Here's a fad if ever there was one - but hey, it's eco-friendly, and an irresistible way to beat city traffic blues. The scooter is poised for a comeback this summer among discerning adults and consenting children. If the rain holds off, that is.
Rollerbades? Too cumbersome to put on and take off. Skateboards? Very much a noisy boy's toy, with not enough control in city crowds, plus there's all that picking up and putting down again . . .
Less cumbersome than a bike for short journeys, the new Micro Skate - lightweight, portable, foldable, compact - promises a new kind of mobility, with a back-wheel brake for control and a steering column that offers balance and support. You'll get across town faster than the most aggressive power-walker and won't have to chain it to a dodgy drainpipe. Just fold it up like an umbrella and put it under your arm.
Designed in Switzerland and already popular in Germany and France, you'll see them increasingly this summer in European cities. In New York, you find them propped up beside restaurant tables. In London, when we asked a head waiter if we could check our scooter in with our coats, he took off on it, zooming around to greet his customers. "Service will be extra fast tonight!" he shrieked, and the entire evening took on a certain music hall quality.
We were in London when we first spotted them, fresh from a dutiful visit to the Dome and its strident exhibition devoted to the urban transport crisis which shows proposals for everything from electric cars to motorised trainers (don't ask). Faced with the prospect of wearing wired runners, scooters seem infinitely preferable in the save-the-planet stakes.
In London, there are miles of fantastic surfaces to scoot around on: slick train platforms, marble-floored offices and public buildings, and tarmacadamed pavements. In Amsterdam, the network of bike lanes already accommodates a variety of scooters. In Irish cities, however, the obsession with cobblelocking might prove to be a real, em, stumbling block. Difficult to look cool trundling across those new cobblestones in Temple Bar, for example. The Micro Skate is not perfect, so if you get hooked on scootering, you should check out some of the larger-wheel varieties. The Micro wheels need to be replaced after about three months if used daily. Your route needs to be smoothly paved and rain-soaked pavements are hardly advisable. One sceptic worries about its potential effect on her quadriceps - would you not develop fierce muscle in one leg and not the other? (You'd have to learn to kick with both feet, so to speak).
So measure all that up against the benefits: speed, exercise and best of all, an inevitable laugh or two. People may sneer as you glide by. More often, be prepared for strangers to ask: "Hey, where did you get that? Can I have a go?"
We tracked down the Micro Skate in Limerick, Cork and Dublin at Champion Sports (£99). S.F. Cody's in Arnotts stocks the Micro Skate, other self-propelled scooters and motorised "GoPeds".