Scooteria

15 Jun Scooteria

After the close of work on Friday, we tend to manifest our anticipation for the weekend in different ways. This is one of the weirder ones.

Let’s provide a little back story first. Just before Memorial Day weekend kicked off, Marilynn came into the shop with two new Razor scooters. Yes, they’re meant for children, but bear with us while we explain. Not only are scooters still fun for adults (and they are!), but we also use them in the parking lot to shuffle between garages, which allows us to minimize traveling time and increase workplace efficiency. Okay, maybe there’s a bit of grasping for straws there, but we’ll consider it a positive boon for Fluid MotorUnion nonetheless. Well, after the two scooters were so well received, Ed, one of our technicians, decided to bring in two of his old scooters. That proved to start an interesting unfolding of events. One of these scooters did not escape the fabrication garage. Instead, OJ and Tom whisked it away to begin some ‘modifications.’ First, we cut the aluminum body of the scooter in half, and created an extension from a piece of square steel bar, which we bolted directly to the scooter’s body for maximum rigidity.

Next, we sliced the handlebar in two, and used a piece of aluminum rod to extend the handlebars….significantly.

Oh…did we mention it’s a Barbie scooter? We plan on keeping the vintage patina, because showing a bit of age is never a bad thing. After all, don’t they call a touch of grey hair ‘distinguished’ ? Well, we’ll consider this distinguished, too.

Alright hipsters, open up your neon velcro wallets, as we introduce to you — Scooteria. It’s like those slammed skateboards you see; or at least it has the same level of street cred, we’d like to think. Extending the wheelbase allows for a more solid feeling on the road (as Tom says, “Longer wheelbase helps with road racing, I think”), although it does make it tougher to navigate road crowns and elevation changes, as you’ll likely scrape the middle bar. The top of the handlebars is somewhere around six feet off the ground. Funny enough, it’s significantly easier to pilot if you’re shorter. If you’re six foot or taller your face is more or less directly in front of the handlebars, causing visibility issues and pushing the center of gravity a bit higher. That being said, it actually works really nicely for cruising once you get the handle of it (no pun intended).

We just figured we’d shift the regular programming to something a bit more lighthearted, given the weekend starts tomorrow, and it’s supposed to be utterly gorgeous in the Chicagoland area. In the generally goofy spirit of Scooteria and this blog post in general, let’s cap off the post with some pictures of FMU employees enjoying themselves on other scooters — all the Scooteria riding shots and videos we have were recorded on an iPhone, and our blog has standards, damn it. First, here’s Tom, attempting to circle fabrication with just one hand on the bar.

Here’s a very lonely-looking OJ, using two scooters as makeshift rollerskates. He’s the only one capable of pulling this off in the shop. It’s significantly tougher than you might think. Does OJ have a future in some weird scooter-roller derby hybrid? Not really, seeing as how that sport doesn’t exist. Yet.

And finally, here’s Marzano throwing sparks from one of the two new Razor scooters. We haven’t yet checked to see if those sparks are capable of lighting, say, a pool of gasoline on fire, but you never know what’ll happen. Nice shoes, by the way.

Have a great weekend! And to all the fathers out there, have a very happy and healthy Father’s Day!