This big windshield makes a big impression on me because a lot of the time to get a windshield like this, you're dealing with a very large motorcycle. And that means that when you're driving this at speed, not only do you have some temperature protection, because of course scooters do a good job of protecting your leg area from the wind, but you also have some protection from the elements, bugs and other things that can come and hit you. So you still get that wide open view that you get on a motorcycle, but you have the protection of a touring motorcycle here on what I would call a touring scooter, that again, is very in town capable. So let's look at some of the details up close and we'll keep going through.

So what I don't like about that is you have to pull this out of your pocket and you're still essentially turning a key, which is now just a switch instead of a key. It is what it is. It's still kind of cool to have. It's a different way of doing things, but it works and it works very well.

Let's dig in a little closer and see what we've got once you turn it on. All right, now the engine's not running yet. We will turn it on later. It is extremely quiet, but you're going to see some of these lights blinking up there just because the engine is not on. So of course you got a clock over here. Total odometer, temperature gauge there. You do have a full tachometer, a digital speedometer, fuel gauge over here, 13 degree Celsius outside the ASR, which is your anti-slip, essentially your traction control. That light's blinking right now and so is your ABS. And that's because those, once you start moving those goals, so again, attraction control and an ABS brake system makes this very good.

Now you'll notice your distance empty about 490 kilometers. Things capable of getting right around that 500 kilometer mark, which is a lot for a motorcycle. Now you can cycle through some of the things you see here by hitting this mode button there. 12.2 volts. You've got kilometers per liter up there, and again, that 490 kilometers to empty, you can cycle through hitting this button here. But there's also, on your handlebar, you can move that mode button right there. So we're going to show you that right now.

Right side handlebar, this is where the action happens. There is your throttle right there. This is a kill switch standard on just about every... I think every motorcycle. You have your four-way flashers up top here. A way to connect your phone, I believe I have to dig through the owner's manual more on that. So again, if there's more to learn there, which I'm sure there is, we'll do a future video on that mode button that I was hitting on the dash. You can also hit it without taking your hand off of the handlebar, which is really smart. And there is your start switch over there.

Let's check a look at, take a look at the other side, see some of the controls over there. All right, standard motorcycle controls here. You have your headlights there that goes from your high beam to your low beam, standard of course is going to be your low beam. You can flash over like flash to pass right here by just tapping that you have your standard signal switches here, the left side, right side, cancel them.

And we did mention over on the other side there was the four-way flasher. There's your horn, quite loud horn, so very good there. Brakes of course right there on the scooters. This is not a clutch. This is your rear brake I guess it would be. I'm so used to motorcycles. So again, on a motorcycle, this would be your clutch. This is also your break here. And then you've got little things here. A lot of times these are weighted to help you with a anti-vibration. I'm not sure if they're there, but they are certainly of the size that I would think that they could be. And again, very comfortable grips.

And we'll take a look at mirrors. The mirrors are wide angle, Let's just quickly look at them. All right, this handlebar still turns here but you can see objects in mirror are closer than they appear traditionally on a car you only have that on the right side, but here you have that on both sides. So they do give you a little bit extra wide angle, little bit extra visibility while you're riding, which I think is really helpful.

So I'm going to show you the front of the motorcycle now. Now keep in mind I'm wearing a microphone up here. The engine noise is down there, so it's going to be a little quieter to you. But the point is I'm not going to have to raise my voice. So to start it you got to tap one of the brake levers, hit the start button and it starts right up. I don't know if you can hear it at all, but I don't have to speak up, speak loudly. You'll see some vibration because it's sitting on the center stand. That center stand is hard-mounted to the frame, so don't worry about that.

But the reason I started up is you can see the headlight here. You've got the daytime running lights down there. So very automotive LED style looks, LED style headlights there. We'll turn on the four-way flashers. You can see there're your LED-style signal lights as well. And then of, course if we turn those off, if we flash your high beam there, you can see that high beam flashes. So one of the benefits that you have over here is those LED lights give you a really automotive look and you also have that clean white light shining in front of you when that white light is there. That gives you a really clear closer-to-day light color. It helps your eyes identify what you see at night. So again, halogen light is a different yellowy color. The whiter light is closer to a daylight color, it just makes it easier to identify what you're seeing even at night. And a really good headlight, I think, really matters when you're going on longer rides.

Speaking of longer rides, you've got fantastic brakes. We talked about ABS brakes in here. That's what this is here. This is sort of your sensor for your ABS or a piece of your sensor for your ABS. So when you see a motorcycle or a scooter with that, it's got ABS brakes, vented discs here, that helps dissipate heat, which means you can handle high speed and heavier braking, which is good. Part of it's for style, but let's be honest, it is also capable of dissipating heat. The big thing you notice here is these are 16-inch tires. A lot of scooters are 10-inch or 12-inch. 16-inch diameter rims is only one inch shorter or one inch less than a typical sport bike. So you really have some options here with tires and these ones are very good.

Now you'll notice on a regular sports bike for instance, you have very little tread and that's all designed to give you maximum speed, maximum grip on a drive surface. These ones are very good on dry surfaces. We've got a little bit of fuzz there, but they also have deep treads and lots of them. Which means this is a great scooter for all weather, which means if you're commuting to work on this, you've got the wind protection, you've got the windscreen as well, but you also have great tires to travel in all conditions.

Sometimes I forget to show you the wheel and tire combination on the other side, of course, the brake is on the left side. This side gives you all the style of the wheel. That's one of the things that the scooters do really well is they have a lot of style to their wheels here. It just looks cool in person. I'm not sure how well it'll show up on camera, but it looks really cool in person.

Coming back to the left side, this is one of the things that kind of makes scooters a little bit magical. A typical motorcycle will mount their engine up higher down here, and on a scooter you have all the weight really, really low. So even though the weight can sometimes be higher on a say 400 cc scooter than a 400 cc motorcycle, the weight is down low. So you have good weight that gives it some substance, but it's down low, which makes it easier to handle. So all of this is ended transmission in here. You've got the dual springs on both sides. They're variable rate springs. So what that means is these are kind of close together and then lower down in the spring it spreads out.

That helps to sort of anticipate smaller bumps, larger bumps, it's just to really handle the weight of things like the weight of things as you load the scooter up. So that variable rate spring is something that's sort of a more higher-end type thing and you've got it here. Let's check a look the very back here as well.

When we were around the front side talking about the tires, we talked about this as sort of an all-weather type vehicle. And you see that here, you've got the typical sort of protects the vehicle from spray with this flap here, but you've got this extra piece mounted on for the license plate. You've got the light in there as well, but it comes way down here. So it's going to really keep that rain from spraying anything else back here? Keep your passenger clean, keep the whole thing cleaner. Just a little thought put into how you're going to use this and you can use it in all weather.

So now let's talk riding position. First of all, the benefit of a scooter, even though this one comes up higher, you can still step through. It's just easier to get on a scooter than lifting your leg over on a motorcycle. So very easy to get on. I'm about six feet tall and you can see my knee room here is very good. There's good width to the bike as well. And you can see I'm very comfortable. Now I'm on the center stand, I'm a little higher than normal and you can see, "Oh, how do I fit to the ground?" Well, because it's on the center stand, I'm a little bit tippy-toed, but let's just pull it off that for a second. Do that really gently here, trying to stay in the shot.

One of the things people get caught up on is seat height. And you can see if I come all the way back here, I'm kind of tippy-toed here. And people, the only spec that they show for motorcycles when you're comparing for one to the other is the seat height. What they don't talk about is how the seat narrows. If you are shorter than me, when you come to a stop, you're going to sit forward on the seat. Because that seat narrows at the front it allows you to quite easily reach the ground, even flat-footed on both sides. It's not a big problem to ride this if you're a shorter rider. So one benefit to this, you do have a side stand, which we'll use right now, and I'm going to put it back on the center stand for a second. The side stand is nice, we usually tilt the wheel when we use that.

But the center stand is good because I can do a lot of things, including sitting on the back. So the center stand, really easy to put on. A lot of people think the center stand is difficult to use. You've got a really good handle right here, which means you can pull up here just for stability. You put your weight down there and it lifts up. Even though this is a bit of a heavier scooter, it's not a problem for most people to put on the center stand.

Down there, you've got footpegs for your passengers. I'm going to put them both down. Going to hop on the front again here. So again, you can see me sitting here. If I was riding on the back, you come up and higher. Now this is a big benefit on a typical touring motorcycle sitting higher, you don't just have to kind of lean left and right to see past the driver.

You can generally see over the driver as well unless they're significantly taller than you, but you get a good seated position. Again, even as a six-footer, I fit fine here, the driver would fit fine there. I've got the handles here to hold onto. I've got the driver to hold onto. And with this extra cargo area with the backrest, I know that when it's accelerating, I'm not going anywhere. So when the bike leans in the corner, this is going to guide me, tell me where I need to lean. And it's very easy to not distract the driver, because on a regular motorcycle without the backrest, they might lean the bike and you don't know it's leaning. Whereas here you can feel what's going on with the bike right on the backrest, which is why this is a great accessory if you're going to take a passenger.

Now let's look at the cargo space, which is in here, in here, and in there. The first cargo thing I want to show you is this little clip right here. It's such a simple little clip. If you slide in from this side, you have, the circle separates, and you can hold something like a purse, a grocery bag, some other thing between your legs. It's common on so many scooters and it is available in this one. So you can have something sit down here and also be secured between your legs and up on this hook here. So it's something simple and it allows you to sort of have a diverse set of things.

Down here is where you fill the fuel. There's electronic thing that pops that up, so that's not... It looks like a panel, it's not a storage panel. And then you just press this in and you've got this little glove box and that's really all it is. You can put a little bit of your phone in here, little spaces here there. There's also a space in this door here. The point is you're going to store your wallet, your phone, your very basic stuff right here. And you could store gloves if you wanted to ride with gloves on this. But that's kind of all of that's useful for.

Then what you do is you press the button on top of here and on the handlebar and you can open the seat. So pressing this button here with your left hand allows that seat to unlatch and then you can open it up. Once it's unlatched, it lifts easily from the back. It's the very lightweight seat. You could fit two helmets in here. I would go with half-face helmets if that's what your goal is. If you want a full face helmet, you're going to want to get the back rack, which we're going to show you in a second. But a lot of gear can be held in here. So keep in mind when you're riding, your helmets are out of here and all the gear you want to take with you can sit down here. When you're not riding, you can take that gear out. If you keep it in a little bag, it makes it super simple. And then you can put your helmets in here and you don't have to carry your helmets with you everywhere you go.

If you're looking for more space, I really do recommend this accessory. You just stick the key in like that. You turn it to the right and the top pops up. You do have some bungee straps here, which you can unclip to keep something in here. Keep it kind of nice and settled. If you turn in the key the opposite way, it will actually unlatch from the scooter and you can take it with you by taking that handle there. So we're going to leave it latched onto the scooter, locked onto the bike. But again, you have the ability to take this off with you and take it inside. You can take a little bit of clothes for the weekend or something like that and extra gear, but you can easily take it on and off the scooter. And again, like I said, it gives you that backrest for the passenger, which both gives them some security and helps guide them when you're driving.

So who is this scooter for? Well, Piaggio likes to advertise that urban chic, European stylish kind of thing. That ain't me. But this works very well for someone like me. And I think that's the thing is, if you look at how you may want to ride this, maybe you live here in New Brunswick near Fredericton. You want to go from small town to small town, you want to take a passenger. There just aren't a lot of options in North America for small, efficient, quiet, so that you can hear things around you scooters or motorcycles that can take two people in comfort. And that's what this is.

It's small, it's efficient, it's comfortable, and you can easily take two people. Now, if you don't care about taking two people, this still has a lot of benefit. It's a very comfortable upright riding position with good weather protection that you can ride through town. Maybe you have a lot of hills in your area and you want to get up to speed. Maybe your daily commute includes highway or freeway driving. You want to go on the higher speeds. This can do that for you and can do it in comfort with good protection and good visibility. And again, one of the benefits of a scooter, those quieter engines, they always talk about loud pipes, save lives. Well, there's a lot of debate about that. One of the things I like about driving quieter motorcycles means you can hear all the things around you.

You can hear traffic approaching you. You can hear all kinds of things, including even nature, sometimes when you're stopped at stoplights or other things. So it's pretty cool to ride something like this that's easy to own, great on fuel, super fun to drive. And because this is far more motorcycle-like you can really get into the turns a little bit more and have some more fun with it.

So there's a vehicle that may work for you here in North America. And if it does, check out Jim Gilbert's PowerSports here in Fredericton, New Brunswick. This is absolutely a destination store. You got to come see them in person. They have this scooter, they have all kinds of Piaggio scooters, Vespa scooters, the entire Kawasaki lineup. They are an incredible store with incredible people here. It's known as Canada's huggable car dealer. Their customer service is absolutely top notch. They will take care of you.