Any wildhogs out there

Ever since Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy climbed aboard their motorcycles to clean up Madrid, N.M., and cast aside the doldrums of aging in America, a seething restlessness has stirred the populace.

But more than the call of the freedom of the open road that beckoned to the Wild Hogs, the driving force that's pushing more Americans to motorcycle and scooter shops is simply the ever-increasing cost of gasoline.

As one motorcycle shop manager put it: The customers they're seeing today are older Americans tired of paying big bucks to fill their gasoline tank when another form of transportation may cost far less and go the same number of miles.

Lisa Galindo, general manager of Family Powersports in Odessa acknowledged that she's seen more older customers coming into that business looking for something to ride on which they can get 60 to 80 miles per gallon of gasoline.

"They're looking for smaller bore bikes where they can get more miles to a gallon," Galindo said.

In fact, she said, during May and June this year so many people came in asking about high mileage motorcycles that Galindo ordered some scooters to meet that demand.

A lot of those prospective customers, she said, had ridden motorcycles when they were younger and were specifically seeking transportation that would give them more miles to a gallon of gasoline.

Robert Nance, manager of Midland Powersports - which sells Honda-Kawasaki-Suzuki-Polaris - said sales are up 8 to 10 percent just from people coming in looking for something that gets better gas mileage.

"They're tired of paying $75 to fill up their truck when they can fill up a motorcycle for $15 and it goes just as far," Nance said.

High gasoline prices are one of the reasons Steve Chilcoat chose to purchase a Honda Rebel 250 about a week ago.

"I was spending $100 just to fill up my truck," Chilcoat said. So the truck driver who hauls fuels for Midland 66 purchased the Honda Rebel 250 and can fill its 3.9 gallon tank for $13 to $14, he said.

That's becoming a more common reason for customers to go into Midland Powersports. Nance said he's seeing new customers come in every day and most are interested in small to mid-size motorcycles. Nance noted that his shop doesn't carry small scooters.

Galindo said her sales have been particularly strong for motorcycles with engines of 750 cubic centimeters and smaller. Engines of that size typically get 60 to 80 miles per gallon of gasoline.

Will the trend toward riding fuel-efficient motorcycles or scooters really be the start of a revolution to reduce the nation's consumption of oil? Or is it simply a temporary fascination fueled by the longing of aging Americans to take back a measure of their lost freedom from the Del Fuegos?

Well, as Chilcoat put it, "I'm just giggling every time I ride past a gas station."