A HUGE man walks out of a tattoo parlor; his fresh and bleeding tribal tattoo encircles one gigantic bicep. He looks tough… very tough. This is precisely what he wants you to think… it is all about image. Although this massive, weight lifting, steroid shooting freak looks like a hard man, he is slow, painfully slow and not in the least bit maneuverable so not the bad-ass brawler that the look would suggest. The tattoos and muscle are there for show he may not even know that the tough guy act is to make people afraid and intimidated, in actual fact to prevent any chance of a brawl happening in the first place. In this search for domination/respect Tattoo boy is trying desperately to win by default… ‘I am scary! Do not even try to take me on’

So, why all this talk of tattoos and steroid abuse? Well that is quite simple when you notice that this is the approach Piaggio have taken with the face lift Liberty 200 S. Even though it is a machine who’s dimensions appear to be spot on for our more female population, the decoration is as much muscle man as it is track athlete. So why the ‘S’ tacked on to the name then?

In this instance the “S” stands for “Sport” and this facelift Liberty fails, in my eyes at least, to back up the “Sport” moniker. Well, let me clarify that statement, it looks the part, with its tribal tattoo styled graphics package and racy paint and contrast seat stitching. Handling wise I would happily describe it as… fairly sporty. However, in my (not so?) humble opinion the most important factor in a sport model is the engine… It has to go fast. Now I know this is a scooter, and designed to be a commuting vehicle so I didn’t expect the neck-breaking, sonic boom inducing acceleration of a 1000cc super-sport motorcycle. Hell I didn’t really even expect the solid pickup of a maxi scooter. I did however expect that the 200cc Liberty “S for sport” would feel quick… well at least noticeably quicker than my long term, bargain basement Suzuki 125cc Address….