The Moped Army
A tribute to heck on two underpowered wheels. Tweet
Highlights
Mopeds looked like a bicycle but sounded like a bicycle with a joker stuck in the spokes.
Now the moped is making a comeback: The Moped Army. Like a gang of Heck's Angels in hoodies.
The great thing about them was that they were really dangerous.
It was one of the most annoying puns of the ’60s: Born to be mild, an obvious play on the title of Mars Bonfire’s great 1968 biker anthem “Born to be Wild” recorded by Steppenwolf. For millions of kids, it was the song playing in their heads as they attached playing cards to the frame of their Schwinns and roared off helmet-free with the roar of a dozen raspberries in their ears, like the soundtrack to a heroic fail.
It looked like a bicycle but sounded like a bicycle with a joker stuck in the spokes.
The equivalent, especially for European teens, was the unassuming but noisy moped. It looked like a bicycle but sounded like a bicycle with a joker stuck in the spokes. The great thing about them was that they were really dangerous. You pedaled them to get them going, then, at about 2 mph, stupidity did the rest. You could drive into a stone wall at 15 mph, as the present writer once did, and do enough damage that you could retail the scars and bandages as a “dumped-my-bike” story for months, or until they removed the cast.
Now the moped is making a comeback: The Moped Army. Like a gang of Heck’s Angels in hoodies. If your window’s open, you can probably hear them! Here’s the backstory for all those backfires:
