Spain, GS500 country

[Lars]

I'm in Spain now, to do an internship for half a year. I have an apartment in the vicinity of Barcelona and man, I see a couple of GS500's EVERY day!! You see them riding around and parked everywhere. In contrast the Holland, they ride far more light bikes here. You even see a lot of 125-250 cc bikes.

[RagnaR]

HEhehe yeh those latin types like to ride around on Vespa's(moped), better known as Fagio's on Grand Theft Auto.

[Lars]

you won't believe how many scooters are riding around here. The vespa is a really old scooter. Nowadays Aprilia, Piaggio and a couple of Japanese brands have taken over.

There are also lots of 50cc racing mopeds with manual gearboxes.

[RagnaR]

It's kinda funny how different cultures veiw things. Western Europeans wouldn't be seen dead on scooters - just to damn ghey.

[scratch]

I don't know. I think it would be fun to have one of those little 'sport-scoots'... They're small enough, it would be like a toy. And to know they have a manual out there!

[Cal Price]

I'm with SCRATCH, sit on a scooter and you get to laugh a lot, how bad can that be?

Glad, also to here about the popularity in Spain, my son has had a Spanish GF for some years and he's off to Zarragossa shortly to do the "meet the parents" thing, and we all know where that goes! Maybe I'll take the ferry to Bilbao, use up one of my freebies, and run down there and have a look.

[Lars]

It's kinda funny how different cultures veiw things. Western Europeans wouldn't be seen dead on scooters - just to damn ghey.

Yeah, if you're older than 18 and still ride a scooter, you almost are

The way they ride em is definitely NOT ghey. always full throttle running circles around cars, with a plume of blue 2-stroke smoke behind them. The GS500's are used the same way, only not full throttle of course.  :mrgreen:  
They also don't care about dents in the car. I estimate that at least 40% of the cars has a dent in it, some cars are really heavily dented. Damage to the paint is a standard accesory here. Every bumper is scratched.

[Lars]

I don't know. I think it would be fun to have one of those little 'sport-scoots'... They're small enough, it would be like a toy. And to know they have a manual out there!

They look like race-bikes, only skinnier.  They are also never left standard, always tuned to the maximum with race-exhausts and open airfilters. Or they put illegal 70cc cylinders + pistons on.
You'd have to see the street that lies on front of my apartment. It's like a racetrack.

[dgyver]

The scooters around here are fairly common to be ridden by previous DUI drivers as they don't require a license to operate. One day while riding, I got a good laugh when I saw 2 scooters tearing down 178 and later up Caesars Head. These are some fun twisties close to me. They had a little problem going up the hills but were really moving going down.