Modern Vespa

So I had the good fortune to pick up two new scooters this past weekend. The first was a white 2018 Suzuki Burgman 650. The 650 is my daily rider for my 60 mile round-trip work commute. My old '05 Burgman 650 is/was and amazing scoot, but with the miles piling up and me becoming a candy-ass in my dotage, I opted for the same bullet-proof scoot but with heated grips and seat since I ride year round. The only thing that keeps me off the road on PTW is snow.

Picked up my Burgy on Saturday and made the hour long trip home. Smooth, quiet...almost too quiet. A more refined "Burgman experience" than I'd been having on my '05, but very much the typical boring "Burgman experience"...doubly-so since I was making nice-nice trying to do a conscientious break-in. I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. Parked the scoot in the garage and didn't touch it again until leaving for work this AM.

On Memorial Day, I picked up my wife's new GTS 300 Touring. It's a 35 mile ride from the Vespa dealer back to home if one takes the quickest route. I decided to stay off the 60+ MPH roads in an effort to be kind during break-in. Had a nice cruise down the George Washington Parkway, through old town Alexandria and on down through Mount Vernon. Decided to make a few turns onto roads I didn't know just to see what was there.

When I finally got home 120 minutes and 68 miles later, I had the strangest sensation. It was something I don't remember feeling in 20+ years of riding PTW. It took me a good while to finally determine what that odd sensation was. I am pretty sure it was pure JOY. I was in absolutely no hurry to get where I needed to be and enjoyed every second of the trip. I enjoyed the stoplights...the sensation of being on a MUCH bigger bike with all the one-cylinder loping and vibrating at idle made me giddy for reasons I cannot explain...even if it did cause one of my license plate bolts to vibrate loose and fall off somewhere on the ride.

I enjoyed the sensation of being much more engaged in the ride. I sit no closer to the road on the Vespa than my Burgman 650, but I just felt more invested. Taking advantage of the nimble scoot's agility to swerve around potholes and manhole covers and rolling-on the surprisingly-peppy throttle to avoid obstacles made for a very entertaining ride. The whole time I was cruising through old town, I felt like just another pedestrian. I noticed more shops and restaurants than I ever do in a car or my Burgman. And had the mood struck, I could have made quick work of whipping out of traffic and into a Vespa-sized parking hole somewhere. That thought never occurs to me on my Burgman and it's size makes the acts of whipping and parking a bit more difficult.

At home, the wife and kids fawned over the Vespa for *hours*. All of then striking various poses and snapping pics that instantly got "social-media"-ed into the etherverse. I don't know what "retro-cool" is but the kids are all excited that the wife has now gained that stature according to a recent Gallup poll of teenage social-media friends.

The reaction to coming home on my new Burgman? One of the kids noticed something off in the garage *two days later* and asked "I thought your bike was blue?" No poses, no coolness, no pics memorializing the event in the twitterverse. Another boring day in a boring dad's life with a new boring bike that's the same as his old boring bike. Sigh.

But I get it, I really do. I can't wait for my first Burgy breakdown so I have an excuse to take the wife's Vespa to work! Apparently, joy is contagious. Damnit, I think I just got Vespa-ed.

Sounds like you thoroughly enjoyed the experience Monguire.

It's also apparent you know your way around a sentence.

Great story!

Oh I understand. I have a BMW C650 and while I enjoy it my Vespa is just such a joy to ride. I think having access to both is amazing. When I ride the GTV300 after a few days on the 650 it literally feels like a child's toy but in the best way possible. Nimble and fast the Vespa really is a blast and feels like an extension of myself. The BMW feels like a big heavy beast and it is in comparison to the Vespa. I'm absolutely at home on either but the Vespa smile factor is higher especially on the smiles per dollar spent scale. The only place the BMW wins is highway/high speed runs with the GPS and tunes going or grocery runs. You need to find plenty of reasons to borrow your wife Vespa

We are all pretty "vespa-ed" here

Nice story. Thanks for sharing.

Can't wait for the follow up story about YOUR Vespa purchase.

I too know what you mean. I come from riding big bikes (1400's and 1000's) and scooters too (including the works 650 Burgy) and my own 400 Burgman gem of a scooter. When I bought my GTS300ie I did wonder if I was doing the right thing, even though I had wanted one for a few years. Well, I can tell you, I need not have worried. What a bike! It's a joyous thing to ride at any speed and it's allowed me to re-discover proper motorcycling, but with better brakes, engine and handling than the smaller mid range bikes of old. I just never stop smiling when riding it and after near 18 months of riding, I still get the same excited feeling from when I'm out on it. I've just come in from a 50 mile evening jaunt in the cool evening air. It was a blast! Try and get the bike off your wife as many times as you can...or better still, get a GTS300 of your own. It handles the faster roads ok, especially once it's got a couple of thousand miles on the clock and she loosens up a bit. A 60 mile round trip each day is what it's built for.

I completely understand it. I have several types of bikes in the garage and the GTS is something special. I was riding home from my girlfriends at midnight last night. The air was warm, the moon was out and there was nothing but my headlight shining down the empty highway. The bike is so smooth and quiet, it was like floating down the road.

Tonight, as happens a few nights a week, I'm coming back from a freelance tech gig in Gotham. The train out of Penn Station is sometimes quiet, sometimes noisy (depending on whether a local team is in the playoffs or not); tonight it was sorta in the middle. I kibbitz a little with the conductors, catch up on e-mail and news (and MV, of course). I was a bit tired, weather tonight was a bit funky, not exactly cold but a sudden enough temp drop for fog and condensation everywhere. Finally reaching the last stop at Long Branch, I shuffle off the train with everyone else, and stroll into the parking lot - and there's Melody, which always brings a little smile to my face. Yes, always - those sweet, sensuous curves and contours will seduce me till I'm dead, but, as I often say, it's the gestalt of the damn bike that keeps me happily enthralled...the refined-yet-lively sensation of riding at most any speed, putting me in mind of Jay Leno saying that with a proper set of wheels (two or four), the most fun happens between 40 and 110mph, and that the true fun of motoring is in going swiftly, as opposed to just balls-out fast. For me, the GTS pretty much epitomizes this philosophy, in a quietly cheerful way.

When I first went shopping for a scooter, I stated that it had to be something that would last a long time, and, every bit as important, something I'd want to keep for a long time. There was a restaurant in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn I used to frequent in the 90s, which had one of those little wrought-iron signs hanging on the back outdoor dining deck with an aphorism that was both corny and truthful in one go: "Success is getting what you want; Happiness is wanting what you get." So far, the better part of three years after getting it, I've been almost ridiculously happy with this bike.

This may be a dumb question amateriat, but how do you keep Melody from getting vandalized or stolen while parked?

I can relate to your experience. I have a GTS300 and I am the former owner of a Burgman 650. For three years I had them both in my garage, now the Vespa remains. Over forty years on ptw's and I've never had or ridden a bike that made me feel like my Vespa does.

Hardly a dumb question, so here goes:

- In spite of the paranoia that comes from being born in New York City, New Jersey is simply a different universe; its not that tgere aren't sketchy parts of towns here, but the level of hardened criminal activity ain't quite the same. Most of that activity comes down to crimes of opportunity - an unlocked car or one with its windows down, and so on.

That said, I always put my Grip Lock on the bike when parked at the train station, and so far, so good.

(EDIT: The one time the bike was tampered with was when we were doing the AirBnB thing in town while the house was being remodeled; the irony is that it was parked in a shared driveway, and I think it was just a couple of drunk kids horsing around. Damage was limited to a broken rear side reflector and slightly bent left brake lever.)

I too have been considering a Grip Lock for my wife's new GTS 300. I want something convenient enough that she'll consistently use but enough of a deterrent to keep honest folks honest.

I know a Grip Lock won't keep hardened, determined criminals away from it, but thankfully not too many of the hardened, determined criminals we grow around here see a Vespa and think "That's so cool...I imagine riding a Vespa around on my nefarious capers will certainly earn me the respect of other hardened criminals!"

The thing to remember here is that whatever you do to protect your ride won't necessarily prevent a hardened pro from nicking your ride, but will likely slow him down enough to make him pass over your bike and move on to an easier mark. This is a bigger deal in the UK than on this side of the pond; scooter thievery in London has been pretty damn rampant for a while, and where there are seasoned pros who can pretty much circumvent anything short of the owner sitting nearby with a sawed-off twin-gauge in her/his lap. On this side of the pond, I say a Grip Lock is about good enough, and the key thing is that it's so drop-dead simple to implement, your wife (as well as you...you know you'll be riding this thing more than just a bit) will use it just about every time she parks the bike somewhere. Seriously, it's that easy and quick to use.

amateriat, thanks for the story and the photo. Such happiness is frequently sought but infrequently found.

I've used both the grip lock and the disc lock on my scoots. I fully agree, if someone "wants" to steal your scoot, you're screwed. All you can do is make it unappetizing to the impulse thief or vandal.