Winter Storage Program, extended pick-up schedule.

The winter storage program explained lower in this blog and elsewhere on the Metro Scooter web site www.metroscooter.us is having additional pick-up dates added due to popular demand. We will go right up to the Holidays, with pickups every week as follows:

• Saturday 10:00am, St Clair Place @125th St, upper West side, NY NY
• Sunday 10:00am, corner of River St and Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn NY
• Sunday 1:00pm, Brass Monkey Tavern, Little W 12th St, NY NY

Have you been tagged yet?

Our team of scooter spotters have been hard at work around NYC getting the word out about our winter storage program and the program is starting to bear fruit. As they roam the streets of New York tagging scooters with our special 'winter storage' business cards. We look forward to hearing from anyone who'se been tagged and if you, like us, think our program is the best bang for the buck in winter storage.
Alan.

Electrifying News!

Metro Scooter is now the purveyor of quality electric bicycles from Ultra Motor. The A2B Metro is a beautiful piece of kit and cruises at 20 mph with a range of around 20 miles. At just 10c to recharge the lithium battery this is cheap to run and cool to ride. Stop by for a test ride today.

http://www.ultramotor.com/us/product

CHEAP WINTER STORAGE PLUS SERVICE INCLUDED!!!

Yep, that's right; Metro Scooter will be offering a unique service to all scooter owners this Fall. All you have to do is simply turn over your scooter to us when you have finished riding for the season and we will do the following:

• Give the scooter an oil change (4 stroke engines only)
• Change the transmission fluid
• Add fuel stabilizer to the gas
• Check antifreeze on liquid cooled scooters
• Run the engine to get the stabilizer into the fuel system
• Drain the fuel
• Remove the battery and put on trickle charge
• Clean the scooter as required
• Store the scooter indoors in a heated space
• Reverse the process in the Spring (full fuel tank included)
• Check the scooter for safety and proper running
• Hand it back to you all ready to go

But wait, there's more....... if you live in New York City we will actually pick up and drop off at no extra charge.!!! WOW! Think about what this means for you; you will no longer need to pay for your expensive storage. This alone means the program pretty much pays for itself. You can look after your scoot properly and save money at the same time.

Finally (yes, there is still more...) we can tackle any extra jobs you need doing over this off-season time period. Items like changing a worn tire, performing additional service work such as valve clearances, tune-ups and other major servicing, or maybe you want a hop-up kit or chrome kit installed. Whatever you need we can accomplish it outside ther normal riding season so you are never without your scoot when you could be riding.

How much for all this? Just $299.

Anyone in Manhattan might at this point think there's something not quite right about this offer because that's one hellova service for not much green. Well, here in NJ space is (relatively) cheap. I have an agreement with my Landlord to use additional empty (heated) space in our building for pennies on the dollar. Also, the scooter business is seasonal and rather than watch the tumbleweed blow through our showrooms on a snowy Tuesday afternoon in February, we would rather earn a few nickels and dimes working on your scooters through winter. We've done the math on this and even at only $299 it makes lots of sense to us.

Come April though, we need to empty the space for incoming stock so you must take delivery of your refreshed ride on time. Laggards may get hit with a storage fee if we still have your scooter in June!!

The current pick-ups will be:
Saturday Oct 3rd, 10:00am, St Clair Place @125th St, upper West side, NY NY
Sunday Oct 4th, 10:00am, corner of River St and Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn NY
Sunday Oct 4th, 1:00pm, Brass Monkey Tavern, Little W 12th St, NY NY

Saturday Oct 10th, 10:00am, St Clair Place @125th St, upper West side, NY NY Sunday Oct 11th, 10:00am, corner of River St and Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn NY
Sunday Oct 11th, 1:00pm, Brass Monkey Tavern, Little W 12th St, NY NY

Saturday Oct 24th, 10:00am, St Clair Place @125th St, upper West side, NY NY
Sunday Oct 25th, 10:00am, corner of River St and Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn NY
Sunday Oct 25th, 1:00pm, Brass Monkey Tavern, Little W 12th St, NY NY

Saturday Oct 31st, 10:00am, St Clair Place @125th St, upper West side, NY NY
Sunday Nov 1st, 10:00am, corner of River St and Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn NY
Sunday Nov 1st, 1:00pm, Brass Monkey Tavern, Little W 12th St, NY NY

Saturday Nov 7th, 10:00am, St Clair Place @125th St, upper West side, NY NY
Sunday Nov 8th, 10:00am, corner of River St and Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn NY
Sunday Nov 8th, 1:00pm, Brass Monkey Tavern, Little W 12th St, NY NY

Alan.

Madass is BADASS!!!!

After uncrating and putting together the Madass 125's I can confirm that they are AWESOME!!!!! Bill Pierce, the owner of Cobra Powersports who is the importer of these amazing machines just called me with news that a major mens magazine will be including the Madass 125 on their top ten list of 'things a guy wants'. Why am I not surprised?

Successful Events.

Following the great success of the Nyack Street Fair on July 19th, we did a special event yesterday, Sunday 26th, at our favorite wine store 'Wine for All' just 2 miles north of us on Route 303. Eli the owner had unearthed a selection of wines all of which had scooters on the labels and during the course of the afternoon we all got to try them and Eli explained in great detail the characteristics of each one.

Outside Metro Scooter had set up a booth and had brought along 7 scooters, nearly all Vespa, 3 of which were available for tryouts and demo rides. This included our GTS 250 dealer demo. (Experienced riders only here!).

The weather was hot and steamy but the thunderstorms held off and many people came by to enjoy the wine and cheeses as well as checking out the Vespas.

Thanks to all who took the time to ride out and join us. It was great to see folks coming from far afield such as Brendon, Todd and Joan, Karen, Peter and many more. I think the turnout was around 20 scooters in all. Not bad!

If I can get the trailer lights working in time, our next event will be Bear Mountain custom car show on Wednesday 29th.

Groaning at the seams!

Mondays are normally on the quiet side and we have a skeleton staff only; my wife Lisa. I knew it was going to be a busy week but I had no idea how crazy it would get. I called Lisa around 11am and she sounded somewhat stressed out. Apparently a 53' tractor/trailor had just pulled into the parking lot to deliver five new scooters! Taking delivery of a thousand pounds of machinery packed in crates is no small task and poor Lisa had to handle it all on her own. She passed the test with flying colors; well done Lisa!! What is more important though is that four of these new machines were the Madass 125's which we have been waiting for for almost a year. Come get 'em while they're HOT!

Tuesday was no better. We took our first delivery of SYM scooters, ten in all, and by now the cardboard packing crates were starting to stack up. We still haven't finished bolting all of the SYM scooters together yet.

Wednesday I was supposed to drive to Newhaven to pick up a Madass 50cc scooter which is to be shipped to Bermuda but my car broke down on I-95 so I never made it. Once fixed I did the trip on Thursday (23rd) but also had to pick up a Vespa 250 GTS in Larchmont, so I needed to take the trailer. Mission accomplished but it took 6 hours in brutal traffic. While I was doing that yet another shipment of five scooters arrived from Vespa, including two huge MP3's. Charles had to handle this on his own and to date I have no idea how he managed to get the MP3's out of the crates.

So, twenty new scooters in four days. Thank heavens they are selling like hot cakes and we should have some space back soon.

July 4th on the North Fork of Long Island.

My good friend David invited my wife, myself and another pal out to his house on the water in Southold LI for a long weeknd so I decided to take a bunch of scooters in the trailer. I took a Vespa GTS 250, a Pierspeed RM50 which I left out there for David to enjoy for summer plus another 50cc TNG.
We all had lots of fun riding and David spent the weekend looking for excuses to run into town again for errands and such. Looks like another convert! :)

Nyack Street Fair, July 19th 2009

I just sent the paperwork in to rent a booth for the Nyack Street fair. We will be showing off the Vespa and Piaggio line to anyone who will listen. Look forward to meeting our customers, old and new. The fair is arts and crafts; I have never been to it myself so can't make any recommendations but I understand there are food stalls and Nyack is a cool town so it should be an enjoyable day out. I think the hours are 10am to 5pm.

Where's my canoe? I just can't believe all the rain!! 29 years ago my wife Lisa moved away from Seattle because she hated the weather. If it keeps up like this she'll be moving out of NY next!

It's even started to affect business and things have been sort of quiet around Metro Scooter recently. Maybe our new TV campaign will fix that? Hmmm, we'll see.

Mid June Power Trip.....

I had to take a trip to England over the weekend. Flying out Friday night I drove up to Northern England on Saturday morning. It is just days away from the June 21st equinox and at midnight I found myself on the top of the Yorkshire moors taking photographs. Right now it never really gets dark at that latitude.

Sunday saw me blasting south to Sussex in 'the fastest car in the world' (a rental) and took care of more business Monday morning, then drove to Heathrow for an afternoon flight home to NYC, just in time for dinner with my wife Lisa. Strangely enough I'm not tired at all. No jet lag. Maybe it's the Red Bull? Whatever. Anyway, what is even more amazing is that the trip was to hook up with my Brother and Sister to scatter our Mothers ashes and I actually enjoyed the trip!! I was expecting to feel miserable, ache at the recent loss and struggle with emotions as people are prone to do at such events. The reality was quite different and the feeling of family was as strong now as ever. Such a relief.

When I finally made it back to the store today I was met by an infestation of catterpillars!! They were everywhere, crawling uo the walls. 20 minutes with the vacuum cleaner put things back to normal but I still don't know where they are coming from.

Just a fad?

I'm dipping my toe into the wide world of blogging for the very first time. Yeah, I know, I'm a bit like 'Urban Amish' leaving it so long but if they could just figure out how to stretch a day to 25 hours it would have happened sooner.

Thanks to 'Tone' my web master for suggesting I get more into the blog thing; it means I can now keep you all up to speed on what's going on here at Metro Scooter.

BIG NEWS yesterday!! The Sachs Madass 125's are finally on their way. We will be getting just four and one is already pre-sold. Call us to secure yours. $500 deposit required. They arrive in early July.

I'll try to steer away from such shameless self promotion of our business going forwards but once in a while such news will creep into this blog.