Modern Vespa

Yesterday went out on the annual Scooterhead Australia Day ride... didn't get many pics myself but these taken by Chris of Wild Dog Creek SC are great!

Some nice stuff there ginchy. That a mail?

Great pics G..

Nice one Ginch. You gotta get your auxiliary tank going so you can ditch the jerry can.

Mail? You mean Maico? Then yes... a little club I'm involved in has 4 turn up fairly regularly and there's at least one more in the works. It's my security blanket Bob! Yeah but I should get my A into G.

Late post: It was great to meet up with some forum members at the MvR rideout (SCG, modkuo and SDJohn)!

Still kinda decompressing from the fun times, cool looking motos and scoots. Sorry no pics from me but I did find a YT vid, 'parlé en Français'...

Shout out to:
Secret Society for leading the awesome ride thru the hills and switchbacks and also TonUp SD for keeping this the longest consecutive running Mods vs Rockers Rally in the US!

look so much fun Brother M

Yeah meant maico. Stupid new phone thinks it knows better than me. I'd love a go of a maico. Look fast

The guys I know are into improving them without taking anything away... one guy is experimenting with a Maico dirt bike cylinder (more aggressive porting for the same size), better carb etc. But they are relatively fast. I heard yesterday that a number of 275's were brought here but are a little elusive.
Another pic of the same scooter. Looking tough!

I like the look of that one!

Ahhh interesting.. I think I like 'em better from that low, wide angle though.. but they do look robust if you could do a really strong motor setup.. cool.. thanks G

Maico enduros were very respected in the US in the 60's and 70's. Had no idea they made scooters. Did they even import them here? Very cool.

Agreed! They are supposedly capable of 125km/h from new. The guy with the cream one does a lot of touring and find it gets pretty hot when pushed hard, he had low 500's on his CHT!!

One more hour of watering today. Then I can go home to rest up ready for another eight hours of watering tomorrow found some Japanese pskadelia my work mate showd me will put a link after work

Why no sprinklers? Are you on water restrictions or something?

some collectables arrived from mark today


i have 5 spare copies of one of the brochures if anyone would like to trade and i will send one to the bloke i sold a rally to. They are the brochures with the orange rally on them and a group of people standing behind with VESPA written down one side



also bought a plie of dinky toys, theyre going straight to the pool room. Actually one of them is a gs150 if i could be bothered id put it on gumtree for $15000 to give posselt something to chuckle about


oh yeh heres a link to the psychadelic band ,if anyone finds an LP ill gladly pay good money for it...

its at a very old school, one of the oldest in WA so none of this fancy retic computerised stuff, we are allowed to use sprinklers on hoses from 6am till 9am monday and thursdays other than that its hand watering.

the water board drives past a few times every day to check on us.

there is a thunderstorm rolling into town tonight so we're hoping for an inch of rain as its very yellow

Wandering around manual arts department

I like the lathe.. too big to stuff in yer backpack?

.. wan't happy with how my steering felt on my serveta so I pulled the fork down nipped off the bearing cages, took the loose balls out of the cages, and with another 2 bearings worth of loose balls, I filled the races with as many balls would fit.. packed in grease.. and put it back together.. HUGE improvement.. I'm going to do the same to my Vespas when the time arises.. more BHAAALLLS less crap = smoother steering.. and the Vethpas use the same upper and lower bearings.. it was not fun though.. tested my patience for sure.. tying to keep al those little BHAAALLLS stuck in place while I worked.. and the uppers are tiny. one false move and I'd have come unglued.. can you say BHAAAAHLLLLLS?

.. but it all worked out.. the care and patience paid off... much much better feel..

I did say Vethpa in there somewhere.

Also.. Meinem frau gave me a book... "1001 Albums you must hear before you die" I don't want to listen to some of their picks but was surprised at some of them.. happily surprised.. the clash.. P.I.L. (surprised me), Elvis C. "my aim is true" and so on.. Another nice book for the collection.

Oh.. I did do some Vethpa work.. I changed the oil in my small frame..

and as the woman on some old TV show used to say: Bye for now!

"My Aim is True" was my first new wave album. Still love the sound on that, it's so warm or something... you can kind of hear the room if that makes sense.

Yeah that makes sense.. he's a great producer.. and song writer.. I don't know why he never got much love.. at least over here.. he's very well respected in the Muzak community.. but he's kind of obscure in the US.. I think he's great.

I'm 98% sure Nick Lowe produced that one. And This Year's Model too I think... that one is great too. I saw him play in 1979... 1 hour and a couple of minutes, no break and NO audience interaction. Must have been late for an appointment or something.

You're right.. Nick Lowe did produce that one. so blame him for it sounding like a room!

Nick Lowe produced some gems of his own ... and with one of the great 80's bands, Rockpile.

Love Elvis c. Produced rum sodomy and the lash too. Which holds up really well. And must have been a nightmare to record

Looks like someone familiar?

I picked up this last night. 2004 LML star deluxe 150cc. 10,000km. Disk brake, Viet stainless exhaust, 2 new tyres. $700. It's rare to find anything less than $2k here in Sydney so I pounced on it.

I rode it 30km home and it pulls well, but the clutch needs some work. The body is pretty beaten up but that doesn't worry me. It will be my new commuter scooter.

Nice one Phil. Good score. Bloody cheap. How's the commute going btw?

Still on holidays

But back to work Monday.

I guess you've got a busy weekend ahead making sure the LML is ship shape. Good luck.

Good score Phil! Hope you have a good multimeter and plenty of electrical tape on hand!

Thanks guys. No rush as I planned to commute on the Bajaj anyway before this came along, although the rego expires in 6 days so I'll have to get it presentable for the inspection.

I've never really riden a p range before. Feels very different. I now understand why folks upgrade to a disk brake.

Not quite so much forward planning required...

Jacks are ready to be painted.

I saw this. thought it was chocolate and was in heaven for a second..

... but it's not chocolate.. it's here: http://eslvietnamzone.com/visiting-tuyen-lam-lake-trench-dalat/

... and then.. I'm waiting for a package, tracked it.. out for delivery.. refreshed the tracking and it says Wrong Address.. so I call Fedex and they have the correct address but say it's a new driver.. not my normal driver.. WTH? arhgghgh now I'll have to wait until Monday! Aaaaack!

Nice! They even have realistic looking leaks under them.

Today, I'm sitting in a Blizzard Warning watching what's forecast to be 16" of snow come down.

Yesterday I figured that it would be my last chance to ride for a bit, so I pulled out both scoots. I hadn't ridden the VBB since I got the Stella rebuilt and it was amazing how different the VBB feels to ride. So much lower to the ground. I could definitely feel the bent fork when I turned, though, so sorting that out will be a spring project. It seems amazing that I ever got used to riding with a jacked up fork like that. I don't recall being able to feel it at all previously.

I've got a rebuilt replacement fork from Scooterwest, but never got around to installing it because it isn't an exact match--I'm going to have to have the turning stops welded into different locations and chop the top off. Even then, it's probably not going to fit quite right, but it was that or try to find a NOS one.

Then, I took the Stella out and had a nice (for 37f weather) ride.

Oh, and the Pinasco & Pinking thread got me in trouble last night:

What night does she prefer you spend with us if not Saturday? 😂