Modern Vespa

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I am privileged to personally be acquainted with over a hundred scooterists that I go on rides with. There are hundreds of riders I don't know personally and thousands that I only see, never meet. I have been dissed for having a modern bike, and assumed to be riding on the back because I am a girl. I just ride, and my friends ride. Vintage groups are welcome to have exclusive rallys. It may be less and less fun as fewer people show up, and the "any person, any scooter" rides get bigger. We ride far, and fast, because we can. Maybe we have more in common with motorcycle clubs than drinking clubs?

Community is a vague term, but in my previous post I was using it as an all-encompassing term for the overall scooter community. The divide we're talking about is within the overall scooter community, and specifically the vintage-vs-modern halves of that. Your question implies that there is no overall scooter community, just the vintage people and everyone else, which is pretty much a textbook example of vintage elitism. I'm not asking you to be my friend, and really, I've given up on ever being respected by people like you. That doesn't mean the community doesn't exist, though. That just means not everyone necessarily agrees on every point, and there's nothing wrong with that.

There's many other ways to define community, and many sub-communities within any given large group. I stated quite clearly that your club has every right to define the club and the rally any way it wants. I also stated quite clearly that you're a hypocrite if you believe that, as a member of a vintage-only club, the vintage-vs-modern divide doesn't exist. That was the thrust of my point, and I stand by it. I didn't ask you to justify it. But if you don't, you leave yourself open to others interpreting your intent. I choose to interpret it at face value, wanting to exclude modern riders / bikes. If you want us to interpret it a different way, then please feel free to expound upon the subject. I'm sure it'll make for a good read. We've never excluded anyone on the basis of their bike. On the contrary, we welcome everyone. This forum was created primarily because ScooterBBS is a cesspool and not a useful source of information for owners of Modern Vespas. This community, Modern Vespa, is a sub-community within the larger scooter community. There's never been any debate about that. Your efforts to use the definition of community against us will be unsuccessful. We are scooterists. We are a part of the scooter community. We are also Vespa riders, in the Vespa community. We are more specifically riders of modern Vespas (most of us, anyway) and can be further classified as such. As I said, "community" is a vague term, and can be applied on multiple levels.

We have this forum out of necessity. If someone went to the vintage side of ScooterBBS and asked about roller weights, the standard response would be condescension and derision, followed by instructions for seeking an answer on the New Scooter side. The same question on the New Scooter side would lead to a standard response of "Why the #$%& would anyone spend $6000 on a scooter when you can get a perfectly good one for $1200?". This pretty much sums up the entirety of the ScooterBBS experience. Since you've been so willing to give us all advice on your first and second post, let me return the favor: When visiting a forum (any forum, on any topic) it's usually a good idea to avoid coming off as condescending or preachy. It's also usually a mistake to try to turn something the admin said against him in a transparent attempt to make a point.

modern |ˈmädərn| adjective of or relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past.

to me, the idea is of modern thinking, as in progressive: innovative, liberal, open-minded, as opposed to archaic. the world is too small to act like a beanbag.

all-love !

anyone on two wheels should share a mutual respect for thy two-wheel neighbors, whether a scooter, harley, sportsbike, or even a moped !

amen.

ok.

i am not here to start anything. i apologize to anyone that may have been offended by my comments. honestly, i didn't even know you were the admin until you pointed it out.

i meant everything i said, though my interpersonal and forum skills seem to be lacking. please do not take my comments as directed towards any one person or group. they are sincere questions to which i hope to get more genuine responses (thank you for your's jess, sincerely).

no wedges being driven, no trouble being started. there obviously have been some bad expiriences with the bbs, and other things i am not aware of. sorry, i should have done my homework.

i'm all about the peace, man.

cheers,

stefan

dunno about you but I frakin love my GTS and I'm riding it to Gotham!

I'm getting a real kick out of this post.
Where I am your glad when you see another scooter.
Because it's kinda rare. If you see a Vespa you freak,
you don't worry (or I don't) about vintage or modern.
Your just glad it's not another "Pig Bike" (Harley)
With a guy who says "I should get one of those for my wife"
I'd enjoy getting ribbed by another scooter owner.

ya'll should be thankful that you have the opportunity to encounter other scooterists at all, whoever they may be. i live in a small town in northwestern nj and in one year and 3,000 miles of riding i've seen only two scooters of ANY kind.

I have an old one and a new one. I get crap for not fixing my old one. Oh well.

Let fight over something important like...(insert ridiculus item here)

Clubs set all sort of rules that defy reason (ask Augusta National) which is their perogative, I as a matter of fact, am a charter member of the Indiana home for the criminally insane glee club. (ask me about membership after my pontification)

One of the things I enjoy about this forum is that there has been a nice balance between those that prefer vintage or modern scooters, I also notice there are many non Vespa, Stella or Lambretta owners and that folks seem open to the Mp3 or Asian, Indian or whatever bikes somebody's rolling around on. This is a good thing. I've look forward to posts and comments about personal preferences cause in the end we all got 'em, and besides it can be helpful to hear others experiences with their scoot.

What is really tiresome, BORING, actually, is when people start taking themselves seriously, after all we are talking about scooters, you know scooters, not war, famine, diasese, but scooters.

I have no history with any other BBS a fact that is obvious by my previous posts, but I like this one, and I like to believe that Jess has played some part in the overall tenor of this board, if this is so, thanks Jess keep it up.

as for the rest of you louts...lighten up.

Scott

Thats funny, its in every post:

me too homie!

-Vinny

I love my modern Vespa, my GTS!!!

I'd never trade it in for a vintage scooter.

If I were mechanically inclined I might consider owning a vintage scooter in addition to my GTS, but I doubt I ever would.

to clinton: i'll see you in gotham, remind me to make fun of your bike in case i forget.

to vinny: i'll see you in a couple day's at krp, prolly the only jedi there, say word.

to andrew: i rarely pay attention to avatars, names, and anything else in that little box unless i am addressing someone directly. yeah i'm blind.

to anyone else, i'll be more than glad to make your acquaintance at a rally or what not.

have fun, and enjoy yourself.

cheers,

stefan
jksc

HAHA I feel that. If I see another scooter, no matter what kind it is, I always ride alongside and have a short chat before speeding away. It's so nice to see other people with the same interest, regardless of modernity or vintage.

"It's not the bikes is it? It's the people." - Jimmy, "Quadrophenia."

Modern Vespa ? Four pages so far arguing over them ?
Not quite modern, if modern means....since 1998 ?
" those cars do not care what bike you ride, when they hit your ass ".
My X9 cannot be accurately described, in modern American colloquial idiom, as a scooter. What I am experiencing with it, except for shifting, corresponds more to a motorcycle. That's what I usually call it, and that's how I think of it.
Except when riding with the local scooter group, most of whom have 250 or more scooters.
A colleague who loves his Harley(s) says, " as long as you're on two wheels " meaning we ALL have fun, and hazards, to share.
Perhaps somewhere, having a currently- in - production Piaggio/ Vespa product will be normal, instead of a reason to be insulted and despised. This is not such a place.
Tommaso Stilletto

yeah you right!

is this thread finally exhausted?

merda questa qua!

Someone said 4 pages. Ok so its four pages.
In the scoot "fraternity"!!? Modern Vespa is the one place, I know of anyway, where Moderns are at home.
Vintage etc have lots of sites and should not begrudge us Moderns our footprint in cyberspace.
Regard the four pages as a Group Hug to empower Modern riders.
As an aside, when my wife and I wrote the Magnetos constitution we enshrined the principle that all type of scoots can ride with us and anyone who detracts from good fellowship is, if seriously objectionable,asked to explain.
It is about the riding and the FUN , Dont forget to Dance(The Kinks)
Old Mod

I'm listening, really. I think the question has been asked on this forum before and I believe the answer lay somewhere in the modern-vintage region. I know that's not much help. I view my Stella just as they promoted it, "vintage right out of the box". For me it was a great way to get the feel of vintage without having to start wrenching from the very beginning. I had only been scootering for about 9 months before I got my Stella and was riding an ET4. I miss so many qualities of the modern CVT but I would miss the qualities of Stella if she weren't around.

In short, I wish I had both.

To answer your question, I dunno

If there had been a two-wheeled machine as high performance as a Vespa GTS (or any modern vespa) back in the 60's, they'd have ceased production of every manual shifting scooter being made.

on a lighter note...

I also agree that anything on 2 wheels is cool with me. I give the wave to anything on 2 wheels. Sometimes I get ignored, sometimes I get the wave, and sometimes I get the finger...it's all good.

There was talk of a cycle club starting at my church cause there seems to be a number of bikes showing up each week and 2 scooters. I was talking to a harley rider one day and told him we would probably be riding the next Saturday. He asked my wife and I which bikes were ours and we pointed out my wife's GTS and my Stella.

He exclaimed "you ride scooters!?!?"

I replied "yeah, but you could bring your Harley if you want, we don't discriminate."

The look on his face was one of his personal loss of being "elite". So many people are so used to being "cool" that it freaks them out when someone treats them like everyone else. Unfortunately, scooters are not immune.

I only get the negitive comments from folks that don't count.

well said, ta - as a new person i do appreciate the not laughing bit

there are a few things you can do to make you modern vespa er more vintage :shock


http://www.moto-build.com/mainsite/retrovesp/home.html

well its a reeet nice dat in the UK today,


i hope people of this forum are out making the most of a nice spring day, and have time for a ride, and less time for arguments on here.



ride more - argue less!



stay safe & enjoy

aaron
8)

Not really sure why I'm posting this or even why I joined your site, but I'd like to relate some of my experiences with the "vintage" vs. "modern".

I ride a P.O.S. Rally-200. I got it cheap and subesequently spent a lot of money on repainting, maintenance, and a little extra performance. It's my daily rider and reliable enough for me. Yes, it is unreliable. Yes, it does consume my time. Yes, I dread spending a Saturday working on it. Yes, it rattles like hell, is completely uncomfortable on long rides, and spews pollution like nobody's business. It's the only vehicle I own. Would I give it up? No.

The "divide" is everywhere. You guys think you get shit? So do us "vintage" people. Try discussing a repaint when someone thinks the original paint is perfectly fine. I get shit for putting a Ducati CDI box on my bike when the original Femsatronic is apparently good for everybody else. Never mind the CDI, I had an original cylinder ported for better performance. So yeah, everybody's got something to gripe about and make fun of, and they will.

My club is "vintage" only (manual transmission, steel-body). My club has a sort of entrance exam to see if you're compatible and commited. We are a specialty club and we like it that way. If that pisses you off, you're probably not compatible with our club. Does that mean you can't ride or party with us? No. I don't think TDC will ever do a vintage-only event (There's one exception, but it's because newer scooters are better performance-wise. There, I said it.) We are all about riding and will continue to be all about riding. It's in our "charter".

Eric made a point about working on the bike as a form of camraderie. I think that holds true. I'm certainly not cheapening your experience; There is obviously work to be done on every bike and the money you spend on it has to come from somewhere. But when you've rebuilt an engine, read two books to help decide on your performance options, been taking the bus for a month, and had to use creative welding to get an old steel bearing-race out of fragile aluminum cases and then finding out that a little piece of flash from the torch is keeping your flywheel from turning, you tend to appreciate the end result even more. And so do your friends. One of our club-members (I'll call him the "president" for lack of a better word) pointed out that we had three of the most desirable Vespas at our last meeting: A GS, an SS, and a Rally. Even though my bike is a prime example of what you should not do to a vintage bike (riding in a rock garden, scratching the paint, welding over the oil sight-glass hole and ripping out the auto-injector, forgetting the floor-rails, riding it every day you can) I can tell you I felt a surge of pride in my achievement. On the flip side, when the fastest manual-transmission Vespa was passed by a GTS 250 (I was leading the ride, too, mind you), I felt envious.

The scene? I could care less about it. I'm into riding with my friends. My club does Soul Nights here in Eugene (soul, ska, motown, etc...) and I go purely to drink. I'm a rivethead at heart and honestly can't stand that music. Maybe that's part of why I don't care what you ride, who knows. I don't give a shit about "Mod", but if anybody is carrying on the tradition, it's you guys. I'll stay stuck in the '90's (music-wise) with a bike that's a year older than I am, thank you very much.

In the end, it's the individual scooterist that you should judge. I don't (think I) make assumptions about the scooterist based on their ride, but I do find newer scooter riders to be a little stand-off-ish. Maybe it's because they think I'm going to give them shit, I don't know. I've said at one point "I don't care what you ride, so long as you're not a pretentious asshole about it." and I'll stand by that statement.

You can reach me on the ScooterBBS or on http://www.topdeadcentersc.com/ if you want to flame me or gripe about this.

Oh, and all you automatic-plastic-body-four-stroke-driving-fools are welcome to come to Cinco Scoot (May 4~6) and Run From The Sun (date not set) if you're here in Oregon. We'd love to have you. Seriously.

Hey, thanks for the post. You obviously put some thought into it, and it came across very well -- not pretentious or inflammatory or arrogant, but very much sincere. Thank you for that. I think we find vintage riders the same way -- not necessarily immediately unfriendly, just not really very talkative if they know what you ride. Actually, in Vegas I noticed an interesting phenomenon: if I saw other scooterists away from the mass of bikes outside (and you can spot a scooterist a mile away in Vegas) they would be friendly and talk and chat. Not necessarily about scooters, just general stuff. Out by the bikes, if I was near mine, they wouldn't come near me, or do anything except maybe acknowledge I had said something directly to them.

This phenomenon pretty much cemented my opinion that it wasn't just me being socially awkward or unable to strike up a conversation. I was the same person in both cases, but the way other scooterists perceived me in different contexts dictated how they would respond to my friendliness. Make of it what you will, but this has definitely had an effect, in turn, on how I view the vintage crowd.

But seriously, thanks for coming by and giving us your perspective. I appreciate it.

If someone turns up to a VETERAN scooter rally on an Auto your gonna get some stick! So what?

Veteran by definition is 30 years old. I dont even consider a px to be a classic.

Riding 80mph, 1000 miles to a rally on a modern scooter is a piece of cake.

Do it on a 45 year old machine, that you have hand built and used 1000`s of hours in the garage on, thats an achivement!

The most import think in my eyes is that whatever you ride, you should enjoy it and do it often!

I have lammies, how much aggro do you think I get off the vespa boys??

Give as good as you get and you have my respect.

Mines a Red Stripe.

If we are considering a short time period I wouldn't say it is a piece of cake to do 1000 miles on any scooter, but compared to an old scooter sure it is easier on a newer one.

Wouldn't it be more of an achievement if it only took 100 hours to rebuild?

That depends on how many times you have to build it

Don't be a hater! Just enjoy the ride no matter what you ride! I don't own a Vespa, but appreciate them. I ride a Suzuki Burgman 650 and a Kymco People S 200. Some scooterist don't consider the Burgman a scooter, it's my daily commuter and my People S200 is my club cruiser.

In San Antonio, Alamo Scoots doesn't care what you ride as long as you enjoy the ride and each others company, that's all that matters. I don't own a car and I usually just ask them how many miles do they ride in a year? If they're commuting with their scooters or just hobbyists. I love all scooters classic and modern, but I don't want to shift else I would get a Motorcycle. Alamo Scoots in over two years has gone from 25 members to over 230 members. We accept all! Scooting is a great way to meet a diverse bunch of people.

Scooters have a coolness factor that no motorcyclist can understand.
Have a great day! Enjoy the ride!

Amen,brother!!

Unfortunately or fortunately, we here in Mpls don't have the benefit of Modern vs. Vintage wars. We don't have enough riders to clique up!

Most all of my riding is on my own. I've only been to one rally (since I've had my scoot there's only BEEN one major rally) and I didn't sense any flack. I really think it's because we're such a small community. You folks on the left coast have reached the critical mass to be critical. Most of the rest of us just squeel when we see another scooter of any type (even maxis... oooo).

On Gilligan's Island everyone got along because they were a small group. Add another millionaire and there'd be a development up on the volcano looking down at the rest of them. We're on Gilligan's Island out here.

And if all else fails, just ask them what "mod" was short for.

Well said Jess! I always remind them that Jimmy from Quadrophinia grew up and Sting (Ace) was a bell boy!!!!!!!!!

As someone from outside the Bay Area that goes to rallies in SF and SoCal I can say that I found in SF that the established scooterists (vintage, for lack of a better term) were standoffish to me. It was almost two years of me going to rallies and seeing the same people over and over again before I could get much more than a hello from them.
Thing is I didn't expect that my suddenly showing up on a scooter would earn the fast friendship of these people. I can only speak for myself in saying that I didn't see having a scooter as a pass into their world and that's fine. Now 4+ years later we know each other we're friends and buy each other beers. There are still some in The City who are rather cold but I don't care.
I don't lose any sleep over it.
There are much bigger issues in life.

My first scooter was a used Vino 50cc.

I brought it to work and parked it at the door of our office.

Upon seeing me, most people said "So, you just got a Vespa. Cool!"

So, I guess the answer would be no.

Now that I have a real Vespa, they just say "Oh, you got a new one, eh?"

BTW, when I rolled up with on a big BMW a few times, no-one said anything (I'm sure thinking "ok, now he's going to kill himself!") Definitely in downtown Toronto, scooters are the 'it' thing these days, vintage or otherwise.

Cheers,
David

I don't know whether to laugh or cry after reading 4 pages of this crap... It's been said ad nauseum already, but "who fuckin cares what you ride?"

I ride everything, and I don't care what anyone says. I have 13 vintage scoots, and a shop full of brand new Vespas at my disposal.. and a Triumph Thruxton to boot. I'll ride any one of them to any kind of ride, Scooter Rally or otherwise.

At this year's Rides of March, I rode my 1959 VS5 Gs150 on the Friday night ride, skipped Saturday's ride so that those of you who attended could have my "tasty" Santa Maria Style BBQ.. and On Sunday I took a brand new gt200 for the ride... and no one gave me shit...not even the Lambretta rider I stopped to help after he broke down...even when I had to tell him what was wrong with his scoot (4% oil mix ...duh!)

So, from the mouth of a loud-mouthed, Vintage riding, been around too long scooter boy...."shut up and ride"...

Cheers!
Josh

p.s. I love modern vespas, but Kymoco's have no place in my garage...

are y'all still going on about this?

get out and ride already!

I hate to resurrect this thread, but I've only just become aware of it.

There are 3 rallies going on the weekend that the Gotham rally is being held - "Death to Gotham", The Lambretta Club Jamboree" and "The NYSC Block Party"

Block Party details here http://nyscooterclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4411&sid=80dd087ce9ca6b640e51183ddcd5ee2b

All organising clubs are pretty happy the way it is working out, with hopefully everyone's needs being met and the new NYC parade laws hopefully being circumvented.

Andrea

Where can you find a cute little hat like that in Detroit?

Ed

It must be the mid life thing. . . I wanted to buy a vespa made in the year I was born, 1960.
I looked at a 1960 VBB
Tried the clutch ting on the left handle
The peculiar twist gear thing that went with it
The foot break thing
The kick start
The noise
The SMELL

I must be getting old

I settled on the model that said 60 on the side!

Go GT60