YOUNG-at-heart scooter buffs from America have turned the clock back 50 years to retrace an epic road trip across Europe.

Lifelong friends Dave Lee, 70, and Rick Ronvik, 71 decided against a simple anniversary party commemorating the tour through Cold War Europe.

Instead, they got back on their bikes and motored the 3,000 mile route once more.

Now nearing the end of their second adventure, they have been taking a well-earned rest with Rick's relatives in Huddersfield.

"We said either we'll have a party and force everybody to watch all 350 of our slides or we could do it again," said Rick, of Evanston, Illinois.

They set off from Barcelona at the beginning of May on two stylish Stella scooters.

Along the way, both men have been filing an internet diary contrasting their experiences of a continent separated by half a century.

Their Second Chance Scooter Tour diary can be accessed through the website of Chicago firm Genuine Scooters, who loaned the men their vintage-style machines.

The three-month journey has taken the duo through Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark and now England.

But even they have to slow down now and again.

Page 2: Memories of 1953

"I don't remember taking naps in 1953," said Rick at the home of his relative Linda Loughnane, of Berry Brow.

Linda was just 12 when they arrived in 1953.

Their stay in Huddersfield ends on Saturday, when they will then head down towards London and across to Paris before returning to the US.

"Huddersfield appears so much more fresh and bright and smiling now instead of a grey industrial town," said Dave, who lives in San Rafael, California.

For this trip, he and Rick have been able to afford to stay in comfortable hotels rather than sleeping by the roadside.

Their first journey to Europe was a frugal affair. In 1953 they took a three months off from their college studies and worked in the galley of a ship bound for France. They bought two Utility Vespa motor scooters and hit the road.

Rick's in-laws are from Denmark while Dave had family in both England and Germany.

They were joined on the journey by Rick's brother Jack, who could not make the Second Chance Scooter Tour.

"There was an excitement on the first trip you'll never get again," said Rick.

"Some of the places we went to haven't changed at all." Others had altered irrevocably.

In Germany, they often purred along the new German autobahns with just a solitary car in the distance.

Page 3 - Travelling in Europe

They recall streets in Hamburg lined with buildings shattered by Allied bombers: "All the building facades were up but all the buildings were empty from the bombing," remembered Rick.

One seaside village they visited had changed markedly between then and now - thanks to the package tourists.

"Fishermen were bringing their nets in then. Now you go there it's wall to wall people and disco music."

Dave feels local differences are quickly vanishing under a wave of mass culture.

"It's the standardisation of culture around the world makes the contrast not so great," he said.

Back in 1953, Europeans marvelled at the trio's haircuts, clothes and even shoes.

America then seemed a distant, even exotic, country and its citizens were infrequent travellers across the Atlantic.

* Check out their adventures on www.genuinescooters.com