Modern Vespa

I just made a spare tire holder for my gs 150 , using an old shovel head. Check it out:

This was an accidental discovery I made while attempting to design a bracket to weld together from scrap materials. The angle of a shovel head I had sitting around awaiting a new handle, was just about perfect for making a spare holder, after a series of judicious hammer whacks to straighten it out a bit.

Here's a few more pictures:

I plan to remove it for additional painting, and perhaps weld something on top and in back to prevent water build up.

Ok - this is quite something - I admire your creativity -- I say smoke 'em if you got em.

I LOVE it, this is my kinda jam! Very clever use what you got solution.

One question tho, how is clearance to your knees? Could you could use some tube standoffs and turn your wheel around facing the other way to get it closer to the legshield if needed?

I dig your solution...

I was imagining you welding a Harley to your Vespa.

Love this. Good sorting.

Creative use of materials

read the title - thought it was a thing.
saw the first pic - thought - oh - its a thing - but its not gonna be a good thing.
but was windy wrong.
very cool.

Thanks for giving us the full scoop on how you did it...

Haha, I was thinking the same thing!

This is brilliant! What an awesome idea to fab a spare tire holder from a shovel. It's amazing sometimes when you look at something and think, "that would be PERFECT for {insert your project here}."

I had been wanting a front mounted spare but have not found the right mount for my VBA. According to the owner's manual, it's a center mount like Voodoo's holder. I'm not sure where I got it, but I had this other one in my parts bin and I just don't like the size of it so I'm not going to use it.

Thanks for the replies. The tire tightens up quite well and provides enough leg room I think. It actually tightens the rubber to the frame, which I don't see as any problem to the tire wall, which acts as a bumper of sorts and doesn't harm the paint job. I just finished closing in the handle area by welding on a piece of extra metal, as well as on top, so no water gets in there, and I also added a cross brace, to bolt the tire on more solidly.

I don't know if it was necessary but what the heck.
maybe a bit of over engineering:

I love this! I might have to make one myself!

The tip of that shovel is a great shape for a headlight visor, but it's too big for the vespa I think. It would work great on a motorcycle.

Maybe I could find a smaller shovel for this. Or not.

Well that's about perfect then! No annoying vibrations to deal with then either, if you got it snugged down good.

And just snip off about half of that huge shovel tip, find a log or something about the size of your headlite, bust out your torch then heat good and form on that log, so go ahead - have at your visor plan. WCGW?

Bravo !

Groovy feather, brah!

okay here it is now:
nice and solid.