 2009 scooter satisfaction top-ten.

Deals abound this week on CraigsList. Seems like the Summer has brought bikes out of storage and owners are questioning whether they want to give them another season. Three very different scooters caught our eye today.

Last year, NPR posted a great article for the potential scooterist looking to buy. But for our money, the most helpful part of the article was the section on matching a scooter to the rider’s height, something that doesn’t get discussed as much as it should.

In the market for a scooter but not sure to go Italian, Taiwanese or Japanese?

During the gas crunch of last year, the La Times’ throttle jockey Susan Carpenter put together a fantastic video and written review comparing three new scooters in the 125-150cc range.

Pick up a like-new Vino with only 25 miles on the clock.

I took a stroll last night, killing a couple of hours walking from Union Square, through SoHo and into the East Village, and man are the scoots (and motorcycles) appearing from Winter storage.
In the space of a couple of hours I kept a mental note of 24 scooters. Most stationary, some in motion.
The vast majority of them were Vespa LX150s in various colors, but I also caught sight of a couple of Gran Turismos, a couple of Buddy 125s, and a Yamaha Vino.
Three highlights stood out.
1. A classic Vespa – …