jess wrote:
There have been many incidents of sidestands on modern Vespas unintentionally retracting, dumping the bike on the ground. There are a variety of reasons -- the bike rolls forward, or strong wind pushes the bike from the side just enough to retract the stand. In some cases, it just sank into hot asphalt or loose soil. In all cases, body damage on a Vespa is difficult and expensive to repair.
Your single data point doesn't really prove much.
Agreed, the old side-stands were dangerous IMHO. The later ones, that lock in place are fine, together with their kill-switch cutout.
They may appear to be the same - but they are different animals! No need to knock the newer Vespa ones.
Other Piaggio bikes have had similar sidestands as long as I've owned examples, since the late '80s. Only the X9s had problems, due to poor switch design - not a fault of the stand itself.