Motor scooters may be a familiar site whizzing through Italian cobblestone streets, but not so much on the asphalt of Elkridge and Columbia.

Except, that is, for members of the local Hop Head Scooter Club.

Founded in February by county resident Brett Rhodes, the Hop Head Scooter Club is now the largest vintage scooter club in the area, with more than 70 members who meet monthly to ride together to local breweries.

Known for their sleek, colorful designs and ability to zigzag through traffic, motor scooters have a dedicated following throughout the United States, especially via clubs such as the Hop Heads.

Clubs often will meet up at scooter rallies across the United States, when hundreds will gather to camp, eat, drink and ride together. While the scooter scene in Europe is considerably larger, with rallies attracting thousands of attendees, the craze is catching on in the United States.

Vintage scooters have their own following; riders often buy scooters from one another through social media, Craigslist or at rallies, Hop Head member Michael Beck said. Scooter stores selling vintage models still exist in some areas, but most stores now cater to modern styles, Beck said.

Rhodes said he first started riding scooters while living in the United Kingdom in 1994, and decided to form a club after getting involved in Baltimore’s scooter scene.

“I came over here and I just missed it. There was a club in Baltimore that was OK, not as rally-going as I would like,” Rhodes said. “I was talking to people there who were from Howard County and asked if they’d be interested in starting a club here.

“It gets bigger and bigger every week,” he said.

Composed of both longtime scooter riders and rookies, Hop Heads aims to provide a welcoming atmosphere for enthusiasts to work on scooters and share knowledge, said Jill Caple. Caple said she has been riding for years and become more involved in the local scene in recent months, thanks to Rhodes.

“Brett’s enthusiasm about the whole scene has gotten [me] really excited again,” she said.

The hobby is often thought of as male-dominated, but Caple, one of the club’s few female members, said the environment has been welcoming and encouraging to her and other women.

“It’s definitely a guy thing, and normally the women that do get involved are gearheads more into the mechanical side of things and the engines,” she said.

One major aspect of the club is sharing resources and knowledge about how to maintain and fix the scooters, many of which are decades old; Caple’s is from 1969.

Ellicott City resident Jen Lyon said sharing expertise is what has made joining the club such a positive experience.

Lyon said she’s only been riding for a little more than a year, but thanks to the helpful community of the club, she’s been able to learn a great deal about working on scooters. She discovered the club through Facebook, and said the other members guided her and encouraged her to purchase a classic scooter.

“What made me feel so tender towards these guys is that they invited me to their garages to work with them,” Lyon said.

The group meet locally and members also attend several rallies a year together. Several club members organize rallies in the region, including Beck, who has led the effort behind Baltimore’s scooter rally for the past two years.

The “Escape to Baltimore” rally attracted more than 100 people from across the region to the Hampden neighborhood in July, and included two organized rides through the area.

Since joining the Hop Head club, Beck said he’s enjoyed “having a group of like-minded people who just want to ride to a rally and have fun.”

Beck said he appreciates the other major component of the club — the brews. The club has visited every local brewery in the county, Rhodes said.

The social environment combined with the unique thrill of riding a scooter, which can go up to 70 miles per hour, is what Caple said has kept her a dedicated rider for years.

“They’re just a lot of fun to ride. It’s a blast, you’re going really fast on an extremely small motor vehicle on extremely small tires,” she said. “The number two [best] thing would definitely be the people, getting together with other people who are scooterists.”

kmagill@baltsun.com