By Jeffrey the Barak. Wanting a twelve-inch BMX style scooter was like having an itch I needed to scratch. I had one 35 years ago and I often remember it fondly. Myself on my 1988 Ninja Scootech GT Zoot Scoot, photographed when new, by Kip Rano. Yes, the bars are always a bit low, and … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. You can’t get Oxelo scooters in Hawai’i, but someone had a set of three up on Facebook Marketplace, which they had brought from Italy to a US military base here. I announced my intention to buy this used Oxelo Town 9EF on the Facebook Group “Let’s Kick Scoot” and fellow member … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. The main difference between these two equally priced, and readily available scooters is the wheels. The A5 Air has nice little split rim wheels with 200 mm X 50 mm pneumatic tires with inner tubes, resulting in a quiet, soft, impact and vibration absorbing, slower ride. The A5 DLX has 200 … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. Not everyone can immediately step onto a kick scooter and know how to ride it. For some, it is a challenge, and this can be hard to understand if you scoot without thinking about it. But the experienced scooter rider who only uses certain techniques can be missing out on a … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. Why is this article here? the-vu has been publishing articles about scooters for two decades, mostly written by myself. Lately, reviews and descriptions have been commonplace on YouTube and in many ways a YouTube video is a better way to get information about scooters and scooting. However, there are so many … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. Conclusion: The new Zero tire is much better than the stock Hota tire, but installation on the rear wheel is very difficult. Now if you want to take the above, and leave, no problem, but here is the full article! eWheels introduced an upgraded tire and inner tube set that is … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. If Dr. Seuss were to illustrate a motor scooter, it might get skinnier and taller, and the wheels might get smaller, and it would probably look a lot like this OJO. I bought the black one, from Best Buy who were selling these for a while. I think they no longer … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. I wrote briefly about the Nimble Cargo Scooter after trying one out at the Dwell on Design Show back in June 2014. It was a great concept that placed a heavy cargo in front of the handlebars of a scooter and employed a steering linkage to turn the distant front wheel. But … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. The Kickbike Cruise Max 20 is a special Kickbike model designed for easy all day cruising at a comfortable speed. It is not a racing scooter, although it can keep up with one, and can even sail past one when the road gets a bit bumpy. The combination of the very … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. Some people love bicycles, but many cyclists have a love-hate relationship with them. The phrase Pain In The Butt is perfect for describing it. A soft saddle hurts your butt. A large saddle hurts your butt. A gel saddle is hard as a rock. A narrow leather racing saddle hurts a … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. A personal transportation device can be anything that gets a person around town, without a car. It could be the common, world-changing, bicycle, but we all know about those machines. This article introduces a passion of mine, personal transportation devices that are not bicycles. In many of my scooter reviews and … Read more
By Felix Dorling. “Scooters are for kids aren’t they?” I’ve received mixed responses since bringing my new scooter into the office but it doesn’t bother me one bit. My commute to work used to be a minefield of car dodging, maneuvering between buses and avoiding those pesky white vans but since I swapped my bike … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. Just lately I have been finding that riding a scooter for a few miles is too tiring to be all the fun it should be, so I have taken to using a bicycle for these intermediate to long distances. Now with a bicycle being a machine, it will give you about … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. How much do we want to exercise, and how much help do we want from machines and electricity? With electric bicycles, or e-bikes, becoming more common, we can begin to wonder whether we are still pedaling bikes or if we are just gradually switching to quieter and slower motorcycles. Not that … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. Los Angeles is a better place to be than many cities when it comes to finding a nice place to scoot. But sooner or later the 26 mile beach bike path becomes so familiar that the urge to explore further kicks in. Google Maps has a bicycle overlay with puts bright … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. I have been waffling on in recent articles about kick-scooters about how much I miss pneumatic tires. Yes, the small solid tired folding scooters are convenient and portable, and in the cases of the Know-Ped and the KickPed are also reasonably comfortable at slower speeds on slightly rougher surfaces, but it … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. A search for the word scooter on the-vu.com will reveal my passion and obsession for this type of vehicle. I much prefer scooters to bicycles, even though I have to admit I won’t be tackling a hundred mile charity ride on one. I have this year reviewed the KickPed, an amazing … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. Most kick scooter riders and potential kick scooter buyers are thousands of miles from being able to stroll into a certain New York City bike shop called NYCeWheels, but thanks to the Internet anyone is able to choose to buy the scooter that I have personally chosen as my current favorite … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak. The KickPed is a custom Know-Ped, manufactured in the same factory in California, Patmont Motor Werks, but made to a lean and mean customized set of specifications, exclusively for one retail store, NYCeWheels in New York City. In some ways it is less of a scooter than the Know-Ped but the … Read more
By Jeffrey the Barak Racing scooters are still an extremely rare sight in the United States, and most lifelong cycling enthusiasts who see a Footbike or Kickbike on the road are seeing one for the first time. But in Europe, it is not too unusual to see dozens of scooters competing in a road race. … Read more
Exion Scooters – Cees Bakker’s amazing home-built speedsters By Jeffrey the Barak Just one look at the carbon fiber creations above tells you, now those are some fast looking scooters! And fast they are. Designed for the racing circuit which exists in Europe, but not in the USA, these home built human-powered scooters make everything … Read more
By Mark Schuett How many ways have you seen people being pulled by their dogs? There are dogs out in front of bicycles, skateboards, Rollerblades, scooters, skis, etc. And don’t they look like a great deal of skill is required and potentially dangerous for the dog as well as the “rider”? Have you heard of … Read more
Human Powered Scooters – The Undiscovered Transportation Solution By Jeffrey the Barak Energy Efficient or Exhausting? Apart from the in-line scooter craze of 1999, the use of scooters in our society has been almost totally non-existent. Many would-be scooter riders have observed that it can be much less tiring to ride a bike for mile … Read more