Modern Vespa

With my son's wedding inconveniently scheduled on top of ROM - we decided to call an audible.

A plan was hatched - best shown in slide form:

Does this reset the explosion clock??

Pre-ride re-wiring continues. Launch clock ticking …

The "fixed" electronics.

Somewhere in Santa Barbara

The unicorn doing gods work

I'm looking at all those TJI joists!

Right on you guys! That's awesome!!

Reading with interest. Chuckled at your poignant inconography. I would have given Rob either Biggles or Baloo from Talespin, though.

Clock, schmock. Fire was expected...admit that y'all would have been disappointed if there wasn't one!

Hahahah.
Clock was definitely reset - though it's tru we didn't see visible flames.

Job site fire extinguishers finally seamed sensible.

U know the harness is roached when smoke continues to billow from the hole under the seat for 20 min.

An early decision was made to run it "clean"- like they did in the war.

So we just operated it without the superfluous stuff, like brake lights.
As was noted at the time - "no one will be behind you Chandler"

We rode 250-300 miles - no one is sure because the odometer didn't work.
At dinner we were nothing short of euphoric - not so much due to the beautiful scenery, but more because we were just so stunned to have made it there.

Religions have been started on fewer miracles.

So we drank tequila.

Video to follow.

Don't forget, as of these updates we still haven't left Ned's and we've already let some smoke out.

There are many questions you should be asking right now.

Like, "Why was Chandler posting solo shots from a military base?" Or , "How much smoke can you fit in a Vespa, anyway?" Or even, "wait a minute... who's working the camera?"

More to come tomorrow, but I'm pleased to say, we're all safely home or en route, nobody has to return to Ventura County for a court date, and everyone is already looking forward to our next round of schenanigans.

Good stuff all around!
It is never boring when Chandlerman is involved.

The Explosion Clock Council needs more detail from the incident when you guys can provide it...

Was there actual flame or was it just smoldering wire?

Definitely not an explosion clock event. Not even close.

Lots of smoke, but no visible flames. Much like my good looks, this was just smoldering. So. Much. Smoldering.

I was still able to put 300 miles on the bike over the course of the weekend, so even if there had been flame, I don't think it should have counted. (Although admittedly, the only thing damaged when I blew myself up with the Smallstate was me--the bike was 100% fine).

Ha! Excellent.

There's so much more to this adventure! When my work isn't interfering I'll post my observations and a couple pics.

1 1/8 Advantech sub floor glued and nailed with ring shank on til of them throughout.

Place is gonna be silent from upstairs to down.

🙂

Dinner convo upon arrival in Santa Barbara, euphoric and more than a little surprised to actually be sitting at our previously reserved restaurant.

Chandler: "we rode through some beautiful scenery today! "

Me: " we broke down in some beautiful scenery today…"[/i]

Where there's smoke there's fire

Edit: where there's Chandler there's fire

There, fixed it

Rico. Suave. Flambé.

Hahaha. Good one.

The boys in their natural habitat:

This is so rad! CA Firecrew in full effect

Ned found us a lovely AirBnB in a nice, quiet neighborhood. The hosts were in the adjoining house.

Chandler made sure to share the aroma of fresh 2 stroke with them early Saturday morning.

I only got two days of shenanigans in but they were stellar. I learned which scoots needed push starting and another with a complicated kickstart procedure. Can't tell you how many ladies were gaga over the unicorn.

It was exciting to see Chandler's rear wheel/engine assembly take random direction changes in relation to the frame. Bravo Sir for keeping your scoot upright especially in the twisties.

Ned, I was really surprised how agile and quick The Unicorn was. Loved the speed run testing!😉 Glad you made the jet change.

Mike, I couldn't get over the fact you did all this on 8's and with a cantankerous scoot! I definitely owe you a plane ride.

My scoot actually died in Ojai from a bad spark plug. Ned zipped off and picked a new one up locally for me. I really think this was caused by a previous altercation with the P. The P tried to tackle my Malaguti in an act to show dominance. Ned and I quickly pulled the two apart. The Guti acted like a baby after that. 😆 Toughen up Gabby!

Awesome time scootin! Thanks for letting me hang out.

So Rob, what was the consensus on your furious li'l espresso maker?

And yes, plugs are tasty snax.

I'll be heading over to LA on the 24th for SuperSunday, but I'm the mechanic so I'll bring something sensible.

Great pics and good stuff all around. Mike I like that tuna can on your super….makes me wish I still had mine!

The espresso maker is awesome.
Full chainsaw on giant western fur.
I mean - it needs 5k rpm to get off the line- so I wouldn't call it an intown parade bike - but it was sticky through the twisties when on the pipe.

Hard act to follow - literally.
Rob even lead a pack of sport bikes at one point - which cracked us all up.

I was dying to try and chase but chandlers motor mount less rear wheel shift made passing kinda hairy in the corners - he would lean, shift left about a foot - gain traction - then go on through the corner at a totally different angle.

Won the Tesla truck award for most likely to chuck a rear panel at u when following - so distance was our friend.

Chandler has some video somewhere.

Looks like a Smokingly good time.
Sorry. I couldn't help myself.

Any chance this is going to be an annual event?

Imagine the mutant offspring of a chainsaw and a honey badger with wheels.

One needs to see and hear Rob's little monster Malaguti in action to fully appreciate 70cc of sheer madness.

That's one of the gotchas when tuning those little 2Ts. It's a fine balance between peak power and usable throttle. His pipe should be good 'til 11K RPM, so it does have some range. The crazy bit is that some of the revviest Yasuni pipes don't do jack until 11K RPM. Well, it does say "Ducati" on the fairing. Lucky bastard. My Malaguti came with fenderskirts and a continental kit. Yeesh. That was one of the reasons I originally parked my P200. First, the mounts went and it got squirmy in corners, then the rear shock blew a seal. Holing the piston was merely the cherry on top.

Brass balls for riding it out, though. I can say I wouldn't do it on the regular. Damn near fell out of my chair over that zinger. Good thing I wasn't enjoying a drink at the time; I'd be shopping for new monitors now!

Guessing Chandler looked a bit like this:

What I lack in timeliness, I'll make up for in verbosity. I had a few hours of captive time in an airplane seat, which I put to questionable use writing up some of our misadventures.

As with every scooter outing, the the first thing we need to recognize ourselves for is the fact that it happened at all. SoCal, CM2, and I missed our annual Rides of March pilgrimage when CM2 failed to manage his calendar and wound up scheduling his son's wedding that weekend. Talk about misplaced priorities.

But we improvised, adapted, and overcame, picking the next available weekend which, conveniently, let us be the Fools of April.

After numerous text threads and calls, the final plan was that I would fly in on Thursday afternoon, we'd spend a few hours at CM2's workshop making sure all the bikes were in good running shape, then transport them up to CM2's job site in Beverly Hills first thing Friday morning for a mid-morning launch.

Day 1: "We broke down in some beautiful places today."

The plan was solid, and it went exactly like that.

Except for the part where we went through the bikes ahead of time. And the part where SoCal grabbed me early in the morning to get to the job site first thing in the morning. And the part where we got on the road mid-morning.

Instead, we went with Plant B, which was to roll into CM2's job site for our mid-morning departure at the crack of noon, then take a full ten minutes to unload the bikes, go through the bikes and make sure they're good, strap on our bags, and hit the bathroom one last time before we jump on the road for over a hundred miles of downtown LA, steep, twisty canyons, and WOT up the Pacific Coast Highway.

Since he'd gone through the trouble of picking one up, I installed a new battery in SoCal's P200. It's a Malossi, so it promised at least two extra HP by installing it.

The P was All Original, only a thousand miles on it, and I'd put over a hundred of those miles on at Rides of March last year. The gas in the tank was even original to last year's ROM, so I knew it would be just as solid as when I'd last seen it a year earlier.

I strapped in the battery, and connected it up. Then somebody started yelling "smoke! Smoke! It's smoking! Turn it off!" I know it's smoking! It's a two stroke. Chill!

Anyways, I disconnected the battery and we waited to see if the bike would stop smoking on its own or self-immolate. Smoke was coming from the headset, the air intake under the seat, even the horncast, so it was anyone's guess which way it would go.

When we pulled the headset cover, we found that there were what I will kindly call "concepts of a wiring harness." The harness wasn't great last year, but at least it fundamentally had one.

Working through it, I was able to piece together enough of a circuit to get a headlight and tail light, but not run through the switch, which didn't really matter since the kill switch green wire was completely disintegrated. But it meant no battery. Whatever. Wrap all the sketchier bits in electrical tape, close it up, and kick it over.

Mike had warned me that "the fuel tap is being finicky" about wanting to flow fuel, which was not great.

Because we're smart, we could to tell if the tap was letting fuel flow because when it was, the bike would drip fuel onto the ground at a reasonably steady rate.

What made that not great, though, was the fact that the float needle also leaked like crazy and would flood the motor in just a couple minutes if the tap was on (and felt like flowing) but but the bike wasn't running.

Which led to the interesting dilemma of Newton's Third Law of Scooters: A scooter that is running will need to remain running, because a scooter at rest will remain at rest.

So with our comprehensive ten minutes of prep time and firefighting complete, we hit the roads. And what roads they were. We rode through some amazing neighborhoods, climbed up the canyons headed toward the coast, saw some amazing views across the LA Basin, and thrashed some outstanding twisty roads which put my technical riding skills to the test and I think (hope?) made me a better rider by the end of the trip.

Thanks to our careful planning, nothing important fell off our bikes that I'm aware of other than one of the bungie cords holding SoCal's bag on the back.

Much like my first ROM, I almost rode off a cliff because I was so stunned by the view when we crested the and looked down on the LA Basin.

Eventually, we made it up, down, and around to the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and it was time for some WOT to lunch. At which time the P decided that WOT on the PCH was a great time for a rest break. So I coasted off into a parking lot of a small office building along with CM2, blowing past all the "Tenants ONLY!" signs.

SoCal was ahead of us at this point, so he missed the fun, but as we were doing diagnostics, thinking it might be the Original spark plug, I realized fuel wasn't dripping!

So we were working on strategies to clear the fuel tap, which mostly involved lots of turning it off and back on again, when the drip returned. Awesome. Give it a kick, and nothing. The P had gone directly from "no fuel" to "flooded." Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

So it's push start time. Which, on about the 4th attempt which had me pushing it down the driveway directly back onto the PCH, it finally coughed and started. Nursed it until it was idling smoothly, then slapped the cowl back on and hit the road again.

WOT up the PCH until I arrived at Neptune's Net, where I'm now all by myself. CM2 and SoCal are nowhere to be seen. Hmm. Come to find out, they stopped for gas. Unlike me. But my relationship to gasoline was complicated in that moment, so I didn't give it too much thought.

Eventually, they caught up and we grabbed lunch right on time at about 4pm. Awesome fish and chips while watching the surf.

Since I was now out of sync on getting gas and probably running low, I looked at Google Maps, determined the next station was only a few miles up the highway, right before Oxnard, figured out my route (ride up a couple exits, get off, turn left, ride a mile, gas station. Done.) and went for it

I took a head start, got to the exit, hung the left, and leanred that the front gate of a Navy Base was between me and the gas station. As an added bonus, there was no on-ramp back onto the highway, so now I had to wing it on surface streets. At this moment, I looked down at the highway and saw SoCal and CM2 go buzzing past me. I was truly Alone.

I didn't really have any options to get to Oxnard except to ride along the outer perimeter road of the base. Eventually, I got into base housing, and that's where I found all the static aircraft along with some really dangerous old-school metal playground equipment. I skipped going down the slide or taking a spin on the merry-go-round, but did snap a few shots of the P with aircraft in the background.

I was smart enough to leave the bike running while I did all that, but not smart enough to explicitly recreate the "Tom Cruise on his motorcycle while jets take of and land" scene from Top Gun.

Fun-time over, I kept winding my way North until things transitioned from military back to civilian, then stopped and tried my luck again for a gas station. Found one only a few miles away, made my way there, only violating a handful of traffic laws, then pulled up to the pump and killed the motor.

When I opened up the tank, it was dead dry. Literally no gas in it. I was down to running on the gas in the fuel line and float bowl, but I made it. If I'd taken the time to go down the slide, I would have had to push the bike to the gas station.

So I gassed up and texted CM2 and SoCal, let them know I'd gotten gas and also how close I'd come to humiliation, reached down to flip the fuel tap back on, and discovered that I'd forgotten to turn it off. Try kicking it a few times, which introduces a new variable: the kick start had begun slipping intermittently. Not the sort of thing you want when the bike's flooded. Really flooded. Can't push start flooded.

So I texted again, let them know I'd gone from "not enough fuel" back to "too much fuel," along with my location. Kept trying to push-start and by the time they arrived, I was pretty much thrashed. So naturally CM2 takes over and gets it to start with just a few seconds of pushing. So long as I'm good, though, I'm good. Let's roll.

At this point, the sun was getting pretty low and we still had a decent way to go to Santa Barbara. Back on the PCH for a while, then jump off at Montecito for the final push as the sun goes down. Just a couple miles after we get off the highway, we get to an intersection and realize SoCal is no longer with us. Luckily, he was just out of gas, so we ride back to where he's stranded, CM2 gives him a slug of go-juice from his jerry can and we're back on the road as twilight fades to night.

And naturally, that's when my headlight decided to go out. And my tail light had gone on strike some time before. I don't even know when. Maybe before we ever left LA. And I'd never had a brake light. Just not a lot of electrical system going on with the bike at that point.

Which meant we rode the final 10? 15? miles in full dark with me seeing vicariously by CM2's headlight while SoCal tried to not run into me in the dark on twisty, somewhat under-maintained roads the rest of the way to the AirBnB.

We'd made it, though. And only an hour late to get to our dinner reservation. The food was excellent, the drinks were even more excellent, and after being the second-to-last table through the kitchen, we crawled into our beds for some well-deserved rest.

Only two more days of fun to go.

<to be continued...>

(And, yes, as noted elsewhere, I have video. Hours and hours of video, some of which might even be interesting. I'll be extracting the most delicious segments and assembling some clips so everyone can experience the suffering thrill of scooter touring.

It's really crazy when you can feel the motor chunk into place on each side as you throw it through the twisties. Having luggage on a rear rack didn't help either.

By the time it rolled back into Beverly Hills, that Little P200 That Could was damn near dead. Just off the top of my head, things that need to be addressed:
- Clutch was slipping pretty much constantly
- Kickstart gear was slipping about 50% of the time
- Passive-Aggressive fuel tap
- Float needle (or lack thereof)
- Wiring harness (also or lack thereof)
- Shocks were basically gone. Not actually leaking oil, though, so...yay?
- All rubber mounts are pretty much gone
- Cruciform was slipping out of third gear
- Losing compression and power overall (this was kind've a Good Thing when push starting, though)
- Front and rear brakes both stuttering intensely when braking
- Fuel cap o-ring was so swollen it would pop out of the fuel cap when I opened it
- Front fork is maybe a little bit bent

But it had a really comfy seat, rat bike style for miles (not to mention a SWEET Boo-Badge sticker on the legshield), and it got me there and back, which at some point is all we should ask from our little scream machines.

Chandler soooo owns that P.

On the drive up, we made bets which scoot was most likely to suffer Catastrophic Failure. The yellow beast was the natural choice given its prior track record, my marginal tuning skills, and the fact that it hasn't had a lick of maintenance in over year. And it didn't disappoint. I personally had no doubt the P would make it.

But don't let me get ahead of the story.

We arrived at our lunch spot at 4:30pm. With the sun rapidly setting we did with any normal people would do and had a nice leisurely lunch. And congratulated ourselves for making it that far.

We then proceeded to zigzag through Oxnard, and while gassing up came to the conclusion that we better get moving or else it was gonna be dark and then we'd be royally screwed.

Side note: Nobody's GPS seem to work very well. Everyone's phone gave us a different "faster route". At some point we ended up saying screw it let's just head toward the mountains. Sometimes dead reckoning works, sorta.

Anyway, the decision was made to jump on the 101 freeway and just blast 25 miles up to Carpinteria from Oxnard.

Holy crap. I have done some hairy stuff. But riding a 50 year-old scooter on 8 inch wheels, at sunset, with virtually no lights, on a four lane highway is near the top of the list. For a few miles I was boxed in lane 3 with cars and trucks screaming past on either side. Not in a hurry to do that again.

Interesting tidbit: That little 25 mile jaunt drained a full tank.

TL:DR

But made it this far: Lolz!!!

Will be back to finish up the rest ASAP!

The rolling weed wacker held its own if I did my part. It handles amazingly well but I could do with some good sintered brakepads and maybe some wave rotors. Without the torque of the bigger scoots, I need to be mindful of my corner speeds and rpm. Only drawback is the intake noise, especially in traffic. 😆

I'm really diggin' the shared stories y'all are bringing. It takes an epic adventure and adds a touch of Tarantino. This resonates with me. So, was the little voice in the back of your head asking if your policy is current or flatly stating, "Mistakes were made"?

My parallel was June 2017, midnight on I-90 near Erie, PA. Windy as hell and I'm crouched on a 7hp 125cc motorcycle, trying to hold 37mph in 3rd gear...on the damn interstate. I was really wondering if I was gonna get leveled while trying to pass offramps. I was solo and still mark that as my dumbest moment on two wheels. You know it's bad when your excited to see signs for Conneaut, OH and realize that the road is now going downhill.

Then I went back the next year with friends, and it got even more ridiculous.

But it makes for one helluva story.

Semi-organics. I ran EBC HH sintered pads on my Yager GT200. Could do stoppies, but they tore through some rotors.

Do you have a 180mm or a 200mm rotor up front? And what's the bolt pattern? Is it a flat rotor or does it have an offset? I have an unused NCY rotor kit and caliper spacer that fits prebug Zuma and I *think* Buddy 50 that you're welcome to if it'll fit.

What's your filter setup? I've started the last two with modified stock air boxes. Seems to work, on the Zuma, the straight-cut gears in the primary are louder than even the Yasuni R.

Oh. The straight cut gears.
15 min in I was ready to pull over and figure out how my clutch cable must be rubbing my rear tire.

Next light: Rob. Somethin's weird. One of us has a wire rubbing.

Rob: hmm. Oh. Wait! Is it a whining sound?!

I have straight cut gears!

Was totally messing with me.

Side note: I don't use mirrors.
Head turn and sound are my gig.

U could initially tell who was in ur blind spot.
Rob - chainsaw on meth / with a pinch of heat whine.

So cal - best I can describe it - washing machine with spare change

Chandler - well, Chandler was rarely able to get in my blind spot… and when he did - any motor noise meant it was running - so: win.

Great stories guys. And how big was the fish?

Who actually owns that P? Chandlerman spends every bit of spare time building go fast, 90% flame-free scooters and takes a Pedlo to the national surf competition.

Think of the P as a stray dog that hangs around the neighborhood. No one really owns it. I allow it to stay in my garage. It's a loaner scoot. Chandler has ridden it more than anyone I know.

Read through all of this with my morning coffee...

Thread of the year material boys. Thanks for the entertainment!

*tips hat*