Love It: Scooters

“Please walk your bikes.” Those four words greet many would-be-cyclists who attempt to ride through Harvard Yard. Except for the bicyclists who consider following this rule to be simply inconceivable, there is just one choice for legal wheels in Harvard Yard: the Razor scooter.

Many Harvard students have embraced the scooter as their preferred method for zipping around campus. Yet, the fact remains that bikes are faster, skateboards are lighter and more portable, and roller skates are, well, just a large pair of transportation-enhancing shoes. So, why choose the scooter?

First of all, if I had a nickel for every time I heard about someone’s bike getting stolen in Cambridge, you know what I’d have? Probably, like, two bucks.

And of course, we’ve all seen the rows of bikes buried after a blizzard. Metal has to rust at some point, right? In fact, their owners probably just leave the bikes there assuming they’re already dead, but the fact remains that they are probably only mostly dead.

Also, have you seen Boston drivers? I mean, I’ve driven a car around Boston, so that’s a good enough reason to stay off the roads as far as I’m concerned. So, bikes are out. And, despite what you may have heard, I’m here to tell you that scooters are most definitely in.

One Razor-riding undergrad, Ellie M. Cookson ’18, explains her chosen method of transportation. “My scooter allows me to get places quickly, while also being really, really, really ridiculously good-looking,” she says. Who can blame her? After all, it took the scooter-riding, hair-flipping, underwear-removing stylings of Hansel to upstage three-time male model of the year Derek Zoolander.

But what if you want to be really ridiculously good looking, but just aren’t into powering your own scooter? Sure, you could put a motor on a bike—but that’s called a motorcycle, and in case you didn’t know, you need a separate license for that. Zena K. Edosomwan ’17 has taken to the electric scooter, a method of transportation he says “provides a form of liberation.” And at 6’ 9’’, we all know Edosomwan should really be riding a S.O.U.S.–a scooter of unusual size–but I don’t even think they exist.

Jokes aside, there is something inherently nostalgic about watching a classmate speed past on their brightly colored Razor scooter. They remind me of the persistent sunshine in southern California, push-pops, and Play-Doh. That’s a story for another time. But when I need a reminder of sunshine amidst a cloudy Cambridge day, every Harvard scooterer is there to help me out. “As you wish,” they seem to say.