micromobility - Bikes, scooters, boards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility

Hi everyone!

Once again, I come to you all for advice. Currently, my fleet consists of my trusty acoustic bike, my Class 3 electric bike, and my own two feet. Couple this with my transit card and I've eliminated a lot of unnecessary automobile trips. Roughly, my trips fall into:

• trips within town that I can run them with my acoustic bike, or the ebike if I'm short on time. Usually sub 8 km (5 mi)
• trips to the outlying suburbs by hourly bus, getting me within 2 km of my actual destination, so I just walk
• trips into the metro core by bus + LRT, within 4 km of my destination, so I might walk or might wait 30 minutes for the bus. The ebike won't fit on the bus, and even with the acoustic bike, this bus line often fills the front bike rack.

That latter one is what I want to optimize, since I missed that bus by 1 minute and then proceeded to walk in 38 C (100 F) heat to the LRT station. That was brutal.

So I wish to consider adding an e-scooter, as a faster-than-walking solution for short distances. This would be more compact than bringing either bike, and easily brought onto the bus or train. If I were going any farther than 2-4 km, or bringing more than I could carry, then the bike is needed.

That said, I know enough people that have eaten dirt on an e-scooter, so I would easily accept a scooter that is limited to some 15 kph (9 mph) -- still faster than walking -- so long as it can climb 3-5% grades. I would also like the largest diameter wheels I can get; 10-inch would be great. Suspension would be nice, but I'll take what I can find.

I've searched locally on Craigslist for options, and predominantly see used GoTrax and Niu e-scooters, but these have 6-inch wheels and no suspension, as well as clones of the Xiaomi M365, like Maxshot. These are cheap, but still don't meet most of my criteria, and it seems these clones have a habit of failing due to poor quality construction.

As extra background, I've never ridden a skateboard, so an electric skateboard is not being considered. Nor rollerblades. I would consider a really small folding bike or ebike, but this is only marginally better than what my current fleet can offer. Hence why I'm looking to e-scooters.

My car is on its last breath, at least according mandatory safety inspection results anyway. Repairs are supposed to cost more than its worth. Though, I'm getting a second opinion from another workshop soon. I only commute about 6 km a day, get groceries and doctor visits, entirely within the city.

So I’ve considering switching to a 125 ccm motor scooter instead of getting another used car. The idea of no more parking costs, looking for parking spots, low fuel usage and low fixed costs (insurances, maintenance and taxes) are very appealing.

I'm on the fence due to the one true downside, though. Winters. At least 3 months of likely cold weather, rain and wet snow. The kind that could make you question your life choices when having to ride to work at 6 am. I'm located in Northern Europe with winters with avg +4 to -4 °C. Since I have an alright public transport connection to work and in the city as fall-back it will be best to put it in hibernation. That I can do under a cover in a courtyard, if I'm lucky half covered under a balcony. What do y'all think?

Moving larger or a bunch stuff in one go will be more complex too. Even with services like car sharing, rentals or asking a buddy here and there in exchange for gas money and take-away food.

As for specific scooter, I'm looking for high reliability, durability and at best ABS and disk breaks for both the front and rear wheel. A high permitted weight would be great too. Models that fit my criteria are Yamaha NMax, Honda PCX, Honda SH125i and Piaggio Medley. Going to Dealers for test drives soon. :)

For a new one, all in all I'm calculating 6000 to 6500 EUR initially including extra features (top case, windscreen, heated handles), taxes and insurance. There are decent used cars for comfy winter rides. Though, perhaps I can score a lucky deal for a barely used motor scooter one as season is going to an end. By the way, a 50 ccm scooter is out of question for me personally, I'd want more power under my seat. ;-)

Anyone here made the switch? Regrets? Is micromobility really a year round solution?

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