Wheels and deals

Not all the fads that come back seem destined to last. The hoola hoop, bell bottoms and pogo sticks had all seen their prime 20 years ago and thankfully haven't lasted more than a few months in the last five years. Two fads that have survived the yesteryear tag though, are skateboarding and scooters.

It started with a narrow platform to place your feet on and two wheels at the bottom. Today, the variations are plenty. From steel wheels to urethane wheels, loose ball bearings to suspensions, flat pieces of metal and oak to laminated boards. Scooters and skateboards have stood the test of time.

Titus Dittman's story started 23 years ago, when, as a sports student at a university, he had plans to perfect the art of skateboarding and be good enough to teach it to others. From that dream spawned one of the biggest skateboard empires in most parts of the world and certainly all over Germany.

For the scooter, it was as incongruous as could be. It started with a Swiss banker, too lazy to walk the half mile down the road to the nearest McDonalds. It moved on to kids queuing up for hours to try out the new gadget. It spent six years hibernating in a garage. And right now, Wim Ouboter's micro scooter is the invention everybody's talking about.

Why the disparity between scooters and skateboards? Aren't they both just toys for boys, something to prove their skills on?

"That's just my point when I market the micro scooter," says Ouboter. "When you see people on skateboards 90 per cent of the time, or more, they're always boys between the ages of 13 and 21. Whereas with micro scooters, it's totally unisex. Neither your age nor gender matters."

In fact, the two wheeler micro scooter's main target is the female consumer market. The two wheeler is sleeker and more practical for a lot of women. The three-wheeler scooter, is where the boys step in. "It's got to do with the design, more than anything else," says Ouboter.

Titus, the father of the skateboard scene interrupts when he points out the difference between the scooter and the skateboard. "The scooter is a means of transport, an easy way to travel to and from one destination to the other. It's not a sport. It's not a dare. It doesn't give you a buzz. Skateboarding is an expression. Kids growing up often feel the need to be creative and to do something unique, different, even dangerous at times. There's nothing that takes you through the roller coaster of growing up better than a best friend. Skateboards are that best friend for lots of teenage boys. It's not just a regular sport, it's pure emotion. It's the thrill of doing wheelies and speeding past people and flying through the air with the board beneath your feet and you as the master.

"I'm sure there must be a few people who do use the skateboard as a means of transport, but that's not the purpose I have in mind when I build my skateboards. It's a sport that's been around for the last 40 years. From the streets to skate parks, and wheelies to heel flips, the skateboard is passion, fervour and a pure love of a sport for the sake of it."

Keeping in mind that the micro scooter is just a year-and-a-half old, Ouboter believes that given time, despite the fact that the scooter is aimed primarily as a means of transport, it will evolve into a sport of its own.

Probably the biggest market of the micro scooter is Japan, where despite a vast number of impostors on the scene, the scooter still sells over 8,000 models a day.

Initially just a poorer cousin of the bicycle, when Ouboter first reinvented the scooter, the only thought behind it was to create something that's a mobility tool, both for the younger and older generation. Thinner than its predecessors and sporting a practical collapsible frame for portability, today's incarnation is one of the most practical forms of transport.

The scooters are made from light