Scooter Accessories - Scooter Smartphone Holders & Adapters

ac·ces·so·ry - noun - something added to something else to increase its usefulness, utility, or aesthetics.

They way we communicate today has changed in ways that Jules Verne or H.G. Wells could never have dreamed of; rocketing forth in a few short decades from the Western Union telegraph to the Nokia cellphone. We have become so used to our convenient gadgets that many folks today would be totally lost without their Smartphones, tablets, PDAs, and other portable electronics. For many of those with mobility issues, today's mobile phone is their lifeline to the world. Monster Scooter Parts recently expanded our scooter accessories section to include a growing selection of Smartphone holders and adapters that allow the user to mount their personal devices right there on the handlebar tiller or armrest frame. Having a cell phone holder on your scooter means you can have your display right where you want it. We offer several models of Samsung or iPhone holders and adapters to best fit your needs.

Universal Grip Smartphone Holder
Our Universal Grip Smartphone Holder will mount just about anywhere you want it to. Just slip off the handlebar grip, slide it on, and tighten it up. Adjust it to the size of your Smartphone or iPod player and you are ready to roll.

Flexible Gooseneck Smartphone Holder
The Flexible Gooseneck Smartphone Holder is one of our most popular best-selling items! Instead of a clamp, you put this nifty cell phone holder's tab beneath your mirror's threaded shank and re-tighten the mirror. This makes for an extra 60 seconds of work, but the results are worth it. You can adjust the holder into just about any position you need.

Weatherproof Handlebar Mount Smartphone Holder
If you are not afraid of a little rain, this Weatherproof Handlebar Mount Smartphone Holder is for you. Your mobile phone goes into a zippered case that mounts onto your handlebar. We currently offer these Smartphone chargers in three sizes to fit the most common Samsung and iPhone models.

USB Charging Adapter
Our Alvey brand USB Charging Adapter must be one of the most truly useful little items in our inventory. A perfect example of beauty in simplicity, this adapter will charge your electronic devices directly from your scooter or power chair's charging port. The unique space-saving XLR to USB design will quickly recharge the batteries that provide the power that your necessary electronics need.

Portable USB Battery Charger for Smartphones & Tablets
If you have ever lost power in your mobile phone or tablet and had no where to plug it into, here is a product that you will be glad that you had. Our portable USB battery charger for Smartphones and tablets is also known as a flash charger or USB charger. This lightweight little powerhouse can add more than 50 hours of use time to your Smartphone, tablet, PDA, or MP3 player.

"Nearly" Universal Scooter Cup & Drink Holder
The "Nearly" universal scooter cup holder is one of those rare product items that comes along and makes us sit up and take notice. With all of the different scooter drink holder designs for this scooter model or that power chair brand, the Nearly Universal Cup Holder is much different... it's nearly universal! You can mount this scooter cup holder on just about any and every seated device with a relatively flat armrest top that you can wrap the Velcro straps around. Just the right cup holder for just about every brand and model of electric mobility scooters, power chairs, wheelchairs, and more.

The Mother of Invention
It was the Greek philosopher Plato who said that necessity is the mother of invention. He said it two thousand years before the discovery of the printing press, steam and electric power, gasoline, computer chips or how to waste time on Facebook showing the entire world pictures of your dog. Despite a few minor inconveniences like famine, the Peloponnesian War, or the bubonic plague, the ancient times of Plato's day had to have been far simpler than ours. The basic necessities of life; food, clothing, shelter, and companionship have not changed. But the speed, efficiency, and convenience of gratification has made our world a totally different place. Great leaps in technology means that civilization itself seems to reinvent itself with every new generation.

I once drove every mile from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, coast to coast. And I did it without using a GPS. In the recent past every State Highway Department would give out free official state road maps at their rest stops, but those big folding paper maps are now going the way of the 8-track tape player and the glass-plate camera. Back when I was a kid, (about a million years ago) I used to be able to spend hours laying on the floor looking at my world atlas and maps from places that I had never been and let my imagination take me there. Having a professional navigator for a father meant that I may have picked up some of this just through paternal osmosis. But now I wonder if today's child will ever mentally travel the globe just by looking at the GPS function on a Smartphone, and it makes me a little sad to think that they probably won't.

For more information on Smartphone Holders, Adapters, & Accessories, or any other replacement and accessory scooter parts, visit the experts at Monster Scooter Parts.

www.monsterscooterparts.com/

Scooter Accessories - Lights & Lightning Bugs

ac·ces·so·ry - noun - something added to something else to increase its usefulness, utility, or aesthetics.

Monster Scooter Parts has recently expanded our selections of accessory add-ons and we now offer a slew of aftermarket mirrors, mobile Smartphone holders, universal cup holders, squeaky horns, ring-a-ding bike bells, and a plethora of other useful, utilitarian, or otherwise aesthetically necessary scooter items that you may not have known about until now. In among all these boxes of beauty and crates of creative customizationism, are a bunch of different accessory lights made to mount on handlebars, spokes, valve stems, or just about anywhere else that today's fashionable biker or scooterist sees fit to stick 'em.

Accessory Bike & Scooter Lights
Adding lights to a scooter or electric bicycle does one of two things; it lets you see better, or it better allows others to see you. Unlike the big old chrome headlights found on the classic cruiser bikes of years past, today's bike and scooter headlights are more often an LED flashlight. We even have a Universal Multi-Function Handlebar Mount Clamp if you want to attach a flashlight of your own.

The TwistLit Light
Among the handiest offerings in our catalog are the LED TwistLit lights. Available in your choice of white or red, the TwistLits' claim to fame is their unique attachment. Instead of a screw-down clamp, these little flashers use four wrap-around flexible arms or "tentacles" to tenaciously grip the handlebar or frame.

But it is the safety factor of the bike being more visible that delights the kids and comforts the adults. The visual flourish of a spinning kaleidoscope of color means that there is no mistaking a rider in the dark. Monster Scooter Parts has several varieties of these flashing, spinning, revolving riots of light.

LED Spoke Lights
A couple of colored spoke lights is an excellent addition to get the rider noticed after the sun sets. Perhaps not as flamboyant as some of our other illuminating offerings, a good pair of rolling spoke lights will still get peoples' attention. Monster Scooter Parts has these safety enhancing accessories in several colors and there is no law that states you must stick to just one.

Lightning Bugs or Fireflies?
So what do you call those beautiful little flying beetles that light up the summer nights with their flashing yellow-green abdomens? Whether you refer to them as fireflies or lightning bugs says a little about where you grew up, but both terms are equally correct. In honor of these amazing little bio-luminescent insects, the term "firefly" has become the generic name for those motion-activated valve cap (or valve stem) lights that make a spinning bicycle wheel become a glowing ring of fire.

Our Lightening Bug and Fireflies are closely related models of valve cap lights. The Lightning Bug bike & scooter light flashes as it spins, the colors and patterns continuously changing in an explosion of joyous illumination. The Firefly gives a constant glow and is available in your choice of colors. Either way, these unique little valve cap bike light models make a great bike or scooter accessory.

The Ubiquitous Non-Conformist
We live in a time of personalizing and customization. As the big wide world shrinks into the global village, our options grow by inverse proportion. The current fashions of the hour may dictate the consumers' must-have wants, but we never want the exact same thing as our neighbor. I love the saying (with a little dash of irony) that everyone just has to be a non-conformist like everyone else! I may have the exact same new electronic gizmo as all of my friends, but my new gizmo has a day-glo paisley faux leather carrying case while all my friends carry their cases in neon pink with purple polka-dots. We celebrate our uniqueness while wrapped in the safety of our anonymity.

Our selection of add-on accessory bike bike and scooter lights reflects our need for personalization with the additional benefit of enhanced safety. Be seen, be safe, but above all be who you are.

For more information on Scooter Accessory Lights, or any other replacement and accessory scooter parts, visit the experts at Monster Scooter Parts.

www.monsterscooterparts.com/

Razor Scooter Battery Packs and a Cultural Icon

One of Monster Scooter Parts' most requested product categories are the many Razor scooter battery packs that we have available for every Razor electric scooter, dirt bike, and go-kart. We sell a lot of these batteries; it's what we do. Our little 7 Ah & 9 Ah Razor Pocket Mod battery packs have been some of our very best sellers for quite some time, an indication of the model's popularity with the tens of thousands of preteen girls experiencing the joy of cruising along on their very first powered vehicle. It will be another ten years or so before they have to grow up, get a job, and start buying their own gasoline, so let them enjoy it while the good times last.

Our Razor Scooter Battery Packs
The Razor brand name and electric scooter is almost synonymous. Over the last few years Razor has offered a wide range of electric powered scooters and other types of recreational battery operated fun-machines like their dirt bikes, go-karts, and others. Unlike some more seasonal items, our Razor 24 volt battery packs fly off of our warehouse shelves all year around; and the same story with the Razor 36 volt battery packs used on the Razor MX500 and MX650 Dirt Rocket electric dirt bikes.

We usually offer a couple of options for these Razor 24 volt battery packs. Most of the electric scooter models that use a 7 Ah system will greatly benefit by having 9 Ah batteries substituted. The 9 Ah versions don't use up any more space than their 7 Ah siblings, but can generate as much as a 28 percent longer running time before needing a recharge. This "runtime" is the electric equivalent of an internal combustion engine's gas tank; the longer the runtime, or larger the tank, the longer the distance between recharge or fill-up.

We also give our customers the option of ordering their 36 volt and 24 volt battery packs with or without the wire harness and connector. By the time a battery pack has been run down and recharged so many times that it needs replaced, the wiring is usually just as run down, corroded, or otherwise in equal need of replacement. We make the process easy by sending along the wiring harness with the batteries. Of course you can order the "No Harness" option, but you will need to re-use your existing wires and connectors. You will end up reconnecting your old wiring to the batteries by either soldering or using tab (aka "spade") connectors. Of course for the best results, we recommend that you buy the complete battery pack with the harness. Just let us know which of these options you want when you place your battery order and we will get you what you need.

The Iconic Razor Pocket Mod
Any discussion of Razor electric scooters brings you back to the iconic little Razor Pocket Mod electric scooter. This innovative Razor scooter design has been one of the most successful electric toys to ever scoot along the sidewalk. Taking its inspiration from the classic Euro-scooters of days past, the Razor Pocket Mod has introduced a generation of kids to scooter culture through their love for their little Pocket Mod scooters; many of them will grow into real street-legal motor scooter riders as they reached adulthood. Part of the current acceptance of gas powered scooters as an alternate mode of transport for today's stylish urban commuters just may have part of its origin in the Razor Pocket Mod many of these young adults has just a few years before.

The Razor Pocket Mod scooters have been produced in a variety of names and colors including the Bistro (in Mint), the Bella (Pink), the Betty (Purple), the Daisy (a Magenta version sold through Toys"R"Us), the Hannah Montana (Purple with stickers), the Kiki (Purple), the Sweet Pea (Pink), and the Vapor (Black). There is even a Hello Kitty version. A slightly larger model, the Razor iMod was designed primarily for adolescents and includes the must-haves every 14-year old girl needs; speakers and an MP3 player dock. After seeing the Pocket Mods's popularity with young girls, Razor produced the Sport Mod, a heavily modified design style aimed more for the boys who liked their sister's Pocket Mod, but wouldn't be caught dead riding a pink anything, especially if that cute little pink anything was tagged with the "Sweet Pea" name. Razor hasn't made me privy to their sales numbers, but I would not be surprised to find out that the Sport Mod wasn't their very best selling scooter. Boys being boys; the Razor marketing team should have known that models like the Dirt Rocket and Dirt Quad might just be better marketed to the gender having a natural affinity towards playing in the dirt.

For all of these different names and colors, these various Pocket Mod models are functionally identical. With a few exceptions such as their wheel assemblies and controllers for example, all of these Pocket Mod scooters use the same internal operating parts. Unlike many other Razor brand electric ride-ons, the Pocket Mod scooters of different production version (from Version 1 up to and past Version 17) use the same Razor Pocket Mod battery and harness. You won't have to dig to deep to find just the right battery or other replacement item for a Pocket Mod, whether a Bistro or a Betty.

The Razor Pocket Mod electric scooter, in all of its colorful varieties, remains a favorite. Monster Scooter Parts offers all of the replacement Razor Pocket Mod parts and other Razor scooter parts to keep these wonderful little icons of modern childhood running at their very best, and zipping along the sidewalks every Saturday morning.

www.monsterscooterparts.com/

Genuine Relics of Scooters Past

A few years ago Monster Scooter Parts bought out the last remaining warehouse stock of spare parts from a formerly well known but now defunct scooter company. Before the container truck rolled up to our door, we didn't know exactly what we were buying, just that what we were buying was the last of it. It was like buying a big truckload of scooter history.

Included in that grab-bag collection of shipping crates were boxes and boxes of safety equipment; gobs of gloves, heaps of helmets, and an utterly copious quantity of Pryme™ Protective Gear elbow and knee guards. These were the old hard cap, BMX style that was marketed to dirt bikers, skateboarders, scooterists, and even break dancers(!) back in the day. These guards are now real treasures; genuine relics of the Polyester Age, and they may be the very last unsold and unused examples of a now discontinued line of Pryme™ Protective Gear elbow and knee guards. When they are all gone they will be gone forever.

These are the all black design and features the hard elbow or knee cap protector, Velcro™ straps, and that cool Pryme™ skull logo. These are still available in the larger sizes, and they will fit most teenagers and adults.

Since then, Monster Scooter Parts has quadrupled in size, and has moved the warehouse 2000 miles from its former location. And we continue to grow as the global leader in the scooter parts trade. We now need the warehouse space more than we need these semi-antique knee guards. But the bad news for us is the good news for the recreational scooterist. Monster Scooter Parts has cut the price down to "almost free" in order to get them out the door.

It should be noted that these elbow and knee guards are unworn and unused, but they have been sitting in various open warehouse bins for a decade or more. They are in perfect condition, but they may have collected a bit of dust on them over the years. We guarantee them as perfect, just not perfectly clean.

The days of break dancing (i.e., spinning around on your head and flopping about like a freshly hooked flounder on a fishing pier) may be safely consigned to the garbage bin of ancient history, but recreational scootering has never been more popular. Whether you get your kicks on a kick scooter or on a BMX dirt track, a pair of these brand-new-but-old elbow and knee guards from Monster Scooter Parts may just be the perfect accouterments to your style.

www.monsterscooterparts.com/

Changing a Scooter Wheel Bearing

Stop and Get Your (Scooter) Bearings
One category of scooter parts that almost flies off of the Monster Scooter Parts warehouse shelves is the humble scooter bearing in all of its size variations. Just about anything with "scooter" in its name will roll on bearings, and almost anything that rolls on those bearings will need new ones sooner or later. We have scooter wheel bearings for everything from kids' kick scooters and bearings for recreational scooters to bearings for motor scooters. Somewhere in the middle are our bearings for mobility scooters and power chairs. Most of these are (other than size) functionally identical, and the same size scooter wheel bearing might be found on the front wheel of a little stand-up electric scooter, or the caster assembly of a heavy duty 6-wheel electric power wheelchair.

Changing a scooter bearing does not have to be an intimidating experience, and anyone with a rubber mallet, two old wrench sockets, and a few minutes time can do it.

Removing & Installing Scooter Wheel Bearings
A well-made, correctly assembled, wheel hub and wheel bearing assembly on anything larger than a skateboard should be a little more than just a snug fit. The perfect fit would be tight enough to keep from coming apart at inopportune times, yet not so jammed together that it takes a chisel or sledge hammer to separate the two parts.

Lubrication
Often a little common household penetrating oil applied to the seam between the hub and the bearing case will (if allowed to sit for a bit) make life a lot easier for anyone trying to force a worn old bearing from its accustomed home. When inserting a new scooter bearing, a little white lithium grease on the outer case will help slide a new scooter wheel bearing into place. The emphasis here is on little; almost any more than a thin film is superfluous and will be scraped off by the tight fit.

The Laws of Physics
Heat expands matter and cold contracts. We all learned this in Junior High School science class. So if you stick your bearings in the freezer for an hour or so, they will shrink just a tiny bit. If practical, you can warm up the wheel hub in hot water for a while. If the law of physics take its course, your scooter bearing will be a tad smaller in circumference, and your wheel hub just a smidgen larger than they were at room temperature. Don't expect a drop-in fit. The idea is to make it a little easier to persuade your scooter wheel bearings to move in or out.

One caveat here; do not be tempted to break out the propane torch! The intense heat of the flame will probably damage any plastic or rubber on the wheel or caster assembly. In addition, sudden intense heat will stress and weaken the metal. If you absolutely must heat the hub in record time, use an electric blow dryer, but don't tell anyone that I told you.

Brute Force
Nothing short of brute force is going to move a rusted, damaged, or deformed bearing; and a wheel bearing that is only finger-tight won't stay in place doing its job for long. Either way you are going to need a bit of mechanical force to persuade any proper fitting scooter wheel bearings in or out of a wheel hub.

The proper tool for the job is an arbor press, a device found in almost every well-equipped mechanic's machine shop. But if you are not a professional mechanic or own a well-equipped machine shop you will need the old tried & true rubber mallet method.

The Civilized Method
So you have your cold or oil-soaked scooter bearing and a hot hub. How do you move one through or into the other? Brute force again by way of a rubber or wooden mallet, but applied scientifically. Here is where the old wrench sockets come handy. You will need one socket a bit larger than the diameter of the bearing, and another socket that is slightly smaller. If your bearing is an externally nominal 22mm, you will want a 3/4" and a 1" or larger socket. Whatever the size; one just under and one over the bearing's external measurement.

A. You will need a steady flat place for this. A big wood plank or block on your garage floor is perfect for this operation. Place the larger socket upright on the block and center the wheel hub balanced on the socket.

B. Put the smaller socket on the bearing.

C. Smack small socket with mallet.

D. Wash, rinse, and repeat as necessary.

This method is basically the same whether you are removing an old bearing or inserting a new one. The large socket supports the hub without getting in the way of the bearing. The small socket pushes the bearing in or out.

And one more caveat here; you might accomplish this by chocking the hub into a vise and then going at it with a hammer and big brass drift punch. Chances are you will end up damaging either the hub, the bearing, your knuckles, or possibly two out of three or all the above. In that case, you will need a new set of scooter wheel bearings and a whole new hub. Don't worry, Monster Scooter Parts has them.

www.monsterscooterparts.com/