Modern Vespa

Good luck and speedy recovery! I had both replaced back in 2012. It's nice being able to kinda walk like a normal human again!

Fast healing to ya!

I hear these days the recovery is wayyyy faster than even 10 years ago. Fingers crossed you are back at it in no time.

It can't be any worse than breaking a hip, which I did a couple of years ago while hiking. The paramedics had to carry me out on a stretcher in the same position I landed. I was unable to move without excruciating pain.

The one I'm replacing is opposite of the one I broke.

Got mine done 1.5 years ago. I was up and walking the next day. The only think you will say is "why did I wait so long to get it done?"

I'm way behind in this thread. I have to mention, I stayed in Newport a few times and EVERY time I think to myself what I wouldn't give to have a scooter out on the 101 there.

Thanks for all the pics.

You'll be good as new! My wife had one and told me to go back to work after the first week at home helping her. I also have a customer that had his done and he still hikes Mt. Whitney like it never happened.

LOL...the time i did a little shuck and jive with the portland police on my honda elite 50. Of course they didn't catch me since the scooter was painted (very nicely may i add) with Dukes of Hazzard General Lee livery.

At the biker bar (…err coffee shop).

How many of them cleared off when they saw The Man pulling in?

One cat yelled, "5-0! 5-0!"

His friend laughed and said, "naw… maybe 4.5"
😂

Quick ride up to Cycle Gear for a phone mount. Couldn't resist taking a photo of Scarlett in the motorcycle parking

SS180 got some miles

That bike is too perfect to be real.

AI is going to kill us ALL.

Even if we didn't know the bike, we know it's not AI because if AI were told to generate it, it would look like a bodge.

And a sexy woman with all three of her legs on the footrest and no center stand.

EDIT :

AI is getting better. At least there's a center stand.

I guess that's sexy if you're into three-legged women with messed up faces. I'll bet you don't want to google "three-legged women."

Also, I like how her hand sinks into the headset. Not creepy at all, nope!

Yeah ... AI is still sometimes struggling with handses.

As I explain to people about GenAI & LLM's on a regular basis, it's just Auto-complete on Steroids, and it's no better at image generation than any other task where accuracy matters.

I'm dealing with some AI projects at work right now and the feedback, assuming it gets to a user feedback stage, is consistently, "It's too slow and the accuracy sucks."

We have a customer who's going through the stages of grief right now that they have over $4mm in sunk cost for an AI project that may never see the light of day. It's an engineering tool and the engineers refuse to use it until it can consistently produce accurate answers. (nor should they...their work has safety implications and people DIE if they make mistakes)

They DO realize LLMs are language models, not information models, right?

Yeah ... this rendered well, but zero points for accuracy, even though my prompt specified "focus on realism".

Lots of bodginess. I wouldn't ride it.

Yeah, accuracy my ass. It's missing the black and white checkered flooring and yellow boots.

Wrong horn.

Very neocubist. As if Picasso was an engineer at Piaggio. And the center stand is kind of redundant.

Kind words, thanks man. It is my nicest resto for sure. Not close to perfect, but as close as I could get. Glad I had it professionally painted as my skills there are suspect at best. I love that it's first kick (or second) every time… and most of all it's a joy to ride. #pistonported.

It's not mine any more, but I love seeing my old Sprint out living its best life.

Pretty hot here by local standards so hit the beach for some relief. Sweet-talked my way into some preferred parking behind the beach rangers' shack.

Smallies unite! Scarlett with Josh Rogers' "Sigue Sigue Sputnik" outside the taqueria last night.

See this post for another pic of Josh's bike.

Today was day 1 of the Corsa in West Virginia. Started at 8am, finished at 2:36pm. 300 miles, 6 check points, 3 fuel stops, finished 1st place with a 22 minute lead. Tomorrow is 300 miles again but twice as many check points and twice as many turns. The makeshift fuel holder I posted about in the bollox thread worked great! Will update you guys tomorrow with the final results.

Hell, yeah! Way to represent

I second that! Great job!

Top work.

Day 2 update ; Since I was heading into day 2 with the lead, I was to start at the rear of the pack for the rolling start. Once we were on our way I quickly made it to the front with 2nd and 3rd right behind me. Us 3 left the rest of the racers and the conditions this time were less foggy, so we could push a little harder. Right before getting to the first check point, I lost 2nd place in the tight twisties (later found out he slid out and crashed but was fine and was able to still finish the race). So I had no one in my rear mirror until checkpoint 3, where I made my first refill and that's when someone caught up to me as I was finishing refueling, but they hadn't yet. So once I s snapped my photo I took off and never saw anyone again. There were short spells of very heavy rain, lots of sun, many gravel and dirt roads, a full blown river (very wide stream) crossing, asking a few locals for directions (not allowed to use gps), and more pee stops than I'd prefer. I'm getting an external catheter for next year. I finished day 2 with a 29 minute lead, putting me almost to a total of 60minute lead for the entire 600 miles. This Corsa was slightly extra special to me because this one was done on the first motor I've ever built (I built this one at the same time-ish as the track bike build I made a thread for). My first Corsa I raced and won was done on a motor a shop built for me. Not that it takes away from the race, but it didn't feel as earned since I know 80% of everyone else builds their own motors. So winning this one on my first motor and it running amazing was very rewarding. I hope some of you guys are able to make it next year. Here's a few photos, once I make this post I'm gonna start working on the video.

Nice work, dude!

I originally wasn't able to do the IFP because I was going to Lammy Jammy, then wound up not going because I gave notice at work last week. Still wasn't able to make the IFP happen, which is a bummer because either my Lammy or GL would be perfect for it.

Next year, don't do it the same weekend as Lammy Jammy and I'll be there!

It is customary to host the following year after winning, which I did last year. But there is also a rule allowing you to pass the responsibility to someone else if you would prefer to race it again, which I do. So, I'm teaming up with Mike Heytens to sort of co-host next year, I will help with everything besides the actual route (so I have no advantage) and Mike will make the actual route. We were thinking of doing PA again, even though its been done there the most, its always been more central. We were thinking of going Norht West with it to try to lure some Ohio/Michigan/Canadians. Would you make the drive for that? We are doing our best to try and get new people!

Also side note; This race/scooter was the first time I held a Vespa at WOT for an extended period of time (more than just a mile). It felt crazy at first and once I noticed my CHT temps would stay right around 310F and I wasn't on an incline, I would sit around 68-70mph WOT all day. It wouldn't budge past 70 though, and even going doing hill WOT the motor just felt kind of crazy, like it was spinning so smooth and fast that it almost felt like it wasn't on, and that made me uncomfortable for some reason, ha.

Congrats.
You some crazy ass mofos!

I'm certainly down to try and make it.

You're going to run into the problem that once you get west of NE Ohio, you're into flat row crop farmland for the next thousand miles or so until you get to the Rockies.

Michigan is scenic, but won't provide much of a challenge navigationally, I don't think.

For me, Western PA is a solid 9 hour drive each way, which is really outside my normal, sane driving distance.

I will note that Lambretta Jamboree is the weekend of June 11th next year, so less odds of a conflict there, at least.

Lastly, I'm surprised that your bike topped out at only 68 MPH. You should probably up your gearing a little bit, get your top speed up to 75MPH or so, unless your normal use case for it is gearing down for acceleration (e.g. Track Bike).

I mean this motor was rebuilt completely stock, and i just slapped on a malossi 210 on it. Si 24 carb. It would go almost 55mph in 3rd gear but it didn't have the power to get into the power (which I now understand why people do the short 4th). It would be nice to go a bit faster for this race, but this is also my daily and it being so reliable and solid, I'm ok with it.

Good call on going too far west. Maybe we will just do West Virginia again in a different place idk. I also don't wanna drive anymore than 6/7 hours to get to the race haha.

The Short 4th issue has always been interesting to me. I can say from having ridden it that the Ranger 213 doesn't have this issue--it has enough low down power it doesn't need a short 4th. I assume the VMC 244 is even more that. It's ironic, right? "I don't wanna sit in a car that long to go sit on a scooter that long."