Mo better 'peds

kids today eh? With their mopeds and their knifecriming you in the face, C'uh! Of course most of them wouldn't even recognise a 'traditional' moped. Clue's in the name, a Moped has pedals. You may have seen one or two in the seventies... perhaps a maiden aunt on the way to the library - the modest motor allowing her to potter along, the pedals can add a little for the hills as well as being the starter mechanism. They have a design language somewhere between bicycle and motorbike - some lean more one way than the other, I suppose depending on which direction you're approaching from informs your preferences.

Of course europhiles will know what a moped is - they swarmed through the streets of Belgium and France, and wherever there was table football a louch lothario on a tuned 'ped would practice his smoking and gallic shrugs. They even flourished in Italy where the scooter was king, and there between 1946 and 1948 Ducati made the Cucciolo (puppy).

In 2005, Mark Savory and Bill Johnson decided to create a modern interpretation of the Cucciolo, using a 48cc 2-stroke single cylinder and the frame from a Schwinn single-speed pushbike. I think it's rather beautiful.