In all my working life, I've never been exposed to quite as diverse and varied a group of people as scooterists. They are liberal and conservative, wealthy and poor, gay and straight, male and female, big and small. I guess this should come as no surprise really, considering the fact that scooters have a wider customer base than ever.

But there are certain groups that certainly seem consistent, distinct, and endlessly interesting. Here, for purely zoological and scientific purposes, are a few of the species of scooterfolk you can find in our fair city.

Allstate Guy

Allstate Vespas (as pictured here) were sold at Sears Roebuck department stores coast-to-coast and snapped up by a few customers who didn't feel the need to ride around in the grandiose cars of the 1950s.

Today, Allstates have a certain cache for one of my favorite customer groups: Allstate guy. Allstate guy doesn't just call the bike shop for parts, he calls to talk about Allstates. At length. Allstate guy is usually near or in retirement, and has plenty of time to spend in a garage with his, on average, five nonworking scooters. Allstate guys loves hanging out at the scooter shop, chatting with techs about his Blue Badge or his notoriously bouncy suspension (seriously, it's like driving a trampoline). 

Allstate guys are a little like Trekkies or guys who really love Monty Python- they are enamored to the point of obsession with something that most people just don't perceive as particularly, well, cool. But what is ironically cool about Allstate guy is that he doesn't seem to care.

Pink Scooter Girl

Pink Scooter Girl looooves pink. She loves her pink helmet, her pink gloves, her pink jacket, and the pink glitter stickers she's plastered all over the pink panels of her bike.

Pink Scooter girl has no age distinction, but she does have a tendency to be one of the most devoted riders on the road. Which is understandable, considering the fact that she is out there to be seen and noticed, in all her Pepto Bismol glory.

But what we at the shop love most about Pink Scooter Girl is that as soon as she gets serious with a guy, we usually get to sell a black bike to "Guy Who Refuses To Drive Pink Scooter Girl's Pink Scooter."

The Pedster (Moped hipster)

Mopeds are now what scooters were ten years ago- vehicles with a cache among young bohemians with creative haircuts and a penchant for wearing skinny pants. The Pedster usually rides up on a beat-up Vespa Ciao or Puch from J.C. Penney, wearing a dinged three-quarter helmet and a messenger bag jangling with obscure band buttons.

The Pedster is a purist in the old Moped ways, and usually a bit of a daredevil when it comes to performance parts. But then, when you're dodging traffic on Broadway or Colfax on a bicycle attached to  an engine about as powerful as a hairdryer, you're gonna want as much extra oomph as possible.

My favorite thing about the Pedster is that these kids really know how to have an awesome time, despite moving in a slow, buzzing swarm.

The OG

The OG is a person who has been on a scooter since before it was cool, from way back when gas was cheap and Denver was home to just a handful of Aprilia Scarabeos and Kymco Peoples.

OG folks ride to get from point A to point B. Sometimes their scoot is their sole source of transportation. They are scooterists in the spirit of millions of Asians and Europeans worldwide: it's the easiest, most practical way to get to work and they pile thousands of kilometers on their bikes.

We salute the OG for using these machines exactly as they were meant to be used.

And if things continue to go as they have gone this year, we're putting scooters under the backsides of a whole new generation of the OG.