Hey! New York Newsday has published an article about the increasing popularity of scooters in New York, quoting several of our New York scooter friends.

Here is a link to the article. Excerpts:

[W]ith the zoom in sales, a social scene was born. There’s now an annual Gotham rally and scooter clubs like I Scoot NY, the New York Scooter Club, and the all girls group Donne Veloci meet weekly for group rides and often workshops on everything from maintenance to tips for smart winter riding.

John Cataneo, 36, bought his Vespa GT200 after moving to SoHo from Staten Island. Cataneo, who owns a plumbing and heating contracting business, founded the New York Scooter Club in the spring and acts as president.

Scooters, he says, are not only popular – they are populist. When Cataneo began riding, the New York scooter community was “cliquey” and comprised mostly of old guard vintage riders. He rode with them, but didn’t feel like one of them.

Cataneo started the new scooter club to create social space for the diverse band of new riders hitting the city streets. Membership grew from about 10 to about 70 in under 10 months.

“You get to meet people you wouldn’t otherwise,” he said. “I can’t imagine anything else that would bring such a diverse group together.”

Off-roads, a vibrant Internet community chats and trades information and snapshots via hordes of online forums and message boards like Gotham Scooter Forum or the New York Scooter forum and scooter-centric blogs like UrbanNerd.com, Katstan.net and Brad in the Big City.