LOCAL MOTION Scooting isn't just for Mods and Romans BY ALEXANDER PROVAN

Patrick Engeman, co-owner of Javaspeed Scooters on North Main Street, believes that Providence’s small size, its high concentration of colleges, and its significant population of people looking for low-impact, alternative forms of transit make it "a city that’s well-suited for scooting in." He also notes the presence of people who are from or have been to Europe — those who have lived in or at least experienced scooter culture and are less prone to see scooters as diminutive motorcycles.

It’s difficult to dissociate the notion of machismo from motor sports. Maybe insecurity (and the Clash song of the same name) motivated the naming of Rhode Island’s first scooter club as "Death or Glory." The weekly Wednesday night scooter ride through Providence, sponsored by Javaspeed, is a sort of transgression of the holy ground once held exclusively by Providence’s motorcycle enthusiasts, who gather in warm weather near the front of the Gap on Thayer Street. Engeman himself comes from a motorcycle background. "It took me a while," he admits, "to get over an assumption that the scooter is an inferior form of motorcycle."

He notes, though, that on a scooter you can get "all of the riding pleasure . . . and not even necessarily be breaking the speed limit." Riding around town, Engeman has noticed that many people, even Harley types, receive scooters with a certain amount of wistfulness. While Italian-Americans might recall, "My grandfather had one of those in Italy," motorcycle enthusiasts have remarked, "I learned to ride on one of those."

Scooters were introduced in 1946, when the first Vespa was unleashed on the narrow streets of post-war Italy. Before that, motorcycles used in WWII underwent alterations that would be used in scooter designs — a flat floorboard, leg protections, and a covered motor make scooters ideal for in-town use. The Vespa has become a ubiquitous image of urban chic. Engeman says Javaspeed’s customers vary from teenage boys buying more sporty models to empty nesters going through miniature mid-life crises, looking to make their own life a little more Fellini-esque. Others buy scooters, some of which get as much as 100 mpg, for environmental reasons.

Javaspeed’s three owners — Engemen, 36, and Chris Reeve and Greg Woodbury, both 33 — hope their store, open since September 2002, will create a "nerve center" for Providence’s scooting community. Engemen says the trio was lured to Providence because it’s a more friendly environment in which to open a new business. Javaspeed offers an array of new and vintage scooters, with prices ranging from $1700 to $4000. Some high-end performers, like the Malaguti F-18, resemble fighter jets. The Bajaj, on the other hand, is a classic design from India that conjures images of British colonialists zipping through the streets of Delhi. The store also houses a small café meant to encourage socializing between scooter enthusiasts, from those Engeman identifies as "scooter-occultist types who are real traditionalists and take their cultural cues from England — think Doc Martens, ska music, and bushy sideburns" — to those looking to join the small New England scooter racing scene.

For those who might classify themselves as big men on little bikes, or for those drawn to scooters by images of Gucci-clad olive-skinned Italians cruising through ancient thoroughfares, Engeman identifies a common attraction — scooters offer "a sense of connectedness to your immediate environment . . . whereas cars are known for isolating you from the world." For the gang of men and women charging down the street in a conspicuously unthreatening way, weaving through cars at low speeds, pulling wheelies on their Kymcos, "There are different ways to be thrilled by speed," he says. Regardless of what the Thayer Street motorcyclists might say, Engeman asserts, "It can be very thrilling to go 20 miles per hour on your scooter."