Razor Scooter

Fold it open, push off and go! The little aluminum Razor Scooter was everywhere in 2000.

Two small wheels, a narrow aluminum deck, handlebars. Just a basic, well-built scooter. No motor - just kick power - put one foot on the deck, push off with the other and suddenly you're zipping along on your own adventure. Kind of like the e-bikes and e-scooters you see everywhere today, in the year 2000, Razor Scooters seemed to be everywhere.

The original Razor Model A hit the U.S. market in 2000 and became an enormous hit almost immediately. More than five million Razor scooters were sold during its first six months on the market, and reports at the time described kids riding the little silver scooters on sidewalks, playgrounds, and on their way to school.

My kids each had one. They, and many other kids in the neighborhood, would use them all the time to ride over to each other's house, to the playground, and even to school. A big part of the appeal was how compact the Razor was. You could collapse the handlebars, fold the steering column down against the deck, and carry the whole thing around with you. Open it back up, adjust the handlebars, and you were ready to ride again. And they were durable - ours survived being left out in the rain, and even being run over in the garage a couple of times.

Razor still makes several variations of its original kick scooters today, although the company has moved pretty far beyond the original Model A. But if you were a kid around 2000, chances are pretty good that you either had one - or knew somebody who did.