Modern Vespa

The Story So Far: Half the Summer is shot, at least as far as riding is concerned. As last reported here, Melody was in the service department of my dealership for an entire month before they could even crack the poor beast open for a proper look-see. This was because Mel was just one of over forty bikes in said service department, and the shop was shy of one of their wrenches up till a short while ago. (Yes, I'm totally blaming this on post-COVID crap, but it doesn't make things less frustrating.)

However, a few weeks back, they finally did get Mel on the bench, and the news wasn't good: somehow, the intersection smackdown did a bit more harm to her than the initial inspection by an adjustor for the Talking Lizard had assumed (and cut a check for). He had said at the time that there likely could be more damage, and that they'd need to accommodate for that when the shop's estimate came through. When the estimate did come through, it blew through the initial report by a factor of three. Problem was, it took another two weeks before I'd hear a peep out of anybody. Worse still, Le Wife, who was dealing with an assortment of post-COVID issues (she got it, while I dodged it somehow) will be going under the knife in a little over a week to take care of an intestinal issue that was aggravated by the virus, leaving me (and her younger son, who's been staying with us since last August) to take care of day-to-day stuff for at least one week. Last time this came up, I had Melody, and could handle everything thrown at me with aplomb. Now, it gets a little crazy…

Day before yesterday, Le Wife decides to light a fire under my ass, and insists driving me to the dealer to try and speed things up. Upon arrival, I try and get the lay of the land: I've gotten no word from Geico, and neither have they. Parts have already been ordered, but other parts will be needed (including those crash bars…from Germany). So: do I just authorize getting the bike fixed pronto, and duke it out with the lizard later? I decide to sleep on it.

This morning, I make a string of phone calls: several to Geico, and one to the dealership. (BTW: Indian/Vespa/Piaggio/Moto-Guzzi/Aprilia/Zero of Monmouth are terrific–they know what I'm dealing with, and have been doing their utmost.) When I call Monmouth, I tell them to authorize the repair work and get things going ASAP. Several hours later, I call (and text) my adjuster at Geico, seemingly in futility, about WTF is happening on their end. To my utter shock, I get a text from him less than five minutes later: he'd been to the dealership a bit over an hour before, and greenlighted the additional costs for Melody's repairs. I call the dealer back, and they confirm the information I received, and will contact me tomorrow regarding a rough timetable for Melody's return to roadworthiness.

I chew my nails and then I twiddle my thumbs. And, no, this hasn't been fun. But stay tuned…I think it's about to get Much Better.

Yea, great news!

We still want many of your urban tales with Melody to support the reflections.

Congratulations on getting your repair authorisation. I am curious to know what internal damage has occurred to make the claim become so much more expensive?

I am so pleased that Melody is finally getting the attention she deserves.

Many of your issues with the insurance company is why I don’t carry collision coverage on my scooters.

No frustrating calls.

No “Totaling” my scooter for a minor incident.

I get to fix my scooter any way I want.

Yes, I have to pay for everything, but the premium savings probably have me ahead.

Bill

I understand your frustration amateriat. But at least it's going in the right direction. Hoping for the best for you. Bye for now!

Here's the thing: while the crash was at "relatively" low-speed, it was hard-enough to throw me off the bike, and thowinng Melody on her side, the right crash-bar just barely keeping Mel from having her haunches from damage. (Now you know how well those "minimalist" crash bars work, at least anecdotally.) However, there was other stuff, including:

- Front-end components (replace and/or re-align)
- Fender (needs replacement)
- Coolant hoses (possibly)
- Drive belt/variator (yes, odd as it sounds, but I heard weird noises from the rear when nursing the bike back home post-crash, very slowly and carefully).

And a few other things as well.

And that's the odd thing about crashing your ride, on two wheels or four: you never know everything that's broken until the shop scopes your ride out, stem-to-stern, which is the only way you want things to be done, for safety's sake. The labor costs alone take up the lion's share of costs in my case, and the talking lizard sussed that out rather quickly (once they got around to sussing, that is), so props to them, seriously. Now it's a matter of the shop getting the necessary bits to put dearest Melody nback together again (some parts had been ordered ahead of time, but do remember that, among other things, the now-infamous container ship Ever Given is still stuck in the Suez Canal, albeit no longer completely blocking passage, but still an impediment to normal traffic, and still a major headache for the global economy.

Meanwhile: Besides figuring out how to get to at least some of my Gotham-based gigs in semi-timely fashion, I've been working on a few projects, one of which is working on my personal photo archive, which recently involved rebuilding my film-scanning/editing setup, including a new(er) Mac Pro to work better with my trio of scanners, printers et cetera. Part of that archive involves off-road motorcycling with friends and strangers, within and outside NYC in the mid-1970s. It's brought back some fun memories.

https://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/mcy/d/baldwin-2007-vespa-gts250-silver/7353437450.html

https://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/mcy/d/brooklyn-piaggio-vespa-bv200/7350632991.html

https://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/mcy/d/new-york-vespa-gts-sper-300/7345522371.html

https://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/mcy/d/hudson-selling-my-vespa-gtv-300cc/7351479219.html

Just a thought for a spare.

Meanwhile, along the Corridor:

Appointment with the orthodontist in Staten Island. Luckily, Le Wife's younger son also has a dental appointment, albeit several hours earlier, meaning my having to hang around the waiting room for a few hours…masked, of course. Once upon a time, this would translate to slow death, with only bad piped-in Muzak and some dog-eared New Yorkers to paw through. Now, I just pack my laptop, phone and Bluetooth earbuds, plus a thermos filled with fresh-brewed Earl Grey, and I'm more than good. The unfortunate part is on the return leg: I know in advance Le Wife was not up to driving up-and-back in potentially nasty weather (right now, at the Newark Airport NJ Transit station, it's semi-overcast and muggy, meaning we're ripe for a thrashing in the next hour or so), So I had to hire a Lyft driver to get me to the closest train station, as cheaply as possible. ("Cheaply" in this case was $57, plus tip.)

That done, the Waiting Game continues: the next train to get me connected to Long Branch is in two hours. And I'm not certain if that train quickly connects to a waiting train from Long Branch to Asbury Park, but I'm pretty sure it does.

Like I said, dearest Melody is not a toy. It can't get back into my hands a nanosecond too soon. Possibly a week and a half, and I'll be done with this nonsense.

(Oh, about getting a "spare" bike: as mentioned before, even if I could conjure up the bucks for a halfway-decent ride, it would still take forever to get the thing registered, so I'd still be SOL until I got Melody back. But I will be looking into this next year, with several two-wheeled options to sort out. )