EmmonsNet

Many of us are old enough to remember the gas crunch of the 70s. Among other things, it was one of the factors that precipitated the rise in popularity of a peddle started two wheeled contraption called the Moped. Everybody and his brother had one. It held a full gallon of gas (if you were lucky) and had almost as much power and your grandfathers John Deer lawn mower. I remember as a teen in California, you could not go a block without seeing on chained to a light pole or putting on by almost faster than I could run.

Then thankfully, they disappeared as quickly as Rick Springfields career. People like to claim that gas prices came back down and it made more sense to drive cars and real motorcycles than sputter along on a Vespa that you had to start with peddle power. But the real reason was that people finally started seeing what they looked like on these things and realized the truth.

Mopeds are NOT cool and on the absolute best of days - a really great form on birth control. Use one as your primary method of transportation around town and see how many dates you get.

I guess the staff at Wired.com are either too young, too busy listening to 'Jesse's Girl', or to absorbed in trying to legitimize themselves in the geek community to have gotten a clue about Mopeds. Their article spotlights a group of geeks in Brooklyn that have their own little moped gang called 'The Orphans' that sputter their way around the big apple showing off their peddle initialized motorized geek cred.

I don't care how Wired tries to dress it up as Geek Chic - Mopeds never were and never will be cool.

A few minutes ago I was ranting to a friend of mine online about it and he made the comment 'Well, they are greener than a Harley'. Oh for chrissakes man! If you want a green solution to commuting around the urban environment - ride a bicycle, take public transit, car pool, jog or walk.