Scooter Riley–named after Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto–is just a regular kid growing up in the Bronx, right near Yankee Stadium, in 1969. His father, Patrick Riley, is a New York City cop. His grandfather, a fireman for thirty years, is a man who firmly believes that all of life’s great lessons are explained in baseball lore. In the wake of the assassinations of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, as the neighborhood changes around him, Scooter is forced to see that life, like baseball, is a game in which a few extraordinary moments–moments of either courage or cowardice–will define the man he becomes.

Everything you need to know about buying and maintaining a scooter plus a brief history of the machines.

The standard mode of transportation for decades in Europe, motor scooter was a cult "fun" vehicle in the USA until the past two years. With oil prices soaring and the 20-to-40 set looking for alternative means of commuter (and weekend cruising) travel, motor scooter have exploded across the United States. In 2001, less than 30,000 scooters cruised U.S. roadways. In 2005, over 100,000 are road-bound, and the number is growing by double digits each year. Beginning at $1,000 and ranging up over $5,000, dozens of models of scooters are available, as are thousands of accessories. And scooter clubs meet from San Diego to Bangor, Maine. Every year, the largest gathering of motor scooters takes place in Indianapolis, speed capital of the world. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Motor Scootersis the perfect introduction to the wonderful world of motor scooting.

Alan Seeley. Following on from the success of The Motorcycle Book, this extensively illustrated, all-color book provides comprehensive reference for all scooter owners and enthusiasts. From traditional to sports, through big-wheel and Super, all aspects of buying, riding, maintaining and tuning a scooter are included. Whether a beginner or experienced rider, the reader will find all the information they need to get on the road and stay on the road safely. There are detailed sections on how a scooter works and how to keep it running, with extensive maintenance and trouble-shooting chapters.

The Scooter Bible is an entertaining, colorful, and authoritative history of the little motorbikes that could. Beginning with the first motor scooter in 1902, Eric Dregni is your guide to everything from the postwar American scooter boom to the golden age of Italian and European scooters, the rise of Mod scooter culture in England . . . right up to modern electric scooters. Today, nostalgia for vintage Vespas, Piaggios, Cushmans, Lambrettas, and other top brands drive a new thirst for retro-inspired scooters in showrooms around the world. This revised and updated edition of The Scooter Bible brings the story up to date with the drive for zero emissions via electric vehicles. Throughout, author Eric Dregni offers you a wealth of imagery: historic black-and-white photos, evocative period advertisements, manufacturer photos, and more—over 500 images! Along the way, he also shows you scooter evolution, changing technologies, and scooter appearances in popular culture. And as the most comprehensive scooter book ever, The Scooter Bible also includes the world’s most exhaustive encyclopedia of scooter brands, from Puddlejumper to Piaggio, Ducati to Doodlebug, and Zündapp Bella to Genuine Stella. The Scooter Bible is all you need before kick-starting your scooter engine to life and praying for ever more speed. Indeed, scooters are mechanical marvels on two wheels. Streamlined spuds. Mutant oddballs of Jet Age styling gone berserk. Innovative inventions shoehorned like sardines into miniaturized monocoque bodies. Engineering and styling enigmas (the stranger the better). They are the weird and the wonderful. And they are all here in The Scooter Bible.

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