Modern Vespa

im new to this vespa thing and was wondering do i need to get permission from someone to start a club or do i just start one ps i really dont need anyone permission to do anything but dont want to start ariot over a vespa club but if so fuck it

Start your club.
Would you like us to suggest some names for you ?

How about:
"The dont want to start ariot over a vespa club but fuck it" Club?

Come to Scoot to the Moon this weekend and ask around, or just ride with us all first.

why do you want to start a scooter club?

OOOooowweee... another club in the bay area. You kids outta try just riding for a while. Maybe together. Maybe with the established clubs. It helps a scooter family grow. Nicky invited you to Scoot to the Moon personally above? Hell - take her up on that. That is a golden invite, right there.

Take two cents from someone in a 3 year old club that has had to deal with ...um... DRAMA for everything from being a new club stepping on toes, having a giant patch, loudmouth members, modern bikes, quitters, and... um.... DRAMA: just ride.
Granted, RBSC is a rad club with brilliant members all over the map, but you are in a saturated scooter city with lots of folks to ride with! (oh wait.... How to take heat off RBSC? Someone elses' club can get it! W00t!)
New clubs have a minimum back patch size of 3 feet by 2 feet.
Require some sort of body modification
Recruit like you are taking over the world.

Oh - and take my siggy line for another of my two cents.

With the exception of VCLG, scooter clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area don't actually ride. Ever. And if they did, they would likely be hostile to strangers.

/Kidding
//On the square

You don't have to ask anyone's permission. As Gitta correctly pointed out, there are a glut of clubs in the area already, but most of them are closed, either in theory or in practice, unless you meet some fairly narrow exceptions. If you are going to start a club, it is absolutely imperative that you choose a name that isn't being used by any other club anywhere in the world, has never been used by any other club anywhere in the world at any point in history, and has never even been considered by anyone who has ever ridden a scooter or thought about riding a scooter, ever. I'm deadly serious here: choosing a name that conflicts in any way with another club is the surest way to make an extremely bad name for yourself. The scooter community is fairly small, well connected, and will hold a grudge forever, or until you buy them a beer, whichever comes first.

Why don't you name it "HELL'S ANGELS" scooter club?

Technically no, but just so you know, Piaggio does get touchy about people using the Vespa name without their permission. Actually, you must either own or at least ride a Vespa specifically. And we are 'an active riding club', so you must like to ride... a lot. And Jägermeister is for special occasions. JD or vodka works well at any time. You mean like 'Vesparados'?

Ah... you're right, forgot the most important detail. Well, okay, I think I could successfully argue the Jägermeister point, but I'll let it go. I've corrected my post above. Yes. Exactly like that. I'm not being sarcastic here, either. Unique club identity is perhaps more important than any of the other attributes a club chooses for itself.

Refrain from using the word bastard in the title as it will stir up all kinds of trouble We have a group of us over here that ride and have workshops,bbq's,lunch etc but no club. Were just friends who like to scoot and if people want to join us they can.

Surely not THIS GUY

As in whenever you ride with Rolf.


Once you pick a tentative club name you might post it for comments. If you are roundly ridiculed, you know you have the perfect name

Seriously, someone from Marin did just that and then ignored comments that it was already the name of a legendary club down the coast. A different definition of karma I guess.

Wow-- what a ton of grief!
Hey, rastrike, start a club. I'll ride with you.

w00t! and then there were two... the beginnings of something great.

Not grief, exactly. I'm just trying to give the pros and cons of starting a club and trying to help him avoid getting off on the wrong foot. For the most part, I'm in favor of more clubs, as the existing San Francisco ones aren't really very accessible. For instance, I don't believe the meetings for Black Sheep and Secret Society (the two most entrenched scooter clubs in SF proper) are open to the public. If I'm not mistaken, VCLG meetings aren't open to the public either, although they have a regular monthly ride that is definitely open.

SF Scooter Girls have open meetings, and the Quitters (my club) have open meetings as well. Both are still taking new members, albeit with the aforementioned requirements. I'm not sure if First Last Chance is taking new members or not.

Actually, unless I was explicitly invited and didn't realize it, it's my understanding Secret Society meetings are relatively open. If you can find out when/where (hah hah hah get it?)

Anyway, yeah, more to the point, there's a bit of saturation here in SF. You may want to start off with a riding group.

Speaking of which, I need to ride with some clubmates soon

Could be. I wasn't invited. I don't think it's sufficiently saturated yet. There are more scooters in SF than 99% of other US cities. Of course, scooters != scooterists, but there's still a helluva lot of us around. I was going to recommend this Saturday, but I think there's a competing event in HMB. Sunday?

Sunday may be an option.

Though I also wanted to make some headway on the GT...

A pox on your stupid GT!

so I can count you out on helping then?

it certainly does feel like there's a pox...

Let's take this to our forum

I started "The Lords of Alvernon" club here in Tucson, Az. So far, so good. Just ride with whomever you can, whenever you can. If you so choose to name your group of riders with some clever moniker, make some patches and shirts, have meetings, and maybe advertise your club around, then fuck it, have fun...you should try to ride with other groups as well. Just be respectful and i'm sure you and your club will do just fine!

Cheers, TS

The best clubs have no rules.

Lots of rides though.

without starting a "club", the meetup.com world is a good place to find scooterists

http://scooter.meetup.com/cities/us/ca/san_francisco/

the Sandy Eggo group puts about 15 to 20 scooters in a ride regularly. it's actually the second largest group behind Toronto.

the advantage is that there is no club per se and people ride that want to. there are group organizers, but no "leaders"... it's an automous collective.

just another .02

Absolutely *legendary* expression on the guy in the background to the left. Somebody needs to photochop that out...

Better hurry up! Scooter meetup.com is about to go bye bye. Or maybe OP can jump in and save the day. From the link:

"This Meetup no longer has an Organizer.
Without an Organizer, it will disappear from our website in 2 day(s).
You can join this Meetup and become the Organizer."

Now that is feckin funny! 8) Nice bit of PShop there...

did you notice that a lot of the people in the "waiting list" are MV members?? there are four pages of people (96) needing a meetup group!

I guess the point is still that scooterists can get together informally without having to have a club to join.

Isn't that the truth!

Pure genius. Thanks for that one.

That's our club. We ride Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoons, with a Saturday ride thrown here and there, and the the only rule we have is "Do unto other club members as you would like to be treated, because if you don't we know where you live and we will come by and kick your butt."

You DO NOT want to smell that finger. I point it at people as a punishment - not a reward.

Brilliant work, Jess - brilliant.

YEARS!? of harrowing rides? Oy. I live here in the South Bay, so unless I want to schlep up north to see the Scooter Girls (I am of the appropriate gender) then the VCLG is my only 'club' option. (Unless I can find something in Freemont).

All kidding aside, as a newbie, I show up for rally rides, and informal meetings (like the South Bay Scooterists hanging out at Trials Pub on Tuesday nights). I will try to join the VCLG monthly group rides. But now you have me scared that I won't be able to keep up...
Maybe I will form a new club called "Noobscoots" strictly for the novice (less than 1 yr) rider of ANY scoot.
Somehow I don't think anyone has claimed that as a name for a club, yet.. I call dibs!

I always thought the Cooter Scooter club would be a great name for a Girls club

Ha! That would be!

We have a chapter of the Secret Servix girls here in Denver.

yeesh...college sorority life and recruitment seems like a cake walk compared to starting your own scooter club. i like the idea above of making it inclusive, non-threatening, and tons of rides. you can't expect to breed new life into some of these clubs if you don't invite new riders as well as old. us newbies need some group riding practice too ya know?

but i don't think that a single club per area is a great idea either. multiple clubs fill many niches and attract all different types. we certainly aren't all cookie-cutter...

How 'bout we just form a club called "Hooter Scooters" and have done with it?
That way anyone with hooters could join.
Of course the definition of hooters would be up for debate. ("Manzeres" anyone?)

Does that mean we would have to ride bra less? That adds a whole new set of road hazards..... Watch out for that pot hole or you'll give yourself a blackeye!