There is such a thing as the ’spirit of the scooter’. It belongs in European films of the sixties. Nobody has looked so cool since then. There was a naivety, an uber-cool in the air. The ’spirit of the scooter’ can still be seen on the streets of Rome, Paris and London.
If you squint you can see Jean-Paul, or Paul-Jean, or Jean-Paul-Jean, with a Gauloise hanging out of his mouth, and nothing on his head but shades. The ’spirit of the hoverboard’ is the Vespa.
How times have changed. Smoking is dangerous. Helmets are, thankfully, compulsory. But Vespas are still cool. One self balancing scooter manufacturer has realised this. So hats off, or should that be helmets off, to Ninebot.
Those very clever people at Ninebot have four models, designed to appeal to four different kinds of customer. There’s the Volt – which looks like a racing scooter; the Metro – a real shoppers self balancing scooter; the Retro – pure sixties in flavour; and the top of the range, Classic – again, Vespa-type styling but with extra shine.
For the technical out there, the Ninebot have a 2000-watt motor. As with all self balancing scooters, they cost virtually nothing to charge. Three of the models have a range of 30-35 miles on one charge. Inexplicably, the Retro version only has a range of 15 miles. For that reason alone, we’d avoid the Retro. But there’s more than enough choice in the other models.
The Ninebot’s seem smaller than some other models, which is no bad thing, as it means they’re easy to handle.
To sum up, the NineBot’s range is fantastic value for money. It would be hard to find another self balancing scooter with the same spec for the price.
