Modern Vespa

Three weeks ago, the fellas and I took our annual weekend road trip. I was asked this summer to plan this trip and I really went all out on it. I've been leading annual trips for the last 6 years and this being number 7, I really wanted to be special. I put more effort into it than I have before and did it with the plan being that this would be my last time playing tour guide. From here on out, someone else would have to take the reins and I would step into a support role/ play tourist and get to relax a little.

For the last 6 years, my wife has come along as a rider or support truck driver but this time, I left her barefoot and pregnant at home. Just kidding, she's a trooper but super pregnant and wasn't capable of coming on this trip/ being that pregnant and sitting behind the wheel for days on end. So, my friend Mike decided he didn't want to ride and would be truck driver instead. Riders instead would be returning travelers Socalguy, Yancy, Ronindamascus and myself.

Thursday Oct 21st, we loaded up the scoots and drove up to Northern LA. There's nothing good about riding to Los Angeles, so we unloaded the scoots in La Canada Flintridge area and took Angeles Crest Hwy over the hill, parallel to Hwy 14 and then eventually into the town of Mojave. Mojave's a train/ truck town that supports Edwards AFB/ Spaceport. Blink and you'll miss it.

We made it to the Best Western before sunset and then wandered around to soak in the local wildlife. When we ran out of burned buildings to count, we found a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and had dinner. We were the only ones in the entire restaurant but had some good grinds, cold beers, came up with a game plan and then walked back to the hotel, ready with bear spray in case one of the local meth heads attacked. Thankfully we didn't have any problems with the local wild life and had a quiet night by the train tracks after a short day of riding.

When I travel, I like staying at Best Westerns or Hilton properties. Corporate work discount helps, but they usually have some kind of diner nearby which is handy for group breakfasts/ discussions. So day 2, everyone started their morning with some scooter tinkering followed by breakfast at Denny's. When Yancy's truckstop cassanova attempts to the local girls bombed, we all left and did one last walking tour of Mojave before getting on the road.

The night before at dinner, Yancy brought up the idea of going to the wild west town of Randsburg 30 miles or so up the road. It wasn't too far out of the way so we added it to the itinerary and set off through the desert, wondering how the pioneers did it back in the day.

Sadly everything in Randsburg was closed and probably only opens up on the weekends when the tourist crowds pass through, but we enjoyed the silence, walked around the main drag and then got back on road to our next gas stop in Inyokern.

From there it was gnarly desert headwinds south to Hwy 178, then more headwinds and a long slow uphill climb to Lake Isabella. With my too rich carb jetting and the headwinds, 4th gear was pretty useless so I kept it in 3rd and just chugged along till we got into Lake Isabella itself. There's always one thing you forget when you travel and this time it was jets for everyone else!! Oh well, my scooter still ran, it was just too rich and not able to rev out fully.

A nice lunch and beer later, we started making our way south through Walker Basin up to Bealville when Socalguy's scooter started having issues. He had no 4th and 3rd kept slipping (later determined to be a worn shift cross), so he threw in the towel and had to load it in the truck. With the sun setting and a storm on the horizon, we rode as quick as we could through the farm lands of Arvin into the town of Lebec, which us Californian's call the Grapevine.

Hot tub, beers and roadside fast food for dinner, I left the group at the hotel and drove 15 miles up the road to my Airbnb for the night. When I designed this trip, my wife and dogs were coming along with us so I found a pet friendly Airbnb nearby. Since they didn't come along and the Airbnb being non refundable, I left everyone at the hotel and enjoyed the quiet night by myself up in the mountains.

When I woke up, everything was socked in fog and wet. Driving down the hill to the hotel, it got a little better but not by much. Over more Denny's breakfast, the decision was made to wait out the rain and relax after the previous days long ride. 9 AM turned to 1230 and I said lets do it. The first hour was nice on the valley floor, hours 2 and 3 were wet and cold in the clouds. I don't remember exactly, but Mike and Socalguy in the truck said temps were in the low 40's as we climbed the hills. Thankfully once we were on the other side of the mountains, the sun came out and everyone dried out.

Then it was through the crazy, curvy roads of Frasier Park where I didn't see it, but the guys behind me said they were dragging some bodies out of a car that went off the road in a blind curve. As fast as we dared, we kept eating up the miles and miles of curves until we got to the junction of Hwy 33 and Lockwood Valley Road. Divvying up my spare gas, we kept moving south on Hwy 33 to Ojai keeping my fingers crossed we had enough gas to get everyone there.

With awesome canyon views and more curvy roads, we made it to Ojai on fumes and stopped for 30 minutes just to talk about how awesome the roads were so far. We then had to do a quick throttle cable adjustment on Ronindamascus' scoot and then we were back on the road.

After the 5 hours of just one stop light, we were sadly back in civilization and with that came stop signs, roads and crowds. After 10 minutes of stop and go traffic, I was sick of the Teslas and Prius' driving way too slow through Ojai so we started lane splitting through the downtown where way too many trendy LA couples were too busy looking at their phones rather than where an actual crosswalks were. Then it was more Tesla's driving too slow or people on their phones, so the last bit into the town of Fillmore was cautiously annoying.

Happily, we found our hotel and before anyone had a chance to unload, Mike said dinner reservations were made and it was time to eat! We went to Daniel's gourmet restaurant. I was thinking it was a fancy steakhouse and put on my nice clothes but turns out, it's a little hole in the wall with no beverage options but really good seafood and Greek cuisine. Dinner was everyone happily munching down on the incredible food with drinks from a nearby gas station.

I don't know how it happened, but something we said or did caused the kitchen staff to come out and start a conversation with us. Everyone was blown away that we had ridden scooters to the little town of Fillmore and they gave us a surprise free Coconut/ Greek Yogurt dessert/ something that was really good on the house! If you happen to get lost, swing by Fillmore and check out Daniel's (shameless plug).

More cold beers and a hot tub bull sessions to wrap up the evening, everyone retired early getting ready for the last day.

Our last day was sadly our worst, we were in civilization heading in the direction of Los Angeles so it was a quick cold, crisp 30 minute ride from Fillmore to Thousand Oaks. The only noteworthy attraction on the ride was riding past the Reagan Library. One day I do want to go to it as its supposedly very nice and has tons of interactive stuff for little/ big kids.

In Thousand Oaks, we loaded up the scoots in the truck and started the drive home. Everyone was unloaded at my house just in time for the afternoon football game.

Great report!!

Great report on what sounds like an awesome ride.

Excellent ride!

Nice places and some great roads.

It is what scooting is all about.

I would love to tag along on one of them in the future.

Bill

Excellent report and pics. some awesome looking riding, thanks for sharing!

Great report and pics thanks for sharing.

Nice report! The RR Library is worth a visit when you get the chance.

Thanks for the super ride report. Fun, Fun, Fun.

I give you guys much credit for riding and wrenching. I love the
riding, I hate the wrenching. All part of the great adventure.

Bob Copeland
I know nothing about the Bull Gear or the Heifer Gear.

Awesome report! Thanks.

Wow, thanks for the writeup MJ! All the roads you rode 9n, I've been on at one time or another. It brought back some great memories. That picture of the turn when y'all were heading down hwy 33 - I got pulled over at that very spot many moons ago.

Thanks again for the writeup and pictures!

Man that looks like fun!

Cool trip! Cool Vespas! Cool pictures!
Thank you for sharing this report