Modern Vespa

Of all the things the government could have done moving my possessions....

That sucks.

OFG

It was like 1200 when i bought it.

Same safe is still made by Champion......but it's now $3200 (plus tax and freight of course).

Guess i have a 900lb floor holder downer til they decide how i'll be getting paid. Direct deposit would be lovely.

I would think a competent locksmith could fix that. It looks like just the shaft from the dial is bent.

100%, but I'm not about to spend the time waiting for locksmiths to come by, assess, and provide written estimates (i believe it's either three or four are required for repair) when it's much faster (and preferred by the gov tbh) to say "this is the replacement cost."

If they want to do the research on repairs that's fine and totally up to them. the paperwork just requires me to locate (with a verifiable source, and thankfully the manufacturer has pricing listed on their website) the approximate replacement cost.

Since it's not the coffee table i personally made from an old Mosin Nagant shipping crate or the heirloom silver-backed mirror dresser my great-grandmother had (though frankly isn't an expensive piece that I'm aware of; i'm 97% sure it's stained poplar but the dovetails on the drawers are lovely just the same), and something readily available to purchase on the current market, the replacement cost is all they're interested in.

Also I've got a fair idea of the ballpark for repair, so as long as i get that much plus a couple hundred to compensate for the time out of my life spent accomplishing it, i'm happy.

But i'm not about to do the math myself. Here's the replacement cost, figure it out, pay me lol.

(not pissed off, more of an anxiety sorta thing?)

Spent almost two hours chatting with the the guy at the body shop (about more than Vespas).

Hmmm.

It's that painful thought of two incidents (on one day) means two insurance excess payments.

Or do i just replace the trim and mudguard myself and put up with the scratches and dent ...

I haven't ridden the Red BMW for a month so I took it out to keep the battery charged and then Pop ! the headlight immediately blows.

This.

I still haven't done anything to mine post-crash and it was march 2024. I have paint and filler, and now a garage to do it in, but wondering if it's worth the time invested or if i should just get a new plastic lower trim piece, paint THAT to match, slap it on, and then let the scratches stay.

My only worry is that some are through the primer to metal. if they aren't, i wouldn't worry too much. But bare metal means it's gonna get rusty and that makes it way worse.

Fricking North American blinker pods.

So, I ordered this Prima windshield for the Sprint and immediately snapped my RH pod off the bike installing it.

I glued it back together and re-installed the windshield pushing it off center to the left, but the RH rail still touched the stem on the pod.

Yesterday, from normal vibration, the pod snapped again.

Since I measure stuff for a living, I brought the mounting rails to work and scanned them. This is the difference between the two sides.

Yellow is the LH that fits, green is the RH which has no clearance. There is little enough clearance here without the huge difference between the two sides of the hardware.

I aligned to the mount bushing as they sit on the bike. LH is the master and the RH side is mirrored for measurement.

Oh hey they fucked my table saw up too. Bent the frame so far it creased and even cracked on one side.

That hurts to look at - hope they make good on it!

I had a vague plan to ride in the US again this year and was talking to an owner of a BV 350 in New Jersey that I would have bought and ridden West.

I had some reservations about its reliability so I suggested that they sell it to someone else and then soon after my travel plans changed so it became academic.

The new owner of the BV got in touch with the seller a few days ago because it now no longer starts.

Hmmmmm.

Dodged a bullet, you did.

The thing that's been pissing me off the most recently is that whenever you have something that needs to be dealt with, there's another thing that will immediately take its place to ensure that you never really have nothing to deal with.

Always som'thin…….

OFG

The day was early, with plenty of time for additional, much larger problems to develop, but up to that point, the indelicate ketchup asshole was about it.

Life is good.

"If it isn't one thing, it's another."

my mom

My father - "Everyone gets rained on. But try not to get angry about or stressed out about something that you can't control. Just let it go." I cleaned up the language some.

That also went along with - "Don't worry about someone screwing you over, you will do enough of that on your own to yourself." Again, cleaned up.

Hell, half the reason I want to stay alive is to see what crap befalls me next.

A supposedly Chinese curse goes "May you live in interesting times".

Yup.

I got in touch with the seller of the windshield. Without question, they comped me the full purchase price. I asked if they wanted me to box the whole kit back up and send it back and they said no. I could either dispose of it, or - if I had access to fabrication tools - I could cobble something together and see if I could make it work.

As much as I didn't want this bike to be THAT, I am a bit of a cobbler by trade ...

I have access to washers, roughly 2mm each. And shim tape at a thickness of 0.1mm. I used the scans to calculate I would need to add 0.7mm to the top side of a shim on the RH side

(I have to pause here to mention my computer autocorrected rh into rhubarb for some reason)

to straighten up the rails. I opted for a total of 6mm to move the mount bushings forward away from the blinkers, but because of the angle Vespa placed the mounts in the headset, there's a very limited window. 6mm actually had the mounting hardware hitting the leg shield trim. So I backed off to 4mm and it seems to work. Barely.

I added some thread locker to the expansion clamp bolts, just to make sure everything stays secure. And before anyone says it, it happens to be Scotch TL42 Blue which is corrosion, vibration and shock resistant, but medium torque removable. I work in a factory and know things.

So, who's to blame? Vespa, for the angle of their windscreen mounts? Prima for not making. better product? North American standards for putting blinker pods in the way to begin with?

I dunno, but it was a whole lot more work than it should have been.

Spent seems like too much money for new AC, come back a couple weeks later and the damn thing's not working. That pisses me off!
Fortunately we have fans and Klondike bars!

I have a dilemma which is pissing me off.

Should I attempt 1400 miles in 24 hours on a Motorcycle next or

attempt 1200 miles in 24 hours on a Scooter ?

Yes.

Noted.

The thing that's really pissing me off today is that hand gesture that car drivers use when they pull out in front of you with no regard.

They hold up their splayed hand that means I'm not really sorry but I want to appear too sorry.

Not sorry enough to stop anyway.

Piss Off.

Has anyone else out there noticed an increasing number of Motorcycle You Tubers singing the praises of CF Moto, Voge and Zontes ?

Flavor of the week (or month). Some of the models are fairly new, so they generate a lot of hits in the world of Youtube. The only one I have seen in person is the CFMoto 450SS and it looks like a decent machine. Much like Royal Enfield, they have come a long way on the quality. But no test ride yet.

"New normal" summers.

Milwaukee got slammed by rain over the weekend, upwards of 10 inches pretty much all at once. We were fortunate with only two inches, but I 'very seen a clear pattern of increasingly intense downpours.

Summers are getting warmer and more humidity and it's becoming clear my body doesn't cope well with that plus the usual humidity.

Several weeks ago we were dealing with smoke from Canada for a good week; today I'm reading that too is the new norm.

Typically around here, you get to the end of January and you start fantasizing about summer, by the end of a hot August you're ready to move on. Now it's by mid-July.

To bring this around to riding, I'm thinking I'll just avoid summer for planning rides, or even attending events.Spring and fall at least offer better temperatures and fewer deluges...and less smoke.

Relocating to Mexico is starting to look more attractive, at least in the mountains....though Mexico City just had a deluge yesterday. fml.

Failing fuel pump symptoms? (Post 2748346)

And while checking prices

Oh, What did you do ?

The same thing as me apparently.

I'm blocked as well, while I'm in the UK. At least, that's while I'm on one of my UK home IP addresses.

It's not the first time that Cloudfare have interfered with my web-browsing, whether here or in the US.

Does it work with a VPN to a US location?

Yes - I suspect scooterpartsco have set up their Cloudfare a/c to reject all non-US IP addresses. Which means those in the rest of the world have to jump through hoops in order to point someone to a product they stock. Or something like that.

Are you listening Jorge?

Me too (Canada).

I can understand they may not want to ship any goods out of the country - it can be a RRPITA to do so. But instead of a very visible disclaimer, they've shut the Rest Of The World out.

That sort of thinking is becoming more and more common. It's really frustrating.