Modern Vespa

I have a casual job as a rider for a media advertising firm. We ride Vespas towing trailers with the clients advertising boards in them. Sometimes the advertising campaign requires 2 scooters but 3,4 or more may be required. We usually ride a set route and park in certain areas so the flowing traffic gets to see them and there has been a few campaigns that have required extra staff to hand out flyers or product samples. Yep, getting paid to ride Vespas is pretty good.

Pretty cool. Can you post a picture of the trailer hitch please? Thanks. Miguel

This is the best I can do with the current photos I have. Will be able to get a better one in a few days time if you wish.
Cheers, Paul

I hope they changed the variator rollers so that they have a shorter ratio.

Interesting concept indeed.

In South Africa, it is illegal for a motorcycle to tow any other vehicle - even another motorcycle.

Great getting paid to ride. I was a motorcycle courier for a year for a publishing company on Kawasaki EX500 motorcycles. Fun job.

Please do. Specially I'm interested in the hitch and how it connects to the scooter

Thx
Miguel

Check out Bushtec motorcycle trailers...

https://bushtec.com/

We had a Harley Ultra with a color-matched Bushtec trailer. The hitch (sold by Bushtec) was a great match, allowing the bike to lean in turns while the trailer remained solid and stable. No "chunking" on acceleration and stopping.

I used to ride 600 miles per week for about 5 years straight when i was a courier in London. I went through 2 GT125's and three GTS 250's Damn comfy bike if you're gonna be on it all day. Extremely reliable too.

TIL Seal is on Australian's version of the voice and human organic transports in UK use scooters. What an amazing group of people you all are.

Wow, that would have been quite an experience. We use GTS250s as the main scooters but have a 150 as a backup which pulls a lighter trailer.

Paul

When the Super Bowl was in Houston they had similar Vespa advertising scooter-trailer combos roaming around inside the loop. I had a chance to talk to a couple if t e riders and examine the setup.

Great part time job for sure.

I was wondering how the Vespa's do pulling a trailer ?

Seems like it would put a strain on the power and cause all kinds of additional wear ??

A small trailer might be handy on long trips.

They seem to handle it no problems. Most of the scooters we have at the moment have 40 -50K kms on them and are still going strong. Wind is the enemy of those trailers but they are light and easy to tow so I don't think it would put that much more strain on them than if you had a pillion on the back of yours.

Paul

In my nearest city I've seen box trucks w/ads, mostly on gamedays not through the week.
Honestly, I've never felt the desire to tote a trailer behind a PTW given that my camping gear fits OK on anything I've ridden. As a former backpacker if I could carry the stuff ion my back->so could my MC or scoot.

Do they make you ride the same route constantly? If so, that could get old?

Kind of like commuting to work

Yeh like I did for all my work life except in uniform which found me mostly "already there".
My commutes were all rural to "mild", small town or edges of urban and not ever did I have the rat race, bumper to bumper traffic thing to deal with. So my concept of a commute differs from that of most of the USA who lives in cities. I did burn some miles though.

Every campaign we do has different routes to follow depending on what is getting advertised.

Paul

So you rode about 30,000 miles per year for 5 years (for a total of 150,000 miles) and went through 5 scooters? That's an average of 30,000 miles per scooter.... Does that qualify as reliable? I'd agree with your assessment if you'd driven 150,000 miles on one or two or (maybe) three scooters. But five? Please tell me more... I want to believe Vespas are reliable, so I'm looking for a response like, "Well, the first one went for 110,000 miles, the second one was stolen at 10,000 miles by a gang of guys with angle grinders, the third was totaled at 10,000 miles in an accident with a Citroen, number four was also stolen at 10,000 miles by the same gang that steals every other Vespa in London, and I traded the fifth one (at 10,000 miles) for a new Telly."

I generally bought my bikes with 15 to 30k miles already on them. That made them cheap enough for me to buy them. I would sell them with around 50 to 60k miles on them. I destroyed one variator through lack of maintenance, had a head gasket start to leak on one (sold the bike cheap) had a fuel pump die and a VR need replacing once. I used a solid exhaust gasket, bought a few second hand exhausts. Had the swing arm bearings replaced once or twice and changed the odd front shock absorber. I changed the steering bearings on a few of them too. Riding in London is pretty hard on a bike because of the speed bumps, the stop and go nature of the traffic and the salted roads. I also had a water pump seal fail on one of them.
I used a very cheap mechanic that had lots of spare parts.

Thanks for the clarification. All you've described doesn't seem reliable to me, but city driving is rough on any vehicle. Maybe I'm spoiled - my 2005 Toyota Corolla has 190,000 miles - original engine, transmission, suspension.... The only major thing I can think of that has broken (i.e. not a typical wear item like brake components, tires, batteries, etc.) was the starter about a year ago. That's it - wear items and a starter - in 14 years and 190,000 miles.

Bikes sit on two small contact patches so wear and tear is a lot more. Also a single high revving cylinder is gonna wear out fast. I never flushed coolant on any of my bikes either.

I'm a big fan of Toyotas, own 3 now, have owned 12 since 1970.
(4 drivers in family) Driven them to 200K (not junked, traded in still going)
Two now have 150-160K still in use.

But I gotta say, small wheels, small shocks, and a not so beefy frame, (in comparison to cars) with all city driving, he did good.
Even your Toyota would be gone at least a few years ago with all city driving.

Dispatch riding in London is really tough on bikes and riders. It's one thing to sit on a freeway for a couple of 100 miles and quite another to be be stopping and starting then racing across the city all day. Most bikes tend not to last too long. Toyotas are remarkably reliable though, a friend bought himself a Prius to do Uber taxi rides. He bought it with 100K miles on the clock and I think he added another 250K miles. In that time the only thing that broke was an indicator bulb.