2004 Honda Ruckus
What can I say? This is a rockin’ little scooter.
The above pic is what mine looked like.
History
Somehow, my mom got it in her head that she needed to learn how to ride in her late 60s. I guess reading my moto travel books and seeing how much fun I was having on a bike post-divorce made an impression.
I suggested she take an MSF course so that she could really learn how to ride and ride well. She agreed and signed up. The day came and she flunked out of the very first exercise. Man! Was she pissed. She said the test was rigged and blah blah blah. After cooling down she admitted that the instructors were really trying to help her get through, but that she was starting to hold up the entire class because she lacked the strength and coordination to straddle the bike and walk while gently letting the clutch out. In short, she flunked because she flunked.
As part of her knee-jerk reaction to this affront to her independence, she was going to buy her own bike and learn on her own with my help of course. (Don’t you love it when your parents rope you into doing really stupid shit for them?)
So my mom starts looking at bikes. She started out looking at 650 mega-scooters. I gently nudged her in the direction of something smaller, lighter, tougher, with big tires and a lot less body work. In short, a Honda Ruckus. Cheap. Rugged. Big tires. Perfect. So she bought a new Ruckus.
I don’t remember how I got it home, but I did. Over the next couple of weeks, my mom would come over and I’d try to teach her how to ride. She’d do OK in a straight line, but as with all things motorcycle, anyone can ride in a straight line. After she got to where she could ride around my cul-de-sac, we migrated to a church parking lot. That didn’t go so well.
The church parking lot layout was very simple. It has two rows and a single median running down the middle. It was a very simple route. Go down, turn, come back. Easy. Or not.
My mom can’t corner. She starts slowing down long before the corner starts then she doesn’t have enough momentum to carry her through so she starts to clip the apex. That doesn’t work out very well then the apex is actually a curb. And she crashed.
And crashed again…
And crashed again…
At some point in all of this she had enough.
Her next bright idea in this vein was she was going to buy me a big touring bike that she could ride on. That’s how I ended up with my FJR but that’s another story.
Time passes.
I took a job on the other side of the city, sold my house before the market crash, and moved into an apartment about 10 minutes from work.
More time passes and I end up semi-living with a woman on the east side of the city. She’s got a house, but no garage or covered parking. And parking sucks. The Ruckus becomes THE around town hauler.
Groceries? Easy. It’s a quick scoot to the store. Slide everything under the seat and back home. I’d ride up the sidewalk and lock the bike to the side of the house.
Movie? Sure. It was a bit slow, but we could always to two-up down side streets to one of the local movie houses.
Fun? It sure was.
It simply worked.
Eventually, I moved on. But the Ruckus stayed. Long before that relationship ended, the woman bought the bike from my mom. When I moved out, the Ruckus stayed.
I kinda miss that bike…
As I type all of this the woman (No, that one, this one, the current one, the one I married) tells me that getting a Ruckus and a Super Ténéré in one week might make her a bit upset. She’s used the “It’s good to want things phrase” already. “But Honey, I can find one on Craig’s List for $1700!” “Which was immediately followed by, Don’t you But Honey me. Stop looking at them online.” Laughing doesn’t seem to help my argument.
We’ll see. 
Here’s what a 2011 Ruckus looks like:
Only $2499 new!
