Modern Vespa

Today, at the end of a beautiful 150 mile ride in the mountains of North Carolina with Lostboater and his brother Scott, Rocket became new again.

The loyal 2006 Vespa GT, bought new in November, 2005, has been a wonderful companion on many memorable rides.

Those include the 2014 Cannonball along with many rides with the 7 Bridges Scooter Club and Oyster Tours with Lostboater.

It is running as well as ever, 24,000 miles into a replacement engine.

I am looking forward to seeing where we go in the next 100,000.

Bill

You might like to delete your previous post.

Congrats!!!

Thank you, Jim.

I was posting from an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Weak cellular signal made for a complicated posting.

All is good now.

Bill

That is quite an accomplishment! Congrats! May you have many more miles ahead of you...

Tell Piaggio, they will buy you the scooter to see "what worked".
My compliments, do you see what it means to do proper maintenance?

Fantastic!

That is quite the accomplishment! You're the first one that I'm aware of that has rolled over a GT odometer. For that, I award you an MV Toaster. Wear it with pride, sir.

Wow! Thank you, Jess!

Congratulations on both parts!

Well done! You've nearly equalled my record of 120,000 miles on my GS150, 1961-73.

That's awesome!
My scooter wants to be just like Rocket when she grows up.

That may require you to do the opposite of "growing up".

Congratulations, what an accomplishment with regards to maintaining and riding your GT.

Is that all one has to do to get and MVtoaster??? Pfft.😎

Quite amazing Bill!! Nice to see a new GT.
Miguel

There are many roads to the MV Toaster.

That is really impressive. Did the first engine go 76k miles or have there been more than two engines?

This is the first time the axe has a new head.

Yes, the first engine lasted to 76,000 miles.

It had been giving me troubles over it’s last 25,000 miles, but blowing out the spark plug, stripping the threads, caused the change.

I had been proactive, buying a nearly new engine from a nice family in Atlanta, a year earlier.

The old engine could have been repaired, but with a new one ready, why not make the change.

I still have the original engine, plus another out of Vanessa. I could easily rebuild it if I wanted.

But the new engine has been perfect.

So Rocket rides on.

Bill

It is a little bit like the old repaired axe.

But most of it is as purchased.

Of course, on these, changing the new engine includes the integrated transmission, plus even the rear brake disc.

But it is still Rocket to me.

Better than ever.

Bill

It was not intended as a Vespa of Theseus question, but 76k miles on a thumper is darned impressive.

Rocket should be passing 120,000 in 2025.

Maybe sooner.

Bill

Wow impressive for any bike.
I miss the blue ridge parkway. I think that is the most epic motorcycle road.
Enjoy the new motor.
E.

Congrats!

Congrats Bill; you and Ken amaze me. At the rate I’m going, I’d need another 40 years to hit the 100K mark on mine.
Looking forward to seeing you and Sarah in Greece. Nine weeks to go!

What a great milestone. Reminds me of a story when i was road tripping with a friend in his small pickup, I forget which brand. We know we'll hit 100,000K on the trip so we are ready. It starts getting close and we are shouting out the window to cars that probably thought we were crazy, heck we were crazy! I slid over on the bench seat so we could view the happening together...99,998...99,999...100,000! Bamm! Check engine light came on! I laughed it wasn't my truck. He was pizzed! I think it was a mitsubishi now that I think of it.

Yes, this was a momentous occasion. My brother, who has a history of motocross racing decided the picture should be next to the New River. He let us down a paved road which quickly turned into a Motocross ride down to washed out old dirt road going faster and faster. I guess he figured if we got there sooner the hundred miles would flip over sooner. Fortunately, we all made it without coming to a sliding stop next to the river. It has been a great pleasure of riding with Rocket for many of these hundred thousand miles. I hope we get to share many more.

Congratulations on this most auspicious occasion.

Since you have numerous other scooters in the fleet getting to 100k is even more amazing. Spreading ride times over multiple mounts usually makes high mileage on any one fairly rare.

WLeuthold, impressive Sir Toaster! Really, that's great and just goes to show how robust the original design is for these little monsters.

The most miles of any GT or GTS I've actually serviced was a GTS300 2010 model with 88,000 miles on it. The motor was original with nothing more than usual servicing and a water pump, two variators and that was essentially it. He needed a new indicator switch but of course, some things wear out like that. Shortly after that service he traded it in for a new 2019 GTS300. It had 93,000 miles on the clock and was still perfectly ok. I had another 300 in for service with 82,000 miles on it and a GTS250 with around 78,000 showing. All still original engines. The only GT I ever serviced had 65,000 miles on it from memory and as far as I know that bike is now defunct and standing in a garden covered in weeds with 80k on the clock according to the owner. That was a 2003 model (we got them before you guys).

It's worth noting that the bikes that seem to go the furthest without issues all have their belts and rollers changed at the same time, and that's usually between 7-8k miles service intervals**. Do the work once rather than following Vespa advice to change rollers at 6250, then again doing almost the same work to change out the belts at 9k. This saves 50% of the wear on the crankshaft variator threads, something else that quite often causes owners to scrape the bike if those wear out.

** Note for newbies: you need to know how worn your rollers are at 6250 the first time around before letting them go another couple of thousand miles. Experienced owners can normally tell how worn they are by the performance of the bike. New owners would be wise to take a look at the rollers first to be able to decide when to change them out. Some owners wear their rollers faster than others.

But again, very well done WLeuthold. I've always enjoyed reading your posts.

What an impressive achievement.

somerset

That is a great achievement. Congratulations.

You went just as far, just not as fast! And ya got better gas mileage to boot! (Earth. From 100,000 miles up)
Congratulations

This is starting to sound like Trigger’s broom. 😏

Don’t Worry, Sir.

There are a lot more miles left in the Rocket Ship.

And most of them are reserved for Oyster Tours with you.

Bill

Wow! Congratulations Rocket and Bill!

You know, I just posted how proud I was hitting 10K with my ZNEN.

There was this comedian who's opener was this guy who juggled chainsaws. His first joke was to throw a manicure set on the ground and say, "So much for my act".

I'm old enough to remember when cars were worn out by 100K. That is phenomenal.

If you have any particulars on maintenance you think might have gotten you here, please feel free to share.

Check the oil. Change it on a reasonable interval.

Well, yeah ... there's that.

That’s 95% of it.

Congrats Bill

I thought I had allot of miles on my 2007 Burman 400 at 40K. I really don't know if I know
of a more prolific scooter rider than you Bill. Here, there (Europe), and everywhere.
Here you are attending Wisconscoot 2017 with your son. If my memory serves me correctly,
you were riding Nora Sullivan's Vespa (Madison Sully's Blushing Bride).

Again, good on you scooterist extraordinaire.

Bob Copeland