A ride up the Pacific Coast Highway is cool no matter what. For an East Coaster like me, one has to jump at any opportunity to see the Pacific. And while a scooter is certainly no motorcycle, thankfully, it's no car either.

Southern California has the reputation for weather as close to perfect as it can get and today is no exception. The hip, retro architecture of the Long Beach airport only enhances the L.A. mood I already feel myself slipping into - this may turn out to be OK after all.

Think fast surfer boy wannabe, you just got here. What should have been a short shuttle ride to the Piaggio USA headquarters displayed one of Los Angeles' shortcomings, traffic. Gridlock on the 405 at 2:00 p.m. and I'm supposed to - gulp, ride a scooter in this? My guide for the afternoon is Piaggio USA's Director of Operations and Technical Services, Rino Alessandrini. After a quick technical briefing on the X9, we suit up and head to Santa Barbara.

Engine and Transmission
Any prejudicial feelings I may have had toward the X9 and scooters in general quickly disappeared as soon as we hit the 405. This machine is fun and oh so easy to ride. Just roll on the throttle and off you go. The 460cc, liquid-cooled engine puts down a respectable 39hp delivered seamlessly through the automatic 'twist and go' transmission. This brand-new Piaggio 4-stroke mill is the first in a new line known as the MASTER family (Multi-valve Advanced Super Torque Engine Range). Designed to deliver exceptional power and torque via electronic engine control and fuel injection, the four-valve SOHC single does an admirable job scooting the X9 down the road. The claimed top speed of 98 miles per hour was not quite achieved on this day but I have little doubt that it is capable of such a figure. Hey, I was just following Rino. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The aforementioned 'twist and go' transmission will always be a bone of contention among us motorcycle purists. We seem to like our clutches and our gears. Automatics are for cars. Yeah, yeah, whatever - in heavy stop-and-go traffic, I'll take a scooter any time. There, I said it. I feel liberated, and your clutch hand will, too, after an hour of not shifting gears 50 times in three miles. The bottom line is that the transmission works well. You do give up a bit on acceleration and roll-on speed, but the ease and fun factor more than compensate for these losses.