Scoot the Moon

This year’s Mile High Mayhem scooter rally, celebrating a remarkable twelfth anniversary, will be living in the past: With its “Mile High School Musical” theme and four days of events named after a salvo of high-school movies, it’s all about the joy of youth and the call of the carefree spin. It’s also indicative of a national trend toward vintage-only rallies for scooter connoisseurs. “It’s been tough to hold on this long,” says Colin Shattuck of Sportique Scooters, who’s been among the Mayhem elite since the beginning. “We’ve lost a lot of our original organizers, so the focus now is on classic scooters. We get the folks who’ve been toiling to keep these machines running for a long time.”

Not that you can’t scoot along on a newer make: The real objective of Mile High Mayhem is to have a good time, without attracting a swarm of candy-apple rides too big to manage. And to that end, there’ll be plenty of good times, starting with tonight’s Summer Fling party from 6 p.m. to close at Nallen’s, 1429 Market Street. A Porky’s happy hour at La Bohème, a Breakfast Club morning mixer at Billy’s Inn and the culminating Dazed and Confused gymkhana at Tambien are only a sampling of the parties, competitions and excursions scheduled through Sunday, and you can expect to find Shattuck there, probably aboard one of his favorites (a true collector, he hoards a cool dozen in his garage): a two-tone ’60 Lambretta or a white ’74 Vespa Rally 200.

For a complete schedule of events, visit www.milehighmayhem.com.

July 30-Aug. 2, 2009