Team-BHP - Will Manual Scooters ever return?

Apart from their nostalgic value to a few of us who, probably, started our Automotive experience with them, gearless scooters are to a large extent a relic of a past gone by. Having said that, I, if given a choice between a geared motorcycle and a geared scooter, would choose the geared scooter simply due to the additional carriage area. You simply cannot do grocery runs on a motorcycle without becoming a public hazard.

There might still exist a market for medium large displacement (200-250 cc) geared scooters for those few of us who would buy one to complement our cars for those really short grocery runs while on weekends reminding us of the days gone by where you didn't have to be a seasoned rider to accomplish a wheelie or when changing gears didn't mean scruffing up your freshly polished shoes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Déesse (Post 4493929)

Manual scooter?
Boss, I'm waiting for a CVT motorcycle to arrive in the market !

I remember TVS launching an Auto clutch bike... Jive if I'm not wrong..it failed miserably at the time. Though it wasn't a CVT motorcycle, I'm guessing a CVT motorcycle would face a similar fate. Maybe because the Indian market is not ready for an automatic motorcycle yet. I still remember the stigma around automatic cars in the initial days. I think Civic was the first properly accepted automatic.

I guess it will be more than a few years before your wait would be over.

No, I do not see them making a comeback anytime soon.

Having learnt riding on Bajaj Super and subsequently owning an LML Vespa NV, following are the things I miss about geared scooters besides flexibility of choosing gear ratio at any given time (nostalgically speaking):
- titling the scooter before a child start
- kick start
- getting the scooter off the stand in 1st gear, sitting on it
- putting all your experience and skill to use in case of a broken clutch wire
- struggle with pathetic headlight and horn coupled with poor voltage regulation

I will admit that slamming into a gear and twisting the accelerator is immense fun.

However, I’m going to take a contrarian view: I hope geared scooters never return. Its one thing to deal with crazy drivers and traffic and gear changes only add to the commotion. Its one less thing to concentrate on.

Any manufacturer who tries to produce a geared scooter will, if they try at all.

Interesting stats in the thread. I think we should have a poll, but no points for guessing which option will dominate. :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Déesse (Post 4493929)

Manual scooter?
Boss, I'm waiting for a CVT motorcycle to arrive in the market !

CVT motorcycles are hard to design due to packaging constraints. If you really want it, there are Honda motorcycles with DCTs.
A motorcycle in India in a barebones tool which was bought more of a need than a want, therefore don't expect advanced and expensive technologies to hit our market.
Small groups of population in urban India are slowly turning to performance segments though.

I don't see it returning. Just as CRT monitors; the round dial telephone system; the feature phone; walkman (!) etc are in the rear-view mirror, this too has had it's time and life moves on!

I myself learned riding on the CBZ and have never had the opportunity to ride these manual scooters. My only recollection of seeing it anywhere in the last about 10-yrs is in Delhi - A place where the road is truly shared by ALL means of transportation known to man!

No they won't and I doubt if anyone really misses them.

My first scooter thrills was on a buddy's LML Supremo. I rode it and thrashed it only to hear that speed sensor set off an alarm. Do I miss it? No.

The shape of a scooter has never appealed to me (Geared or automatic). Old Lambretta's and Vespa's have become collectors items today buy I ain't running after any of them. Does not interest me at all and I am sure this echoes with a lot of folk.

Brings back the memories of my teenage years when I accidentally ended up with an LML Sensation as my first two wheeler. Dad asked my suggestion for a two-wheeler to replace his old Hero Honda (I still have it), and said he wanted something small and manageable. This was 1999 and I was a youngster who looked down on anything without gears. I decided that Sensation was compact enough for my ageing dad while being a "proper" geared two-wheeler which won't rob the rider of his/her dignity. He actually meant it as a gift for my birthday. But he wanted to keep it a semi-surprise and didn't want to get something that I won't like. And that's how I ended up with a peppy 125cc 2 stroke "Vespa".

Dad also had a story of how his father booked a Bajaj Super for him when he completed his class 10th. The scooter was finally delivered after he became a doctor and he gifted it to his younger brother. He once rode it from Aurangabad to Kolhapur, a journey of around 450kms.

So other than nostalgia, I have no real love for scooters, manual or automatic. While I would personally take a manual over an automatic, it just beats the purpose of riding a scooter IMO. I often ride my friends' automatic scooters like Activa, Access, Jupiter and find no joy in doing it, my LML was way more fun to ride. I think the days of peppy, 2 stroke, geared scooters are gone. The natural progression for this boring class of vehicles is to go electric. No offense meant to owners and lovers of scooters.

Although even I am of the opinion that manual scooters will not return, I do not agree to a certain set of opinions suggested as to why.

A lot of us have suggested that it is too cumbersome to change gears and clutch in peak traffic. Well it is definitely much easier to do than doing the same on a bike. On a bike when you stop you keep the left leg on the ground and use the right leg to brake (along with the front brakes). Then when you stop you switch your legs to keep the right one on the ground and then put the left leg up to switch the gears. This itself is pretty cumbersome and when doing it with some heavy person sitting pillion makes you realise their weight pretty accuratelylol:. On a manual geared scooter you simply always keep your left leg on the ground, press the clutch, switch to neutral, then shift to 1st gear and zip away without having to switch your legs back and forth. It is also the reason why you would always see bikers turning the handle like crazy to maintain balance when super slow just to avoid putting the legs on the floor because of the additional switching that it brings along with it.
In urban commuter, I think the auto scooters are the best followed by manual scooters (for the twist gear on the hands), followed by bikes. I feel its high time that an automatic bike should enter the market. It will be a boon in the commuter category at least.

My father still owns the 1994 Bajaj Super 4 gear and rides it for short commutes. But honestly it is too demanding in the ever worsening Pune traffic. I learned riding on that scooter and still remember the surprising initial sprint the 150cc 2 stroke engine offered. Our old trusted mechanic keeps the scooter going and it will run till he helps us maintain it. No next gen mechanic has the knowledge and skill to service it.

I also miss my grandpa's Red M80, it was a beautiful vehicle, the handling of a motorcycle and the simplicity of the scooter. We have not seen any other product come close to the M80, Kinetic K10 and a couple of others did try but it was nothing like M80.

My maternal uncle (who is no more) used a Blue Vespa PL150, it is still lying unused in the parking. I wanted to restore it, but haven't yet due to lack of time and being away from Pune, but I will some day. I have a few fond memories of that scooter.

All in all geared scooters do have a lot of nostalgia associated with it but realistically speaking has little to offer in the modern context. Unless M&M or some other company wishes to rebrand the same (like they are doing with the Java).

At a time when Bikes are going Automatic with DCT and what not(Read Honda Africa Twin), I see slim to none chance of a Manual scooter revival.

If Big Off road bikes which are considered Enthusiast machines are going Automatic, Scooters which started off as simpler commuter option to Bikes, don't stand a chance, even as a very niche sector.