Modern Vespa

Hi all,

Haven't been around here in a while and dusted the cruft off my web browser and logged back in. Mostly just work and life has been very busy and I've avoided all social media for a long time.

Anyway as a bit of an update we did buy a house in Northern Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Split level with a walkout to the backyard and most importantly an incredible view of the ocean and mountains from a massive deck with a 3 minute walk to the beachhead which is also the only off leash beach on the island. We take possession June 30th and my better half is going down in early July to meet with the designer and plan some renovations. We plan on moving in sometime in the late summer of 2023.

New ride will has been added to the stable and I pick her up this week. Traded in the 2019 BMW K1600 for a 2022 BMW R1200GS with all the extra bits. Looking forward to picking her up next week!

I hope everyone here is well and enjoying riding season being back on this part of the planet. I did hear about Attila passing and hope we've had no more sad news since then.

Things are slowing down as they usually do in the summer with work so I hope to drop by here once in a while. I have a fair amount of catching up to do!

So here's a few pics of the bike and home.

Welcome back.
Lets have the next M.V AGM at your place.

Wow to all your news! Sweet looking new ride! You must do some touring? And beautiful house! Thanks for the pics!

Thanks guys and yes I do some touring but plan on doing WAY more when I'm on the island as the roads there are amazing and tons of incredible day rides. National parks everywhere and nice twisty roads. I wanted another bike than the Ural that could handle the dirt roads and gravel which is not what the K1600 was built for. The GS is a great multi task ride and still has plenty of grunt.

One good thing about Covid (if there is any) is clients are really used to remote work now so we can still keep all our clients and work from the island. We'll make less as I'll have to pay my lead tech way more but the plan was for him to take over the IT side of the business one day and semi-retirement at 55 sounds good to me! Have to get up early but I can sip my coffee and work while looking at the view so I'm OK with that. Not mention by about 3 pm our time our clients mostly shutdown for the day so we can go for a walk or do whatever we want. Our best friends moved out there 3 years ago and they have been a huge help when it came to buying the place. The buying process was rough but the market is really picking up there.

Harbinger,

Welcome back. We have missed the Ural news…. Amazing view from your new deck. Work from home is the best office.

Chris from CLE

Welcome back. Congrats on the new BMW.

Welcome back.

We all were worried you had taken the Ural on an Eastern European adventure and things had gotten a bit too real.

Finally got a bike worth photographing then ?

Good choice.

Good to see you around again.
Congrats on the move; my wife and I just finished up on that whole process (well, the dust is still settling...).

The views look amazing, and I can only imagine the roads there.
Retirement at 55 does sound good, now that you mention it.

Good luck with your new bike and new home. Both look superb. I've taken a liking to vintage BMW's as of late. An airhead may be in my future some day.

Don't leave it so long next time, your presence was missed.

Oh, and welcome back!

Glad to have you back on MV, and also glad to hear that your Vancouver Island plans have moved forward. We have good friends who live in Nanaimo. If you happen to bump into Christine Cretchley or Cathy Pepin - say hello!

Will do I am very looking forward to the home and living in Nanaimo.

I also want to say thank you for all the kind words from everyone. Plus to think I have a bike that Bill approves of is something amazing.

Has anyone ridden a 1250GS Adventure? It actually weighs a fair bit less than the k1600 did but it is definitely a taller ride. The dealer told me it's a an incredibly well handling ride and if I had no trouble with the K I'll be very happy with the GSA. Comfort is also important to me and that is apparently has covered in spades. I'll own it Wed but may pick it up Saturday morning so I can take it out for the first tome without having to worry about heavy city traffic. There is a huge exhibition centre near our condo I take all my new bikes to get used to riding them and work my way through the features. Analogue is a thing of the past and everything is now a TFT with Motorrad now.

Good to see you here again. Congrats on the GS - I sure see plenty of them on the road when we head north out of the Tropical Tip.

Nanaimo is a nice town. 68 miles to Victoria when you feel the need for some city riding again. My last captain job was out of the San Juan Islands - we used to take our own boat cruising in the Gulf Islands and north; Nanaimo was always a stop for us when we cruised north to Desolation Sound.

I can highly recommend the retiring thing... it has been my favorite job so far! Wishing you all the best on this next chapter.

--------

BTW, if you decide to put a bike on the ferry from Sidney to Anacortes (US, Washington State Ferry), bikes are the first ones on, first ones off, and you usually get to go to the front of the line, regardless of when you get in the ferry line. Working out of Friday Harbor (San Juan Island, Washington State), we enjoyed day tripping the ferry to the US mainland and the other islands serviced by the ferry - some great riding to be had on San Juan Island, Orcas Island, and along the coast in WA.

If I lived closer to you I'd have that K1600 in a heart beat.

I've ridden both the previous 1200 and the revised 1250.
It is a comfy, well behaving bike.
Neither the tallness nor the weight bother once in move.
If you love gizmos, you're in the right place too.

For me personally, the bike is just too tall - this bothers me only when handling the bike at stand-still, lifting it from the center stand, climbing on board etc. Oh yes, and I'm a shorty

I was oogling BMWs seriously before getting my new Triumph this Spring. I found the R1250R the best for my personal ergos/taste. Have a thing for naked bikes. In the end it was heart over head and the Bonnie won. Inferior everything, but better smiles for miles ratio for me

Thanks RR.

Don't blame you on the Triumph, a beautiful bike!

Yeah it's tall and at 5'11" I am just short of flat footing. At first I will go with a suspension setup which drops the saddle enough for me to flat foot. As is I get the balls of my feet down fine and it's light enough (compared to a k) I'm good with one foot down and it stays plenty upright. The balancing is brilliant on the GSA which also helps.

I've always wanted one of these and it's just happenstance I'm getting the showroom bike with all the bits specially picked out and sourced by the manager. He had to bring the screen in separately from Europe as dark screens are not allowed in Canada. Yes it's fine if the bike has one you just can't buy them. It is not a cheap bike though and I just looked at the line items. The pretty paint job costs $$$ and the pannier liners are nice but also a bit of sticker shock. They are cool though and love every bit of it right down to the over priced straps on the panniers and top case.

nice to see you are back...
I met a guy who is a environmental sciences professor living in Nanaimo. Really pretty place. There are tons of rides to do in that part of the world. I envy you for having found a wonderful place.
Wonder if it will be as cold as it is in Toronto or will you have a milder winter with lots of rain.
I had a desire to move to Sequim WA, wonder if Nanaimo has similar weather.
Congrats on the new bike & enjoy the bliss...

Good to have you back! Our first "long" trip on the Vespa (my wife riding pillion) was to the island and out to Ucluelet. Great roads, stunning scenery and damn fine beer in Tofino. Give a shout if you ever head south of the border.

Welcome back! And, yes, it's been more than a minute. Congratulations on the new home and new ride. Good to hear you're able to manage remotely with work - as a one-man-band IT dude, I only manage that on occasion, the rest of the time has to be hands-on…but at this time of the year, at least it's never to ride in, even all the way to Gotham, so I manage.

Do check in when you can!

Nice to see you back Harbinger, we noticed you gone. Congratulations on the new bike, it looks superb. Also love the new house. Beaches aren't my thing but my wife loves them so I can tolerate them for her, she's worth it.
Hope to see more posts from you.

Nice to see you post! Even though, I do not post often, relatively speaking.
How will you handle changing the Toronto city life you embrace to, "land spreadin' out so far and wide - Keep Toronto, just give me that countryside?"
Congrats on the new bike! FWIW, I have a 2020 BMW K1600GTL, with all the bells and whistles up for sale.
When you make the final move, how will you handle the Toronto city life health care experience, which you really embrace, in moving to "countryside" life, where you will not have the same health care experience you do now? More as a reminder, I'm on the south shores of Lake Erie where world class health care is available.
Again, nice to see you post!
Best,
BBM

Again thanks to everyone for the advice and kind words. Good to see a lot of the MVers I know are still around and as always there is a new group.

Now Toronto I am burnt out on. We have a nice 3 story PH in what used to be a quiet little gem of a neighborhood right downtown off King Street West about a 5 minute walk to the Rogers Centre. We bought it during the last recession so got a great deal. From our rooftop deck we used to be able to see all the way to exhibition place with nothing in the way. Now… OMG the neighborhood has exploded with a mid to high rise condo going up in every piece of land and that is not an exaggeration. The infrastructure is not setup for it and at rush hour it can take 45 minutes to get on the expressway which should take less than 5. The irony? I make most of my money off running IT for one of the biggest residential architecture firms in the city. So yeah I'm over it. I've lived in Montreal, Detroit , Chicago and Toronto in the downtown core. Time for a break and a bit of a slowdown as now the only time I really unwind is when we are at a cottage even if I'm still working. So soon that will be my life.

Healthcare? Yeah that will be a bit of a hit. That last few years though I have had almost every test available for heart diseases, lung cancer etc. As a long time smoker I got off lucky with some scaring but nothing concerning. Regret it but there is no changing the past but you can change your future. Nanaimo at least is big enough to have decent healthcare and a hospital. I imagine as more people retire there it will only get better plus Vancouver is only a ferry ride or short pontoon plane trip away. I know for motorbikes there is a certified dealer right in town that sells Vespas and is certified to work on BMWs. They also can work on Ural and by then parts should be available as they are moving out of Russia.

So nice to see your post and the pictures. I thought you would be gone forever!

Sigh…yep, heard about what's happening in Toronto (and Montreal, which I've witnessed firsthand). This is the sort of stuff that pushed Le Wife to move straight outta Brooklyn (dragging me along, before we tied the knot) across the Hudson to the Jersey Shore. The upside was that the place she'd bought when the nabe was a no-man's-land thirty-plus years back was something of a gold mine by the time she was ready to split; I would hope the same was/is the case for y'all.