Modern Vespa

I've been getting my rather-sizable photo archive together (slowly), and also just finished rebuilding.cleaning one of my scanners for making quick, medium-res scans for appraisal. And i happened to come across a few boxes of slides from my initial moto-escapades in the summer of 1976 in upstate New York. Lots of pics of my friends in action, but none of my aboard my ride - story of my life. But I did come across one photo of my ride, and a rueful reminder of my love/hate relationship with it. It's said that "you never forget your first", but I think the degree of clarity in memory is highly dependent on certain things...

What make and model is this? I can't really identify due to the shadows.

The brand is about as obscure as you can get: it's a Premier 125, from Italy; I have no idea of its parentage - Italjet/Ducati/Moto Guzzi/???

I think there was a three-sentence mini-review of the bike in an early-70s issue of Cycle magazine...not especially distinguished.

http://www.motorcycleclassics.com/1975-moto-beta-125-premier-enduro

This guy? It looks pretty nifty. It makes me wish I would've had more time with motorcycles in my early years.

Holy sheep-dip, that's it.

I'll just say that when it ran, the thing was a blast...and nearly everything I've learned about motorcycling - good, bad, funny and terrifying - started with that bike.