Modern Vespa

It's a tradition now. Every September/October the Australian Classic Scooter Mille takes place. 1000km ride over two days, route supplied but GPS not allowed. So more traditional forms of navigation, mostly turn-by-turn descriptions but people still get lost.
It was held in Mooloolaba Queensland and ventured out into the hinterland north and west of there. Mostly the roads were not as twisty as other years, but some great scenery was beheld with appropriate commentary over the bluetooth headsets throughout the days.

Callum (Subetherbass), Craig (GT6Mk3) and I did it as a team again. We do like to go fast, but this year fast was not quite as fast as problem-free was. A few issues including a flat tyre within 20 minutes of the start line both days set us behind, and with the odd longer stop we had no way of coming in first this year. A whole bunch of fun was had anyway.

Several tasks are given out the night before where you had to take a photo of yourself or your scooter in front of some type of landmark, which may be vague and easy to miss or smack you in the face (see: the big orange). Almost all the tasks were "big", this being Queensland and all.

Callum rode his trusty(?) Polini 177, Craig the "Boss Hog" PX260, and I was on the evergreen (see what I did there?) 252 Super. Sadly within 20 minutes of the finish on Day 2, Craig's throttle tube snapped and he was out. Coincided with a massive thunderstorm otherwise we may have had a go at some sort of bodge to get him home.


To get there Craig took off as much time as he could from work and drove the Sprinter. Callum and I rode the 2300km over 6 days, the last two and a half difficult due to the brand-new Malossi box on Callum's falling to bits. Only an impressive bodge made with washing line wire and bits of caravan kept it going, if a little noisy... (yes caravan).
I'll put the Mille photos in this post - some of them borrowed from other riders - and the trip pics in a reply. I'll wait for Craig to post the most memorable and inventive photo of the lot later.

Some photos from the trip up there.

How awesome - thanks for the window into the ride. Looks like a blast!

Great stuff and a fine adventure.
Thanks for posting!!!

Great ride report and looks like a challenging event especially the riding on golf balls 👍

Great stuff - you guys are maniacs - I love it! Thanks for the post.

What an awesome event! Always great to see a bunch of people on old scoots getting it done and not just Vespas. Thanks for sharing with us!

1000 kms in 2 days is in two words im pressive

Great photos; as observed; thanks for sharing.

Just curious; how do you easily dosage the mix sort of accurately?
Fill/mix the jerry-can and top up from that?
Gone through 2 liters of oil?

Wow excellent report to an excellent Vespa and Lambretta adventure with competition. Great memories I'm sure.

Looks and sounds like an awesome adventure !!

This is so awesome. Very similar to the Corsa:IFP race we do here in America. The photos are great and the write up and captions are awesome. Thank you for sharing!!

How many people enter? How many usually finish? And is it a race? Do some people enter just to do the route or are the majority doing it trying to be the fastest?

Thanks everyone for the kind comments!

There were also a number of Maicolettas that took part, I have four friends who have them, an awesome touring machine. For longer stretches we carry jerry cans. When refuelling I top up the tank first and can second, remember the litres, and put in 20ml per litre from a container like this below. By far the easiest system I've used. At approx 19km per litre I used something just over a litre of oil. Yes I think bits of ours were based on the Corsa. This year there were 40 riders. We had a number of breakdowns, sorry can't recall atm but apparently (it was deemed important enough to mention) we had exactly the same percentage of Lambrettas break down as Vespas. Ignoring the Maicolettas the entries were one third Lambrettas and two thirds Vespas.

The organisers, Nicky and Fleur (who also take part every year) go to great lengths to remind everyone it's not a race. Whoever comes in first is very unlikely to be the winner because there's a formula of age and capacity (with a random number thrown in for good measure) that means the fastest is not the winner.
Our fastest roads here are 110km/h, and we never use those roads on a Mille. Most of the ones we do use are 100 and 80. You can get a $280 fine for doing more than 3km over the speed limit by the police. Not to mention the explanation required when you get pulled over doing 115k on your "50cc" smallframe!

Most people are trying to get through quickly, but we just like to be the quickest and get in first.

That's awesome. I guess in America we have less restrictions/classes for scooters and motorcycles, so if pulled over for speeding they just write the ticket and keep moving. They rarely bother to examine your scooter. Personally I'm not a fan of the time keeping/handicap aspect of events like this, I like it just being who's fastest. Which is probably why our Corsa:IFP rarely grows haha. But again, this is awesome and I'm glad to hear you guys still structure it around being a hardcore long distance ride, lots of respect. 1000km in two days is amazing.

Thanks for the explanation Ginch

It's just a flesh wound!

Duct tape. Good for all that ails ya!

Actually... what is a blood vessel but a duct?!

I am thoroughly impressed with The Dark Lords dedication to staying on the road! Rollin with the flow, handling troubles as they come. Fast scooters, and handy riders. Inspiring and motivating!

This trip sounds like a blast. I did about 600 KM for the non-rally over three days, but didn't have nearly the terrain, breakdown, or luggage challenges y'all did.

I'm looking forward to doing the IFP next year. It looks like just my kind of Competitive Masochism. When CM2, SoCalGuy, and I rode last summer, Yellow lost its throttle cable and so SoCal rode the second half of the trip using vice grips clamped onto the cable in the headset as a hand throttle and finished the ride. Good times

I like it! So if I had kept the vice grips I "picked up" on the road the other week in my tool kit, Craig might have made it home? Something something one door opens something.

He absolutely could have. Haven't you gotten a bike home under similar circumstances by tying the throttle cable around your leg? (I have, thought I stole the idea from you. Once I figured out how to not stall when starting & shifting, it wasn't terrible going down the road) Seems like an easy solution to me, especially for touring where it's pretty constant speed riding.

You guys crack me up. I once popped out my back window of a VW bug and used a string to run the throttle to get home. Only 4 or 5 miles...

Wasn't me... I vaguely recall seeing something like that. Sounds a bit Ebeth-y!

Genius

Happened to a friend. We shoved in a wooden stick we found around and finished the trip…

42 entrants
39 starters
19 finishers

(Possibly)

Had it not been heavy rain at dusk after a 5am start, I'm sure we would have come up with something similar.

A few pics from SUB & Speedy

Thanks for sharing that ride experience.

The ´chillin´ scene phote made me chuckle: All the well clad wearing full face et all and the jogging girl in skimpies setting perspective.

Used a rolling map system for mány years but have reduced it to a short list of town/landmark orientations on a sticker. Will take a map for reference but on the road the roll is simply too much info and too detailed.

Bottom line; chapeau with much respect

Dude this looks like so much fun! That 20 foot long map is RIDICULOUS!! Much respect! Thanks for sharing the adventure

Ginch, best map idea ever! Love how you guys persevered through the setbacks and kept riding. Bet that ale was good at the end, I can almost taste it!

That's Subetherbass' map system. It works well in conjunction with Craig & my system which is quite different. We have been using Kindles to display our maps and notes for the route, works fairly well and you can add as much info as you want.

I spend a lot of time on street view looking for landmarks that will help identify the turns better. I tend to recognise them when we get there if I've been up and down the area on street view a couple of times.
Also the map with distances to the next turn is useful, as is the total km each turn should be at.

Craig's been ultra busy with family so I'll post up (what should have been) his prize-winning photo from the Mille.

So one of the tasks required was to stop off at a tunnel and take a picture of yourself and scooter. We weren't sure exactly where to go so we rode through. Only wide enough for 3 Vespas as it turned out. The tunnel was full of bats! It was amazing, Craig said very similar to diving through a school of fish, must have been hundreds and hundreds.

Craig was taking a picture when an idea occured to him. So he set up the camera and got this shot... no lights except Callum's tail light. It came out great, was definitely on theme and the popular favourite in the photo competition. But didn't get a mention from the judge which annoyed me.

It was an absolute highlight of the whole Mille.

Wow, that is an amazing shot! Definitely worth making it big and hanging it on the wall!

GINCH!! epic photo

Thanks guys, it's all down to Gt6MK3. Very inventive with the camera!