Modern Vespa

Woo hoo, after selling my 2 GTS in London and moving to Australia I have now picked
up my new MY23 GTS 300 Super Sport HPE today. It's a Vietnam made bike.

I have only ridden a few KM's so far but it feels nice and smooth. We have tram lines in the road here in Melbourne which were scary at first but all good now.

practice makes perfect. and keep the asr enabled when in the wet as those tram lines are hell slippery

Will do, I remember a bicyclist going down in front of me in my car on slippery tracks when I was at uni. Luckily I wasn't going fast so was able to stop in time.

I think I will do an advanced riding course to acclimatise to the different riding style here.

Take care not just on the tram mines but the hook turns they do in that city.

Take a trip up to the 12 Apostles. Beautiful riding when you get out of the city.

Yea the hook turns baffles many people, I am happy doing them in a car but will avoid them on a bike.

I have joined the Vespa Club of Melbourne so hope to go on some rides like that with them.

I am enjoying this new HPE supersport. Since buying it I have done a 900km rally with the local Vespa club which was a load of fun. It's was great meeting all the new people and seeing bits of the country I hadn't been to in along time. I have also gotten used to tramlines and hook turns again.

There are the odd thing I think they could have done a better job on; changing the settings on the dash such as changing the clock time is an absolute PTA. I would have thought you could connect up the MIA app to do all that stuff is a much easier way than the silly joystick they supply. The MIA app is OK but I am not sure how much it adds to the riding experience.

I have decided to try and take away much of the silver and chrome on the bike so simple things like fork link covers and variator cover have all been painted gloss black. I will continue to take small parts at a time off and paint them black. A black sight glass oil pan is on the cards as is possibly a front bitubo shock to go with the rear bitubos I took off my last Gts. I thought the front end handled pretty well with the standard shock, has anybody installed the bitubo front shocks for the MY 23 bikes yet?

I have installed Bitubos front and rear on my 2023 GTS. On my previous 3 GTSs the first thing I did was install a Bitubo at the front. The revised suspension on the 2023 model is a big improvement (let's make Steelbytes jealous!) but the front Bitubo is still a worthwhile addition.

I have a sump sight glass in the shed waiting to go on, and also an Audicator turn signal beeper. I find the indicator light in the instrument panel just about useless - much too faint, invisible in the Australian sun.

Aah thanks , yea the indicators light are a bit hard to see, and the switch gives less feedback than the old GTS models. I have a st2 auto cancel system that I never installed so it may be something I can add later. Bitubo' and sump are for the new year I think, I am trying to get some of my old 2T bikes back on the road so have a waiting list.

I have been meaning to go for ride with SteelBytes, he goes so far it looks like I would need a passport and a new set of tyres for each trip.

I tried the ST2 auto cancel system. It worked very well, only occasionally missing a cancel such as when taking a slow turnout. But I found I was looking down all the time to see whether it had worked, instead of watching the road, so I scrapped it.

You will be doing very well to find a place in you scooter to mount it. I had it behind the left knee-pad on my 2015 model. There is no space there now. Additionally, it involves replacing or modifying the turn switch to make it a passing contact. Good luck with that!

lol. My SIP front and rear shocks do fine, I just wish vespas had longer suspension travel. with the stupid roads I like to ride I have to have them set a bit firmer than feels ideal as otherwise I too often bottom out if I hit a hole/bump too fast - they have a tendency to hide in the shadows of trees so I don't always get a chance to brake enough or dodge in time.

re indicator light/noise/cancelling:
my solution was to add a feature to my app to play an audible tick-tock sound over bluetooth to my helmet. one of the fun things of having bluetooth in the scoot (and coding skills)

Sounds like the ST2 thing may not be the best plan. Got to sort out Bluetooth too, my headphones don't work in my helmet that well, no mic and not very comfortable.

Re potholes: they do tend to hide in the shadows here. Even in bright sun the shadows of the gum trees are like a camo pattern in the road.

je ne suis pas un cycliste - sorry there was some spam on this thread in French, something about cyclists- the admins have ejected the spammer.