30 WWW.CLASSICSCOOTERIST.COM
C
raig Meers hails from Wolverhampton;
his scooter story starts out very much
like that of many other scooterists.
His older brother rode a Mod-style scooter,
so it was perhaps inevitable that the influence
would rub off on to Craig, which it did at a very
early age – however, he wasn’t going to end up
following that same Mod path.
His first scooter was a Vespa PK50 fitted
with a PX180 engine and he attended his first
scooter rally – Rhyl – around 1990-ish. He
holds fond memories of those early days – in
particular of one NSRA event at Southport
where too much alcohol resulted in him
swinging drunkenly off a bridge. To cap it all,
he was also asked to remove his scooter from
the campsite for having the music on too loud!
He’s grown up a bit since then and doesn’t do
many rallies – especially camping ones.KEEPING IT OLD SKOOL
Craig is well-known and established as a
graffiti street artist and airbrusher under his
alter ego name of Skema – in fact, if you look
at the pictures accompanying this article, not
only did Craig do the ‘old skool’ style graffiti
paintwork and murals on his scooter, but healso did all the graffiti seen at the photoshoot
location in the background. And better than
that, he even got paid for doing it under a
commission from the local council! So if you
happen to be in the Wolverhampton area,
watch out for Craig’s handiwork, which can
be found in various tunnels, skate parks and
other municipal areas.
So given Craig’s background it’s hardly
surprising – probably more inevitable – that
graffiti would eventually find its way on to
his scooter. And this came about after he
purchased a Vespa PX125 Disc for the sum of
£1200. But although Craig is a skilled graffiti
artist his mechanical skills aren’t up to the
same standard, so he called upon his good
friend and scooter technical guru, Alan ‘Gibbo’
Gibbs to help him out mechanically with the
fitting of a 180DR kit, a Sterling exhaust
plus a few other tweaks. Body-wise, the only
modification was the addition of a stereo
console, as Craig is heavily into both hip-hop
and drum ‘n’ bass music.
All in all, the engine and paintwork took
around six months for Gibbo and Craig to
complete, with it all being finished in recent
months – Craig is still running it in, so won’tSCOOTER OWNER
Craig Meers (aka Skema)
Scooter Club:Solo rider
Favourite scooter model:Vespa Mk1 T5
Favourite custom scooter style:Full
body, airbrushed
Happiest scooter memories:Just riding ones
How would you make the scene better:
Play more styles of musicGRAFF LIFE