What a mad year its been so far, about six months ago we had the price of oil pushing $150 a barrel, now its less than half that. The credit crunch is destroying anything and anyone with a heavy exposure to virtually anything traded in the free market economy, even gold, the traditional safe haven in such times is yielding to the pressure of the financial squeeze. For those of us without all or any of the above life goes on, for now, but eventually the downturn will turn to recession then depression then total collapse where millions will starve and perhaps billions globally will find themselves without work, a home, a family, a life. A couple of years ago I was talking up peak oil and I got quite excited at the time when oil peaked at $70 then slunk back taking with it my dreams of moped domination, then again a few months ago the peak of oil was looking so real I was actually getting scared of what doom awaited the post peak oil planet. This time I just don't know anymore, I've been burnt before, mopeds have been there done that, post war, 1970's and now we have a new moped boom to quote, only this time the mopeds are broadly different, they're scooters and pit bikes and mini choppers and ebikes but to me they're all mopeds, all of them and none of them, you'll only find real mopeds in the pages of history, save a few Chinese and Indian mopeds all the rest have been relegated to past tense now replaced by endless plastic scooters of widely ranging quality, price, and lineage. Glad then that the guys over at The Scooter Review have compiled a top ten shoot out of the ten best known 50 cc moped scooters. I was somewhat surprised to find Piaggio's Zip in tenth and last place, while the ever green Yamaha Jog scooter takes the honours. The top scooters were all two stroke's which any tuner knows means plenty more performance is in store with a few simple mods. The 4 strokes took up the tail except the Honda Today which came in at a laudable 3, then again they have had a bit more experience than most. Anyway I'm glad I didn't jump at the last oil price rally and go out and buy loads of scooters to sell, its a global story of these blow ins jumping on the moped band wagon, investing heavily with borrowed capital on plush websites with things like usability and interactivity and even plusher retail outlets with things like exposure and location only to find most people don't actually want to ride scooters they're much happier driving their car each day, and now with gas prices dropping they no longer feel the need to change. I haven't sold a new scooter through this site for weeks, ha! but that's just me all over, I don't actually want to succeed, I prefer failure its much more predictable. Moped(guy).
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