Heck on wheels

If you plan to visit Kalamazoo, Michigan anytime, watch out for the two-wheeled terrors that gather on Memorial Day. From the Twin Cities Pioneer Press:

Heck on wheels
Booze. Nudity. Exploding road kill. Swarms of exhaust- and noise-spewing two-wheeled vehicles racing around town, raising heck.

Sounds like just another motorcycle rally, except that the gangs of bikers who converge on this western Michigan town every Memorial Day weekend to race, carouse and annoy the local population all have brought rides they can pedal when they run out of gas.

Welcome to the Sturgis of mopeds.

Mopeds, in case you don't know, are cheap, pokey, puny, lightly regulated motorbikes that you can also pedal like a bicycle to get started, which also is useful when the engine quits, or when the hills get too steep for the little 50 cubic centimeter motor.

They enjoyed a brief spasm of popularity in the United States about 30 years ago, thanks to an oil embargo and an energy crisis. JC Penney even sold a model once.

But even back then, they were a bit of a joke. If motorcycles are macho Marlon Brando in "The Wild One," and scooters are romantic Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday," then mopeds are nerdy Jimmy Carter in a cardigan sweater lecturing a wasteful nation to turn down its thermostats.

So, no surprise that when gas prices went back down, the machines were relegated to the back of the garage by owners too embarrassed to be seen riding them.

But now that gas prices are back up, mopeds are back, too.

In the past few years, the dinky bikes that can get 100 miles to the gallon but only go 30 miles per hour are enjoying a weird little renaissance as hundreds of young riders are recovering, restoring, riding and racing vintage mopeds older than themselves.

They've created a subculture of the dorky cool, turning the dinky motorbikes into souped up, pimped out machines, going on cross-continental rides and forming chapters of what they call the Moped Army (www.mopedarmy.com, motto: "Swarm and Destroy").

This is the 13th year for this event. Sounds like a lot of fun. The Moped Army website is a hoot too -- lots of people not taking themselves seriously...