Modern Vespa

I had decided to treat myself to a long weekend trip away on my own, I decided on Pickering in North Yorkshire, for 4 nights in a B&B, approximately 190 miles away, this would be my first trip away on my Vespa GTS300 Touring.
The day was dry and overcast with blustery winds and about 15C, I found that my RST textile jacket was too well vented and made me cold, despite having a medium height screen fitted, the wind was coming around the screen and making my bank cold, even worse was the serious buffeting I was getting from vehicles in front of me, especially from trucks and big vans, so much so that I was literally hanging on with grim determination, seriously spoiling my ride.
I started with a full tank of fuel, but had to fill up after around 80 miles as the gauge was showing nearly empty,as I was not sure if the fuel gauge was accurate, and when
I reached Pickering, I was empty again, 2 fillups in 190 miles travelling at around 60mph.
I found that the small tank range and the extreme nervousness of the ride caused by the buffeting/small wobbly wheels spoiled what should have been an enjoyable ride.maybe a bigger wheeled BV350 may be the answer.

They do drink fuel when going at motorway speeds. I usually stick to A and B roads where the ride is so much more pleasant but you then need to give yourself more time to get there. Which route did you take out of curiosity?

Yeah the "touring" part may be a bit misleading. This may sound lame but the jacket might have been part of the problem. When you aren't warm and comfortable everything else seems just that much worse. I know all about the gritting teeth and hanging on from the buffeting. My solution was to give BMW a bunch of money and use the Vespa on the smaller motorways. So 3 hours to the cottage on the GTV and under an hour and a half on the C650GT. I enjoy both rides and the Vespa is just fun to ride so a bit longer in the saddle is OK. Gas mileage... yeah that's a problem but how much pet carrier space would you want to give up?

A BV350 may have been a better ride but then you wouldn't have a Vespa. Keeping both an option but they are too close in size really for that. Go bigger would be my advice for highway travel. The C650 just shrugs off large trucks and wind.

Mind you Bill and a lot of others here will disagree and say the large frame Vespa's are great for any riding

"A BV350 may have been a better ride but then you wouldn't have a Vespa."

Doesn't that just sum up why most of us DO have Vespas? I don't think of myself as having a scooter, I've got a Vespa. My nearest motorway access is over 90 miles away and more of my mileage is on lanes with grass down the middle or covered in sand than on dual carriageways. If I still rode to work or travelled mostly along main roads then I'd still have my T-Max (or possibly my GS, or possibly my ZRX1200.....)

How strange. I took a 115-mile trip just last weekend (Bishop, California, to Tonopah, Nevada), and the whole route is 65mph/104kph highway. I *just* made it on one tank of gas, so assuming I used about 2.3 gallons of fuel, that's 50mpg at highway speed the whole way.

You must be getting significantly less if you had to fill up a GTS twice for 190 miles (40-ish miles per gallon?).

Were you fighting a significant headwind the whole way?

It was a blustery day with strong side winds, I was only doing around 50 to 65 mph, sometimes slower in traffic,
I did use the good acceleration to pass trucks etc, but rode pretty steadily really.
I left my home near Norwich and used the A47 to Sleaford, then A15 through
Lincoln , over the Humber Bridge, then A and B roads to Pickering, so no motorways (freeways),I'm still not sure how accurate the fuel gauge is though.

As an update, I returned home to Norfolk yesterday, lovely sunny an windless day, looking forward to a pleasant ride, I deliberately took a more scenic rural route home part of the way, keeping to around 55-60mph, I got home, on one refill of the tank,so 2 tankfulls all in, but was empty on arriving home. Total journey home was 208 miles.
I rode through torrential rain for the last 70 miles and was glad of the medium height screen fitted, and when arriving home, I thought the exhaust sounded a bit noisy, the gasket/seal had started blowing!