1000-mile electric scooter tour: Turn left at Dublin | PART 2

Last week we brought you part one of  ‘Turn left at Dublin’. a 1000-mile charity ride around the coastline of Ireland.

Raising money for Macmillan, Irish rover Niall (and his sidekick, John) rode two classic scooters around his homeland, powered by electricity. You can still donate to the charity here.

Now the ride is over, the Series 2 Lambretta will be refitted with its reconditioned original engine.

Niall tells us how the rest of the trip went…

Scootin’ through scenic Doolin

Day 4: Westport

Up late the next day again, those Irish festivities threatened to derail us but we held firm. After our daily morning routine of Instagram video and then social media photos we hit the road. The social feeds let people know a live report of our movements. We got many offers for cups of tea and a charge from lads along the way but alas we just had that ‘keep-moving’ bug.

It’s the joy of the ride that makes you want to keep on trucking. The scenery, the curvy roads, reminds me of that theme tune from the 1970s program ‘The Littlest Hobo’, you know with the dog that kept moving from place to place after he’d fixed everyone’s problems… “On the road again, I’m on the road again, so good to be back on the road again.” Anyway… 

Niall and John on the harbour in Wexford

Day 5: Bundoran

It pissed down, relentless, the sideways stuff in your face. We’d been practising the art of conservative riding. That’s trying to eke as much mileage out of our medium 31 ah batteries as possible. The key is to just have a blip of the throttle and try not to use your brakes if at all possible, “The Devil’s pedal and Lucifer’s lever” as John called them. Ease away from take off and just let the motor gain its speed and then sit on that blip of the throttle at your required speed. It’s a sweet spot which is 30-40mph on the roads we were on. John actually got 45 miles from our medium battery. Which is quoted as having a 30-35 mile range on our website. That was on a slow road though. The kind of roads that have grass growing up the middle of them, oh yeah, really small ‘F roads’ I call them but good range that day.

Doing an Irish jig in Galway

John’s theory

It’s all relative to the laws of physics, heavy-handed = less range, steep hills, weight, headwinds, these are all range reducers. The same laws of physics apply to petrol engines. John can be really boring sometimes with his laws of physics, I say damn the laws of physics!! I’m going to twist my throttle as much as I want! That’s why John achieved a better range than me throughout the trip.

Peace shattered

it bucketed down (as they say in Ireland) lots of rain, we just kept a steady pace. If we were on a dual carriageway we stayed in the slow lane, drivers were courteous enough to give us our space. The halfway point today was Derry to see my old scootering pal Bof’s who met us on the road in on a very noisy Zundapp Bella auto engine thing ( sorry Bof’s ). Great engineering build but very noisy, our tranquillity was shattered riding along. He let pedestrians know he was back in town and that sports pipe roared down the road as we glided silently along behind him.

Derry

More tea and stew this time and another battery charge while we had the Derry tour using our spare battery as the other batteries charged up at Bof’s house. Cue the photos and videos in front of the “You are now entering free Derry” mural, down by the Peace Bridge for a quick Instagram video and of course the special visit to the Derry Girls Mural. Cool, we do like a good mural in the North.

Giant’s Causeway

The final destination that day after the midday charge was the top of Ireland, well nearly the top of Ireland, Portstewart, Giants Causeway, Bushmills Distillery and Damian “Studs” McGill’s house. He’s my good friend and adviser to all the things I do wrong, or constructive criticism as he calls it.

More festivities ensued and drunken constructive criticism of the electric conversion which is water off a duck’s back to me and John these days. But we might have a little cry to ourselves in the toilets afterwards. Not together, separately. Although I can’t speak for John.

Day 7 – Armagh City

we really needed a rest from these festivities, and it was my home town next, Armagh City. Heading south again, the weather’s lovely at last! A pleasant surprise awaited me on the road into Armagh. There to greet me were a combined contingent of the local scooter clubs, the Armagh City SC and the  Hope and Glory SC. I rode into my home town with a convoy of scooter riders down the main street and stopped off at the town centre for a catch-up and chat, a very proud moment for me. Cheers boys it was much appreciated. They weren’t very impressed with our drinking abilities that night though, John and I were shattered.

Local scooterists showing support in Port Stewart

Day 8 – home

Today was a much-needed rest day at my mom’s house, in fact, our first and only mishap or breakdown of the trip. Some idiot (I won’t say who) shut the door on the extension lead cable as the batteries were charging outside in the yard, it popped the lead’s fuse. No real drama though, we just shortened the lead. John also had a battery strap snap, so improvised using a bungee cord until repaired properly but that was it. There were no breakdowns, the scooters had sailed along nicely all the way around and tomorrow was the last day.

Customs House, Dublin

Day 9 – Dublin

The final day. Our run back down to Dublin from Armagh was a 90-mile trip, we knew our limitations so we were supremely confident to do the run with all the battery power we had on board in one hit. It was a lovely sunny day, what could we learn with today’s trip?

Well since we didn’t need a midday charge-up of the batteries we just thought we’d have a quick stop somewhere for a sandwich and just keep moving. Where better than a petrol station to watch all the suckers handing over loads of money for that awful smelly liquid, and watch them roar off in a puff of smoke… nothing worse than a reformed smoker as they say.

Zero Money spent on fuel

From the offset we offered to pay for our electric charges in the B&Bs and pubs, stop-offs offs etc. but it was always dismissed (it worked out to be 1 euro per full charge) so all the way round we spent zero on fuel. Of course, there is the price of the batteries and they are not cheap but if well looked after they can easily last over five years or more depending on use. Over 1000 charges per battery it’s still a big overall saving.

Think of it as paying for your fuel upfront. That’s another sticking point we can’t get over, the fact we are actually paying for our fuel in advance. Put it another way, would you walk into a car showroom and ask for five-plus years of free fuel included in the price of the car?

Dublin and the journey’s end, so we made it back to Dublin with battery power to spare. We cruised into the city centre and drove around the sights before finally stopping off at our hotel near the ferry Port. One last night of festivities with some old friends and we were done, mission completed, journey’s end. What a ride.

It doesn’t end there though, having done such a trip and completed it on this electric converted 1960s Lambretta – the very same Lambretta is now being reunited with its original two-stroke motor. The engine has been reconditioned and is being slotted straight back into the unmolested chassis with minimum fuss. Even the gear cables and wiring harness are still in place. No classic scooters were harmed in the making of this whatever this is/was. We’ll show you the finished result in the next few weeks.

Words and photos: Niall McCourt