Modern Vespa

If you like metaphors its a bit like spinning plates while maintaining a smile for 11 hours a day which can be fun but it's also quite knackering.

If you're interested there's a bit of an issue going on with Jaguar/Land Rover dealerships at the moment.

JLR have insisted that the franchises take both brands under one roof into what's called the twin arch concept in an attempt to cancel out the loss making Jaguar sites and the profit making Land Rover outlets.

Land Rover have been underpinning Jaguar's losses for years now.

These new buildings cost the franchisees around 14 million to build and many have chosen to close or sell out rather than to reinvest.

Those who have paid the price are really feeling the pinch as sales of Range Rovers have dropped significantly due to the diesel emission scandal and that other old chestnut brexit.

Some of the more short sighted groups are considering selling their brand new gin palaces because they are losing so much money.

It's a very interesting time in the motor industry right now.

Bill x

Yes, indeed it is very interesting. Tesla and the Chinese manufacturers are shaking things up, plus shifts away from hydrocarbons and towards driverless cars mean we're going to see some big winners and losers over the next decade.

In less than 3 years every manufacturer is going to be offering a fully electric range so I think that Tesla sales will take a hit.

Bill x

Yes, Tesla is a little at risk if they can't ramp up Model 3 production fast enough, and one of the big mainstream manufacturers gets a competitive fully electric car to market. It would be a huge shame if they failed to become profitable, as they've done a great job of pushing everyone into the future and they deserve success.

For a lot of firms though, a "fully electric" range means nothing more than a mild hybrid tacked onto a traditional petrol engine so it's mostly marketing rather than a real shift.

An Alfa 4C drag race vs a Tesla Model X towing a trailer with an Alfa 4C!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcIAthVDePZ/

Talking of fully electric, get a load of this.

Can you guess what it is yet ?

Mission E?

I'm amazed that the Alfa made it to the end of the course. ( Sorry Paul )

Yes the Mission E. Stunning isnt it.

Anyone watching Formula E ?

Bill x

I've watched bits of a formula E, and it's ok but isn't quite there yet.

Once they can do a full race without swapping cars that'll help, and F1 is going to lose a lot of audience when it goes Sky only.

When's that going to happen ?

2019 for five years unless liberty media can sort something out.

Next year we also get the horrid Halo device added to the cars which isn't ideal either.

Each year I seem to lose just a little more interest in it.

Formula E needs to get to some bigger circuits as the downtown ones just seem a bit mickey mouse.

Bill xxx

Hi Everyone,
Not been on here for ages, hope you're all well.
Hope to catch up soon.
Baz

Where you been then Baz ?

See you in about another year ?

Bill x

Just got stuck over in Facebook land.
Good to see you're still on here.
We'll have to meet up for a chat sometime, ride safe Bill.

Hey everybody.

Ah...so this is the new pad? I like what you've done with the place...

Nice scoot Alice - there's a real Stormtrooper vibe about it. I like white, as many will testify 8)

Bummer about the pics - can't see any recent ones my end

Car news - Alfa will be in the British Touring Car Championship next year with HMS Racing running a Giulietta, and they return to F1 too in a tie up with Sauber. Can't remember if I mentioned I had a invite from the nice people at Alfa Romeo UK to do this a month or two back, and right good it was too... (2min vid).. Looking forward to a great new thread and a whole new riding year...

Hi guys in India , Goa then south by train To Kochin...
There's hardly any LML Vespas left... Mainly Honda weird stuff you don't see in UK... 90% of traffic in towns is 2 wheels... All filthy and crazy... No one but me wears helmets gloves, body armour, jacket... There's one billion of them and only one of me.. But there's quite a few folk with new leg, arm and jaw bandages.. Most drive and flow like some weird Indian Osmosis... But generally the traffic is so bad, it rarely gets above 20 mph... You see all the time 2 people with 2 babies on one scoot, unlike my previous trip 30 years ago, no one carrying animals or giant stacks of hay.. The most dangerous carry I have seen so far was a rider, with rear passenger going along a country bumpy road with 2 pieces of window glass 3 by 4 feet, balanced on the rear guys thighs.
Also what I ve seen is that no one locks their bikes with padlocks... Some leave helmets on their seats, and some leave keys in their ignition. Abandon diead bikes are left to the undergrowth not split for parts. This is a Desperately poor place but scooter nicking seems to be in the bad Karma category.. Unlike London.
Gass silver machine nemaste

Nice one Gass...that'll be a great trip!

On the London theft thing...the Met are adapting their tactics to tackle it (about time, some would say)...

http://bikeworld.co.uk/news/920-undercover-police-drag-moped-thieves-from-bikes-in-new-tactic

Interesting detail in the article.

Bump

I spoke to a few recruiters this year who were looking for people with organisation design skills to support a change programme at JLR. I'm told JLRs future vision isn't to be an automotive manufacturer anymore but will increasingly become a technology company. They know electrics and self driving cars will happen eventually and its just a matter of time, and they know the mega trend is that we're becoming less interested in actually owning stuff as we once did, in favour of being able to 'access' what we want to enjoy (so forget owning all those CDs and vinyl if I can just stream the music I want from Deezer, Spotify etc). So picture a JLR web portal when you have an account with them, you book a Discovery for the weekend online or via an app (Uber style), it drives itself from their hub to your home, you take off in it for your weekend in the Lakes, Wales or Cornwall, drive it home, and it drives itself back to their hub for the next rental. Meanwhile, you've booked a fully electric Mini for your weekday commute this week, or maybe you've booked yourself a seat on a fully electric self driving car share people carrier, which plots it's own daily pick up route to the city depending on the number of bookings and the home locations of the people who've booked a seat on it. This is where we're heading...just give it time...

How about they concentrate making the product reliable before they present that concept into the world ?

A driverless Range Rover really is asking for trouble when you consider just how badly built they are.

Bill x

Just been in India, saw many good Royal Enfields, among the other plastic fantastics. proper metal, proper throaty burbling exhaust. the 350s and 500s delivered. Get one with the stainless front cowcatcher bars, and maybe the pannier attachments. Also think of getting a Chips style big front windscreen. My biker mates that have toured all over India love them, now they have decent brakes. Saw this elegantly modded one in Fort Cochin Kerala. Gass silver machine gts 250

sounds awful! Do we all have to wear sustainable veggie based lycra as well

They got the new one.

Last week I went to my first karate class since getting the new bike. Locked it up securely inside a padlocked area.

This week, no more than a couple of minutes down the road after leaving the class, two kids on a moped came up next to me and crowded me over to the side of the road, yelling at me to get off the bike. When I refused they shoved me off, pushed the bike over, then one of them picked it up and they rode away. This is a major road with a 40 limit, well lit, houses on both sides. 

(It took him a while to work out how to get it in gear and I hoped he'd give up, but no such luck.)

A very nice woman saw it all unfold, U-turned her car, picked me up, and we gave chase while she phoned the police, but we lost them a couple of streets away. I got to spend some of the rest of my evening cruising round in a police car, and the officers were then kind enough to take me home.

I feel completely pathetic for not fighting more. But one of the things they teach us at karate is not to risk getting hurt over possessions; only to fight if it's life and death stuff.

Speaking of possessions, they also got everything that was in the topbox, including my wallet and phone.

I'm fine physically; emotionally and mentally I'm a bit of a wreck. But it's only Stuff and it is all fixable.

Now that seriously sucks. I am glad that you're okay at least physically but hopefully you'll get over the emotional trauma soon. Those thieves are despicable.

Sorry to hear about this.
They are certainly bold and daring. Just one jerk of your wheel could have sent them flying.
I suppose it would be difficult, if not impossible to get descriptions of them.
Sure hope the insurance works quickly on your behalf.

Struggling to believe, and so sorry for you that i'm reading this, I can only hope (again) that something really bloody awful is going to happen to these bastards

i know it's difficult, but don't beat yourself up about not doing more, they have the upper hand, having already shown that they don't care who they maim and are willing to use acid, machetes etc to carry out their dirty antics. The risk of being blinded, losing a limb or even worse is not worth taking any risk. They do not play by our rules.

As we have seen, when they are caught, the 'punishments' are often laughable, so i can only hope something far worse is in line for them some time in their sad little existance.

True...but we're heading for putting cars into the same bracket as consumables... Oh, it's broken? Order me up a new one. How quickly will it be here? Same as so many other things that we used to repair, now moan we don't, but the world still moves on. Relentless 'progress'. Because if you're not owning it, paying for repairs and all that stuff that comes with owning a massively depreciating asset, goes out the window. It becomes more about reliability of service and access, not about the longevity or reliability of the product. It'll take some time, but I can see it happening. We used to say...what?! No more CDs?! No more vinyl records?! Now my daughter hardly knows what those are. Sure, they'll still be a retro picture, and various levels of adoption over time, but it's the future I tell thee... lol

I am absolutely gutted for you Alice. They will steal anything from anyone. Utter twats.

So sorry to read your news Alice. Struggling to know what to say.
Starting to despair for our country... the safety net of law and order, access to healthcare, reasonable public services, fairness and decency all seems to be disappearing before our eyes...

Absolutely gutted for you Alice, I'm so sorry mate and also so angry at these vermin that feel they can act with impunity.

So, so sorry for you Alice.

Words fail me.

Chin up.

somerset

??

[quote="Gedmunds"]All of the above Alice, can't believe how bad it's getting now, I thought there had actually been a slight improvement on the theft situation lately, was your phone a smart phone, if so you can install findmyphone remotely.

Alice i'm so sorry for you. Sounds like it's really getting beyond bad over there. Don't beat yourself up because you didn't fight them. You can't be replaced and who knows what the little bastards would of done. The mental part of what happened is hard to get over. Seeing a counselor can help. Don't be ashamed to see one. We all have something in our lives that counseling would help. Can you guys get together and put pressure on your elected officials to do something? There strength in number as they say.

There's been a few promisising developments recently J that might hopefully make a difference, 4 officers that were potentialy facing criminal charges when a drug dealing scrote crashed his stolen scooter were recently cleared with his death and the government has promised to protect the police more from prosecution if a pursuit goes south.

That and some new tactics for catching them and the promise of harsher sentencing.. we can only hope.

Plus one for the police and the promise of more and effective protection of the public. Hope it all comes to fruition.

I might go to see one or two British Touring Car Championship races next year. I can relate. There's an Alfa in it next year
http://www.btcc.net/2017/08/27/legendary-italian-marque-alfa-romeo-to-make-btcc-return-with-handy-motorsport/

Just got back from a week off-grid... Bloody Hell Alice! What a bugger - not just the bike, but the aggro of replacing phone, cards etc. ATB.

I'm really sorry to hear that Alice.
Have a big hug from me.