Modern Vespa

I wrote this account a couple of months ago and shared it on the Wild Goose Chase forum in response to a "Your Most Embarrassing Moment" post. Reading the other responses was enlightening to say the least.

I'm a newb, and my first motorcycle was rolled into the garage this last September 22nd. One month to the day later I dropped Anni at a T intersection in South Mountain Park, not once but twice! I swear it wasn't just a simple case of a jittery newb as there was vomit, a bee sting, and a downed cyclist involved.

The story goes like this:

I dropped off the kids at school and rushed home to gear up. The weather was perfect for mid-October, 80 with an expected high of 92, so I was excited to get up the mountain. I pulled out of the neighbourhood gate, turned up the hill and hung a right. Immediately I saw two motorcyclists on the side of the road, and one was flagging me down.

Turns out, she just was so thrilled to see another lady on a bike she couldn't contain herself! I thought the other biker was a friend of hers, but he was a stranger she had struck up a conversation with. Whilst we were talking, a kid on a Honda NC700 went by and waved, she tried to flag him down too. This lady was a very enthusiastic new rider and wanted everyone to know it. After chatting about her Honda Rebel, and my admittedly gorgeous Anni, 20 minutes later I was on the road.

The ride up Summit Rd. and Dobbins Lookout was beautiful, so I decided on the way down to take a left at N. Buena Vista, then up S. TV Rd. to the Gila Valley Lookout. All went well, I even saw the Honda NC700 and her rider taking in the view, but I chose not to stop but to return down the mountain.

Here's where it gets hairy. I came to the Summit Rd./N. Buena Vista T, and stopped for a car that had the right of way. I was stopped on an uphill grade making a semi-blind downhill left turn, a little rough for a newb, but I'd done it several times before without issue. As I eased on the throttle and started slipping the clutch I heard a crash at my right rear accompanied by retching!

As you know, newbs don't do well when they have to think about too many things at once. Here I was, worried about traffic on a blind corner, getting moving on a hill, and negotiating an uphill to downhill turn, then I'm startled by lord knows what behind me. I grabbed a handful of front brake whilst turning to the right to see what the commotion was, and OH S#!+!!!. Anni listed left, and down she went.

The noise turned out to be a young lady bicyclist coming to an emergency stop and being unable to get her clip ons detached before she puked all over herself. She managed to, but just barely. Meanwhile, Anni had landed on my left ankle, pinning me briefly, but in my adrenaline-fueled state, I pulled free as another cyclist pulled up.

This new guy arriving at the scene was at a loss as to which chick to help first, me under the motorcycle or the lady barfing up a lung. I told him I was fine and to check on her, yanked clear, stood and surveyed the damage. A few cars going up Summit Rd. slowed, but none stopped. I guess they figured with two bikes, and one person down, they wanted none of it.

It took a few minutes for the women to start feeling a touch better, and when she did, the gentleman came to offer his help in lifting Anni off the blacktop, and to a better location. This is when I discovered a broken peg and lever gazing accusingly at me from the ground. I picked them up, shoved 'em into my pocket, and rolled Anni to a slightly flatter spot, and wondered how the f^@K was I going to get home.

Now, you might be wondering about that aforementioned bee sting; enter the NC700 and rider. The kid comes to a stop, flips up his visor, asks if I'm Ok, reaches for his keys AND GETS STUNG! The bee was probably hanging on for dear life on his keychain.

Now it was my turn to come to the rescue! I scraped out the still pumping stinger and joked about good samaritans getting the short end of the stick or something dumb like that. Nerves, I guess. He mentioned seeing me earlier with the chick that flagged me and tried to flag him down. I told him the same story as above and said I had considered purchasing an NC700, but it was too tall for me to sit comfortably blah-blah...

Niceties done with, barf-girl on her feet and being loaded into a friends car, thank yous and handshakes all around, I mount up, and try working the clutch. As it turns out, it wasn't difficult as there was plenty of room at the peg connection point to support my foot and just enough clutch lever to grip. Whoo-hoo, off to home I go to be done with this fiasco!

My ankle was a bit sore from the bike landing on it, but I was wearing TCX Street motorcycle hightops with ankle protection, which helped a lot. I pulled up to my driveway, dismounted, opened the garage, rolled out my moto-dolly, and remounted. My drive is a short, downhill run so I usually coast down onto the dolly without power. Easy-peasy right? Apparently not with a tweaked ankle! Anni rolled on fine, I put my left foot down and felt an excruciating bit of lightning shoot through my ankle...and dropped her on the undamaged side!

A scooter-riding neighbour witnessed my distress and helped me pick her up and roll her into the garage because now I was in pain. The embarrassment of having my troubles witnessed by someone I knew just made everything worse.

To make a long story longer, the ankle took five months to heal and Anni needed $130. in replacement parts. My poor Anni was dropped again (gently, and in the garage) a few months later, twice on the same day. I guess for me, some things happen in two's.

If you want to hear how I dropped Gigi, let me know. It's not nearly as involved a story (unless you're into Polska parties) but it still illustrates how there isn't any substitute for experience.

Everyone does stupid stuff when learning and sometimes the only way around it is through. If you want to ride, more power to you! Just understand that getting your dream ride as for your first scooter/motorcycle may lead to heartbreak. If you insist on going that route (as I did) get crash bars (you'll thank me), wear the gear, and keep a good sense of humor about it all.

Now it's your turn to share and maybe help some newb from suffering the same fate.

Ooh, I have a good one! I was still teaching high school when I bought my GTS in 2009, in February. The winters are usually mild here, but sometimes not. The very first day the roads were free of ice, I rode to school. I didn't want to park in the lot with the kids, so I went around back where the lunch ladies and custodians parked, and a few teachers who had classrooms on that end of the building. It was about 28 F overnight, and I arrived at 7:15, still dark out. I didn't want to take up a full space, so I parked just off the pavement next to a colleague's SUV. I went about my usual routine of warping young minds and the like, and right about the time the last class period was beginning, a kid came running into my room and shouted, "Hey, your mo-pad fell over and hit Ms. E's car. The alarm went off and everything!" So, I go down and look into it, and sure enough, trying to be Mr Cool and park off the pavement, I didn't count on the afternoon thaw. The center stand sank into the soft dirt, banged up Ms E's SUV, knocked the mirror loose, and got a little rash on the cowl. Oh, and there were MsE's class, standing around laughing at my "mo-pad".

No single moment stands out, but there are no shortage of 'oops' and 'near oops' moments in my early riding career when I lost focus, got fixated on oncoming traffic and grabbed great big handfuls of front brake in panic situations.

That I have survived to become a cautious, methodical rider is equal parts luck and practice.

Until a newb develops good muscle memory, instincts and habits, the best advice is to NOT try to ride at the speed/level that today's excellent bikes and scoots allow.

The best anaogy I can think of is ski equipment. Modern ski equipment is so advanced that it allows a beginner to ski waaaay beyond their ability. On the bunny slope that is good for confidence-building. But far too often new skiiers take their early successes on the easy slopes to mean they can skip the intermediate slopes and dive right into the advanced slopes with steep terrain and challenging moguls.

As riders, we need to be keenly aware of how developed and polished our skills are at any moment in time.

If I haven't been doing more than local errands for a few weeks, I take that first foray onto the highway as if it is my first; At least until I have had a chance to give myself a cautious check-out on lane-changing, , countersteering, passing and emergency braking.

Just because the DMV doesn't require that you retake your riding test periodically doesn't mean you shouldn't give yourself frequent self-tests.

Thanks, wmac, for stepping up to the plate!

Good advice, Treppenwitz!

C'mon folks, I know there are more tales of woe worth sharing. Be brave, bite the bullet and blush remembering your faux pas so others can learn from it. Or, at the very least, not feel like they are the only one who's done "that".

Kill switch.

If your scooter won't start, check, double check, and do it again check the kill switch.

S'all I'm gonna say for now.

In 1998, when I first started to ride (part I), I bought a Honda Shadow 500, which was a little tall for me. I park in the garage, and there was plenty of room in there.

I went to back out of the garage, and backed down the hill a bit, and decided to turn and then ride out. Big mistake, trying to turn while astride the bike going backwards down the driveway... as soon as I turned 90 degrees, BOOM, down I go. And yeah, my kids saw that.... I was not a super cool guy with a motorcycle, I was a spazz!

Well as a newbie to motor driven cycles, I don't yet have an embarrassing moment, although I'm sure it'll come. I'm just chiming in as a 35 year resident of the Phoenix area, that I know the places of which you speak! And the terrain...and the beautiful weather for riding. Moved to Richmond VA last summer...so at least I've discovered the scoot world, and how convenient that Amerivespa is here for me to immerse myself!

Okay, there have been a few...but embarrassment is proportional to the number of witnesses IMHO, so that would be while leading my first group ride. Had maybe a dozen in the group, daughter on the back of my GTS. I was confused about our route and turned off of our road. The surface was ground-up asphalt, and in attempting to walk it around to go back, slipped on the gravelly surface, lost balance and we went over. Of course, the rest of the group had stopped to see what we were going to do, so all eyes were on us. Fortunately only a few scratches on the scooter (thank you, crash bars!) and none on us.

Heh.
And then there was the whole needing a jump with your mom there.

Yeah, witnesses there too.... Just fewer.

Then there was last year in Minneapolis when I was rushing to top up my tank, pump didn't click off as it does 99% of the time (at least in Wisconsin, ahem), glanced away and when I looked back gas was running off of my scooter onto the ground. Steaming up off of the exhaust and all. Thought I was seconds away from a conflagration. Could have been a much more memorable event.

Edit: Then I just saw this. Too late to stop a near heart attack.

My latest one involves a 20 ton press.

I got as far as rolling my dead scoot onto the hitch mounted hauler before I figured it out. I even started it on the hitch to prove my stupidity to myself.

Fortunately, I was the last one out that day, so no one ever heard about it.

I've had a lot of "events" while riding the scooter than have inspired anger, frustration or resentment. But only one that I can say was embarrassing. It happened on March 3, 2006 with my LX150. And snow.

As a newbie rider I decided to ride to work in the snow. Having no experience with snow and ice at that point the results were predictable and down I went. I remember getting up and the first thing I did was look around to see if anyone saw me. I was embarrassed. It was a great first, soft lesson in winter riding for me. The embarrassment pushed me to pay closer attention.

It was one of my early blog posts on Scooter in the Sticks if you want the first hand account....

Winter Riding Story: First Drop

Embarrassing confessions of a flatlander...

Where I live (Coastal South Carolina) is flat. the only hills we have are bridges and the only twisties are ramps going to those bridges. So we go elsewhere to ride-notably the Appalachians and places like the BRP.
I was on such a week-long ride with my son, who traveled here from Colorado to ride. On about the third or forth day, we had been riding hard about four or five hours, stopping only for gas, when we decided to stop and hydrate. We pulled off the side of the road and I noticed when I took my hands off the brake lever the scooter started idling forward. S#@t! All that hard mountain riding has fried my clutch! Put the brakes on and let off again.... same thing. No worse place for this to happen-in the mountains on a ride with my son! "Damn, Alex, I have a problem. something is wrong with the scoot. The clutch won't fully disengage and I am moving!" I reported with a mixture of dread and regret. My son pulled off his helmet and looked over at me. "Dad, we're on a hill."

I was leading a group ride with about 6 or 7 other area scooterists. We had stopped for lunch and after settling all the bills, we all went out to gear up and head out for the remainder of our ride.

Once geared up, I tried to start my scoot. Several repeated tries on the starter resulted in no joy. I had determined that my battery had died and I would need a jump. I hauled out my jumper cables and removed the 4 screws that hold down the footwell rack and battery cover. Another rider in our group also has a GTS, so he pulled his scoot alongside mine, and I quickly removed his battery cover.

We hooked up the cables appropriately and he started his scoot. We waited a minute and then tried to start mine, but the scoot would not start. Now I'm getting pissed! I run through the jumper cable setup to ensure we had that correct. I turned my ignition key and heard the hum of the fuel pump. WTH!!!

Another rider in our group then pointed out I had knocked the kill switch to the OFF position, likely when I was putting my gloves on. So I had 6 other riders who had been patiently waiting for me to get the bike started, now waiting while I reassembled the two I had needlessly taken apart.

Whenever I or another rider I'm with has an issue with starting, I now check the kill switch first thing.

I'm about a year to go until my retirement from the P.D. Been riding since I was 15. Not cocky at all, just confident in my abilities.

On duty, one evening on a Harley police bike. My town is having a ceremony where the decorated trees and shrubs on the main traffic circle are going to be lit for the holiday season. Easy peasy detail, right? Well, I was stopping and going to about 10 locations that needed to be blocked off from traffic to make it safe for the many people that would be standing there. I was finally done and could have a bit of a rest and maybe a hot chocolate they were handing out to the maybe 400 residents that showed up.

Everyone's attention was directed to the traffic circle, and I decided to park my bike in a newly made gravel parking lot off to the side and behind all the holiday go-ers.
Well, as soon as I got off the bike, I noticed the lean wasn't stopping. WTF? I knew I put the side stand down. Yes, it went all the way down, even with the side stand being down. That brand new gravel lot wasn't solid enough. Lucky for me, it was at just the time they were counting down to the switching on of the lights and everyone was looking away from my spot. I don't know how I did it, adrenaline and the fear of embarrassment are wonderful things, that just as the bike went down, I turned back to it and in one fast and fluid motion, I lifted it immediately.

When I was a young lad, I got my first Harley. A 94 Sportster. It was bad ass. I was hanging w some friends and met a girl who asked me to sit on it. It was new to me and I was being a dick about it so I told her no. She was shitty with me about it but I was absolute. No chicks on my harley unless they were on the back.
A buddy asked me to do a burn out and I was happy to oblige.
I hopped on it and went to pull away from the curb faster than I should have and forgot the fork lock was still on. I wanted to go straight and the bike was turning left..
I dumped it into the street and it fell on my leg..
That girl who I didn't let sit on it laughed and laughed at me!

So embarrassed. I always let pretty girls sit on my bikes now....

Yup - happened to me in front of a bunch of people. A guy walks up and flips the kill switch - doohhh! It's a nothing in the grand scheme of things.

OK, here is a better one. I cannot go far because I'm a Carer for my wife who has MS and cannot use her legs. So I take the 2002 KTM Duke II (Rescued from a buddys shed for the last 10 years) into town to run an errand. I had the tank off the week before and it's been running great after rebuilding the carb and cleaning the tank, fluids, maintenance, etc. Anyway, I get about 3 miles from the house and it dies. I'm freaking out and about ready to park it in a parking lot and run home when it starts again. I blow off the errand and head home. Same thing 1/2 way home. What the hell? Then it dawns on me - fuel vapor lock? I undo the gas cap and the tell-tale Pfssst of air being sucked into the tank. When I reinstalled the tank I pinched the breather hose which runs underneath the tank. Disaster averted, and now I'll always check that breather hose when the tank gets reinstalled.

OK, not that big of a thing, but I went through that tell-tale lurch of your gut doing flip-flops. Needless to say, I didn't say anything to my wife!

I picked up my Suzuki S40 from a local shop after having the tires changed. On my way to work I came down a slight hill and the bike stalled out. I pulled it over to the side of the road and started checking the easy stuff. The bike doesn't have a fuel gauge and the bike was still relatively new to me at the time (can you tell where I'm going here?).

I pulled the gas cap off and saw some gas in there so immediately ruled that out then checked a couple other things and was defeated. I called my insurance company to send a tow truck out to tow it home, and just in case asked a friend to bring some gas just in case I was crazy and only thought I saw gas in the tank.

My friend showed up first and the bike started right up. There was so little gas in the tank that the slight downhill moved all of the gas away from the outlet that goes to the carb. So I showed up to work 40 minutes all because I was too obstinate and new better than my bike.

[quote="fledermaus"][quote="Madison Sully"] I was on my FIRST National Classic Scooter Rally...
Just filled up with fuel... Blew my clutch taking off... Removed rear wheel. To remove clutch cover... Tipped scoot over... Slid wheel under scoot to "jack it up"...
Servo filled up with other scoots (incl lots of pretty Lambrettas)...

Then There was a mighty EXPLOSION...

HOT exhaust, with tyre under it, meant tube blew...
Full fuel tank meant a big stream of fuel running down The forecourt...

I've NEVER seen a servo clear out so quickly!

I ALMOST dropped mine early on after I got it.

I was riding home and heard a "clunck," looked back and saw that my iPhone had fallen out of my pocket and onto the road. There was no traffic coming, so I circled back to get it. Straddling my scoot, I tried bend down to pick it up, but couldn't quite reach it. So I got off and, holding onto the throttle grip, bent down to get it. Big mistake!

As I bent down, the scoot started leaning away from me, which caused my hand to goose the throttle. It tried to get away from me, but somehow I hung on (I still replay this in my mind - I don't know how the hell I hung on!). I still didn't have my phone, and there were now 3 vehicles waiting for me to get out of the road, watching my shenanigans.

Only now did I put the scoot on its stand, pick up the phone, then pull over to the side of the road to get my wits back. One lady leaned out of her car to ask if I was OK. Yes, I'm fine (except for my ego & my wrist, which was throbbing and starting to swell). I guess I wrenched the ligaments in my wrist holding onto the surging scoot, but that's not a bad trade-off for not dropping it.

I got on a friend's RD350 it had funny pipes he said it was fast. I was riding a 550 at the time so I got on the bike and cranked it open; they have a flat seat, WHAAAAAAaaaaa, front lifting, holy shit! ... it was all I could do to was hold on from sliding off the back of the seat, further I slid back the more I grabbed on the throttle to save myself; not really sure what to do next I hit second gear and the forward thrust eased up enough for me to twist back the throttle; got control and continued on around the block.
Arriving back he asked "how you like it" I said "eha it was okay".

Funny how much easier it is to share embarrassing moments years after the event. The first year or so of scooting you couldn't pry anything out of me. Maybe goes with age too-you realize how many screw-ups others have had, no matter how astute they seem.

A couple of years back I was leading a ride. We had a gas stop which happened to be near a rock outcrop that was a local landmark. As everyone was chilling for a bit, I rode off to take a photo of it. Pulled onto the shoulder, just off the pavement for the picture. Unfortunately, the gravel shoulder sloped more than usual, and even with my long legs couldn't keep my footing, so tipped over. Got upright quickly. Fortunately I think everyone missed the show, but still. Once more loved my crash bars. Maybe I just needed to justify the investment.

Just one more doofus moment....

I have another "dUH!" moment.

1977. Two lane country road, 45MPH limit. I'm tooling along on my CB360T. 80,000 lb dump truck with flatbed trailer with bulldozer aboard is stopped on my dirt shoulder with flashers on. As I approach him, he starts out and immediately starts to turn left into a small street, crossing my path. I hit the brakes and stay straight and upright. I *almost* made the stop, there just wasn't enough separation. I get down to about 5 or 10 MPH and I hit the dump truck just behind the driver's door. I know my helmet somewhat gently hits the solid dump body and bounces off. The combination of his motion left and my trying to veer left forces me left across the oncoming lane and into someone's front yard, where I gently fall over onto the lawn. The driver stops in the middle of the road and runs over, thinking I'm dead. Well, being 23 years old and very flexible, I'm fine. The bike has a bent brake lever and a scraped throttle end. But I'm now shaking something terrible from the rush of adrenaline. I tell him I'm fine and try to start the bike to get away. I try and try, and then rest and try and try for a half hour, convinced something is messed up from the crash, and now I'm not only not shaking anymore, but tired. Then I look over and notice the kill switch got bumped to OFF. Fixed that and it started right up and off I went. Probably a very good thing I wasn't able to ride off right away while trembling from adrenaline.

Automatic kill switch. What a great feature! 8)

I recall when I first got my LX (used). I was flustered because my scooter wouldn't start. In my defense, this was after a wire had become disconnected leaving me stranded down my county road and they'd had to reconnect it. I assumed something like that was up again. Called the shop that sold it to me and in troubleshooting, asked if I was holding down a brake lever..... er....