Slidescooter taking the piste by storm

Take your average, everyday 50cc scooter: a practical but ultimately boring vehicle. Now bolt on a front ski and stick 300 screws in the rear tire: suddenly, it's scary, dangerous and fun. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Slidescooter.



The product of sheer Italian genius (which sadly doesn't extend do video soundtracks), the Slidescooter was dreamt up by RiminiMoto, otherwise purveyors of fine Honda Cub accessories. Their approach really isn't more complicated than the above. The snowboard-like front track uses a ski-like (we're going to go out on a limb and say that these are actually real snowboards and skis cut down to fit) keel to provide some directional stability. It's connected to the front forks by a support that bolts in right where the axle would normally go.

There's six different front tracks on offer, designed to suit individual tastes or performance needs. There's even an all-carbon version for serious racers or an extra wide one for deep powder.

No modifications are made to the rear suspension or swingarm; it's merely a case of fitting an appropriately screwed tire. The rest is up to the operator and his or her ability to put that 3-5bhp to use.

So a simple conversion and probably one you don't need to pay Slidescooter $650 for. Having said that, the result looks insanely fun. Scooters are amongst the easiest vehicles to ride in the world; they have CVT (read: automatic) transmissions, low centers of gravity and very light weights. You can drop them, run them into things and generally beat the crap out of them and they keep going. Which is good, because that's exactly what you're going to do once you take one of these onto the snow.

More sophisticated snow motorcycle conversions like the 2Moto or AD Boivin Explorer use fancy linkages up front to guarantee good corner carving, while out back they use complicated systems capable of mounting a drive track well forward on the machine for traction. The Slidescooter uses none of these and is probably much less capable and much more fun as a result. Who needs serious performance when you can piss off skiers with such a beautifully simple device?

Like the remarkably similar Chrysler Snorunner, we'd question the ability of the Slidescooter to traverse anything more difficult than groomed snow. Still, we're dying to try one. I think I feel a winter project coming on. Anyone have a Honda Ruckus they're bored of?

Slidescooter via Bolty.net