For some people the design of a vehicle, the evolution of
its lines, means as much as its ability to transport. Maybe
you've heard them in rapt discourse on the precision of an
engine or the slow arc of a fender. Perhaps you've observed
them in their driveway, yanking tirelessly away at a troublesome
part. For these people, it can be as thrilling to stand beside
their machine as to ride it.
Lisa Libby-Johnson never meant to become one of these people.
But in 1994 she traded a broken washing machine for a broken
1978 Vespa P200. She couldn't have known how her life had
just changed.
"A lot of people come up to me and they're like, 'What
is that? Where'd you get it?' Then they say, 'All I know
is I have to have one of those," says Libby-Johnson, 26,
one of four members of Portland's Hell's
Belles, an all-female scooter club.
Now she attends weekly Hell's Belles meetings, helps put
on annual scooter rallies, and recently married a fellow
Vespa enthusiast, Eric Johnson.
"For me there was a really strong appeal to just be able
to ride at all," says Libby-Johnson, 26, whose club nickname
is "Batgirl." "If someone said, 'Here, take my Harley out,'
I wouldn't want to. I don't want any part of that. But when
I look at a Vespa, it's something manageable. And besides,
they're really cute."
As a young girl, Libby-Johnson owned a 1950's Monark Firestone
bicycle. Tricked out with a basket and tassels, the bike
was more than transportation: it was a rare spectacle; it
caused a sensation. For her, Vespas cast a similar spell.
"I ride back and forth to work four or five days a week,
and I always get a look: people smiling, looking, laughing,
waving," says Libby-Johnson, before offering the scooterist's
raison d'aller. "Motorcycles are great and cool,
but you see them all the time. Whether I'm riding in a crowd
or alone crossing the Burnside Bridge, I stand out."
Two-wheeled Vespas, powered by 100cc-to-200cc engines,
have crowded European streets since the first model was
introduced by an Italian company, Piaggio, in 1946. Over
the last few years, their popularity (as well as that of
another Italian bike, the Innocenti Lambretta, particularly
pre-1980 models) has increased significantly here in the
States, with rallies blooming in Chicago, Denver, San Francisco
and Portland. Web sites such as www.scooterist.com and www.twostrokesmoke.org
and magazines such as Scoot! Quarterly have proliferated,
giving scooter owners forums for communicating and swapping
or selling parts. Because of emissions standards, new Vespas
are not currently sold in this country, so the quest for
rare bikes further draws scooterists together.
Portland scooter culture is consolidated in two clubs,
Hell's Belles and their brother club, Twist
and Play, which has a fluctuating membership of one
to two dozen. I recently attended meetings for both clubs--buoyant,
beery nights--and rode "bitch" (an ironically-deployed borrowing
from motorcycle culture) on the back of a red 1979 Vespa
125P during a group ride of 40 Italian scooters--part of
"Rally from Hell III," July's Hell's Belles-hosted affair.
The rally attracted riders from as far south as Santa Ana,
Calif., and as far north as Vancouver, British Columbia.
For a few moments, along several miles of Northeast Fremont
Street, I saw first hand the commotion the bikes were capable
of causing: Waitresses put down plates and looked toward
the road; a woman left her laundry mid-cycle to watch, cradling
a box of Tide on the corner; the heavy wooden door of a
cathedral cracked open for a family of believers to check
out the passing scene.
The Who-produced 1979 film Quadrophenia thrust the
image of the scooterist into the public's consciousness.
The movie pitted motorcycling Rockers against Vespa-riding
Mods through a kind of "Brit-side Story" narrative. It created
a classical scooter lifestyle, fashion and attitude. The
Mods in the film ate pills--mainly amphetamines--like candy,
wore pegged pants, Fred Perry shirts and U.S. Army-surplus
jackets, and made out to Motown LPs. When the protagonist's
Vespa is mangled in an accident, he kneels by the side of
the road and mourns.
In parts of California where Vespas are particularly popular--an
annual San Francisco rally, for instance, brings 300 to
400 scooterists to town--club members are immaculate in
their Mod-wear, their bikes cherry. But Portland has a much
more informal scene. At July's rally, a dad in Docksiders
rode beside magenta-headed witch-babes and slicks wearing
bomber jackets splattered with patches from past rallies.
The preponderance of black suggested less about the collective
souls of the attendees than about their practicality: the
color hides grease stains.
For Libby-Johnson, Jennifer "Bunny Boiler" Martin, Becky
"Top Cat" McCabe and Lisa "Tinkerhell" Barnett, Tuesday
meetings make the week. At the pub on Southeast Belmont
known as the Vern, they share pints and scooter stories.
Barnett concludes a dramatic account of once reuniting with
her 1960 Vespa VBA, two days after it was stolen, by exclaiming,
"And my bike rocks!" The other three back her up: "Your
bike fuckin' rocks!"
At one point during July's rally, most of the 40 bikes
were parked outside the Bagdad Theater. Rally-goers walked
along the line of scooters, noting an unusual part here,
a rare make there. Each one stopped next to a three-wheel
Mustang, an almost never-seen bike, to pay respects. Though
the sky was thick with foreboding clouds, the machine glittered.
There was a light around it. The red-and-cream swirl of
its paint job was as delicate as a piece of candy. This
was the result of a lot of love and a lot of work, the perfect
American marriage.
"When you're sanding paint off your bike for five hours,
it makes a scooter owner have much more pride in their bike,"
Libby-Johnson says. "You hate it too, though. Sometimes
I think, 'What am I doing with my life? I need a new hobby.'
But all the work just makes you appreciate your bike even
more."
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Willamette Week | originally
published August 25,
1999
|
