My friend Raven loves her Ducati Monster, but maintains a sordid affair with a rat Vespa. So what motorcyclist could resist her invitation to join the King Tut Putt scooter rally to see this totally different side of motophilia, and maybe even meet some boys?
So I became the stowaway on the mostly vintage Pharaoh's Cult Scooter Club rally, where jacket patches denouncing automatic transmissions were the dress code. Of course, I made a strong showing on the very automatic Kymco People S 250, courtesy of San Diego's Motorsport Scooters. Even more polarizing was the fact that my scooter had the shiny look of a still-packaged sex toy- glossy and ready to hum at the touch of a button. Whereas "real" scooters are defined by whether they rolled off the assembly line before or after the Kennedy Administration, and generally require a kick-start to cough to life. Personally, I'd take the sex toy any day.
The King Tut Putt kicked off on a Friday night with a pitch-black ride across San Diego's Fiesta Island. Lose sight of the leaders and you could still navigate by the scent of two-stroke exhaust hanging thick in the air. The experience was made even more surreal by the general public's fascination at the sight of 50 scooters buzzing down the tarmac in unison. They'd wave and point and smile, probably wondering if the Doo Dah Parade had come to town early this year. Through some investigation, I learned that this approachability is the reason some guys ride these anti-machismo machines. Nothing gets girls at stoplights to talk with you like piloting a baby-blue Piaggio. Never mind that they're just asking how many miles per gallon it gets.
An oft-forgotten scooter essential:...
An oft-forgotten scooter essential: the EZ-Sew Patch Applique Kit. Vanilla soy lattes sold separately.
On Saturday morning we chugged patiently up the hills leading toward Potrero Campground on State Route 94. From years of rained-on rallies, the Pharaohs had adopted the mantra "The gods hate the Pharaohs." This year, the gods flipped 'em a royal bird by hailing on the rally campground. The hail chipped away antiquated Vespa paint and at the mechanical scab where one scooter's speedo used to be. All the while, the Cult indulged in a carefree game of Beer Bungee. In fact, the word carefree pretty much sums up the typical Pharaoh. Carefree and ... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say maybe a little love-free, despite the whole theory about chicks digging scoots. Because as I was soon reminded, there's a long way between being approachable and closing the deal.
Hail be damned, the rally went on. A few of the bolder members chatted me up, one mistaking me for the other, more famous California Superbike School Instructor, Misti Hurst. I took what I could get in the way of misfired praise and settled in for an afternoon of stilted come-ons and alcohol-induced groping. But just one grope into things, I found the Pharaoh's Cult to in fact be a tight-knit social circle that is cautious of newcomers, no matter how tall or blonde. This wasn't going to be as fertile a hunting ground as originally planned...
Things were quickly going from awkward to unseasonably miserable. If I hadn't been separated from my shiny Kymco outcast by the icy downpour, I might have made a quiet escape while my hosts slid across a wet tarp to grab beer. But the King Tut Putt would not be without a silver lining. Though I was unenviably the rally's sore thumb, I had acquired a taste for the scooter Kool-Aid. These things have unreal fuel economy and a serious fun factor-you know, the very thing that makes the Pharaohs slog 50 miles to play drinking games while ice rocks hit them in the face. And to think I would never have known so if not for Raven bringing me along. Thanks, I can't wait to do it again!
Wait, maybe I can...