Modern Vespa

I will be participating in the Toronto ride of the 2016 Distinguished Gentleman's Ride.

The ride is organized to raise funds for prostate cancer research and treatment.

I am not the first MVer to participate:

Distinguished Gentleman's Ride
Distinguishd Gentleman's Ride
Distinguished Gentleman's Ride Sept. 29 (worldwide)
The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride//Charlotte, NC//09.30.12

Here is a link to my fundraising page, and another to the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride post on my blog.

I strongly encourage all you fashionable MVers to do the same and ride for the cure. It's way more fun than dumping a bucket of ice water on your head, or having to suffer through shaving off a Movember mustache.

Cool.

Cool in spades! 8)

Check out the videos of past years' rides I posted on my blog:

http://www.life2wheels.com/2016/09/rockin-dgr.html

Good luck. I was trying to keep this thread alive. The run is 25 September.

Our club is also doing the ride. Should have three to six riders. Here is a link if you care to donate.

http://www.gentlemansride.com/rider/bluevesparado

Rode the 150 LXV in last years Houston ride. Great fun, and a good cause.

Cool

I was surprised to not see a ride in the Atlanta area this year!

I think the movement may have peaked..... plus they have definitely turned people off with their "Style Guide". Putting the whole movement behind the trend that is classics/cafe racers/bobbers/flat trackers and telling everyone else to just stay home rubs people the wrong way. I know WHY they want to do it that way, but still.... The Boston ride is open to everyone as long as they're on two or three wheels. I saw modern Vespas, Ninjas, Harleys, and even a Moped last year.


I'm riding the Boston ride for the second year, but it's down in ridership. I also noticed many people hadn't raised much (or any) money.

I'm just going to have fun and meet people. I spent some $$ on my outfit for the ride, but I'm sure it will look stunning, and hopefully match the 1970's period correctness for my scoot.

I wonder if San Diego would be cool with a 1978 moped?

A few mates are going, they're riding a Vulcan 1700, Hoggley-Doggley Dresser, BMW RT, etc, and yes, one of them has a PX.
The general opinion over here is that the so-called "style-guide" is more than overcome by the fact that it's now a lot bigger than them by a long shot, so we will ride what we damn well like thanks!

Just 2 more days!

How was your ride?

Boston was nice, but definitely more interesting talking to people and looking at bikes (including a 1938 BSA) than riding. Riding in the city is not my favorite thing, especially when combined with poor riding etiquette from my fellow Distinguished Gentlemen and Ladies.

Plus, technically I was the only Vespa. 2 Lambrettas were there, plus a Stella frame built with discarded Vespa parts.

Post some pics of your ride and/or your super cool threads!

It was a blast!

The only downside was, choking on all the vintage two-stroke motorcycle exhaust.

As for scooters, a vintage Vespa, a Lambretta, a Vespa PX, a Vespa ET4, and three Vespa GTSs including my own. We were just shy of 300 riders, lots of Triumphs, both modern and vintage, lots of Moto Guzzis, Ducatis, maybe three Harleys, modded badgeless café racers, plus an assortment of vintage and modern Hondas, Yamahas and Suzukis, a whole bunch of BMWs, a brand new Indian Scout (with a drywall screw in the back tire, but we convinced him to ride anyway since he rode in with the screw, if it was leaking it was mighty slow, and I had a plugging kit and MotoPump handy should deflation become a problem).

On the sartorial side I was dashing in grey flannel blaser, paisly vest, tartan bow tie, white silk scarf and a mat black 3/4 helmet with goggles purchased just for this occasion, ending off with kid leather driving gloves I bought a few years back in Rome.

I will come back to post pics, I promise. Others are encouraged to do the same!

How in the heck did they corral 300+ motorcycles and stage them into a single cohesive ride? Without a parade permit or police assistance it boggle the mind how they did the ride in the larger cities.

The staging area was a quiet street bordering a large supermarket. It was the perfect location. Next to no traffic, not residential. I'll get around to posting video and pics and you'll see what I mean.

The ride got broken up by traffic lights of course but the regroup points were well enough known that everyone met up, took a break, before setting off again. All in all it was brilliant.

Oh, sorry.. I thought you rode in the Chicago ride. Toronto had 281 riders.... which is still a lot.

But then you're Canadians.... probably not in as much of a rush as us Americans.

Maybe I was just seeing a less organized ride combined with weird winding city streets here in Boston (and Cambridge). It felt to me that I tried to position myself at the front of the pack leaving each rest stop, and then I was passed left and right (quite literally) by the motorcycles, and usually ended the short rides at the end of the pack. We also had a decent amount of traffic, and didn't start until later (11:00). I saw some rides began at 9:30, which might have helped with the traffic issue.

My aching left (clutch) hand has finally recovered from riding the clutch all day.

Cool.

Awesome and you didn't win a helmet?

Sweet. I'll be doing this on my Vespa in DC next year!

I did the Chicago one. So many nice bikes of all kinds. Very few Modern Vespas and some vintage ones too. The ride was right through downtown Chicago and the Lake Front down Lake Shore Drive. I will definitely try to do it next year. I did the Mod look this year. Hopefully I will try to ride with my wife's 64 V90 next year.

I just wish my iphone hadn't run out of memory so I could have take some pics.

I think I must be well out of the hunt.

Last time I checked I was #94 and the fundraising runs to Oct. 31.

Try as I may, I can't translate my blog post into anything that BBcode will accept. I tried two sites that purport to translate HTML to BBcode but neither one produced an acceptable result.

So here's a link to my blog post, it's the best I seem to be able to do:

http://www.life2wheels.com/2016/09/an-eyewitness-account-of-torontos-2016.html#more