Modern Vespa

Got nice lunch: big (too big) amount of pasta and a beer, 8euros. Could have had a coffee too on same price, but not bothered. Every cloud has it darker lining thou: heavy lunch and your ability to wander around is gone...

Tomorrow, the afternoon temperatures here in western South Dakota will be 70 degrees, or damn close, so I've decided to hop onto a motorcycle, probably my BMW R1200R boxer, and ride eastward toward the Wall Drug Store for lunch, along the way, taking the highly scenic Badlands National Park route to my destination, then probably a fast rip back on I-90.

Being early November, this cheers me up considering how lousy, freezy, icy, and generally shitty the weather could be this time of year in these parts.

Like they say..."Make hay while the sun shines", or some such bullshit.

Like it or not, there WILL BE PICTURES!...deal with it.


(Maybe I'll puss out and take the Miata instead, top down of course).

You do mean the Miata's and not yours......

Not say'n.

A friend of mine has never heard the 2001 straight fire track "The Next Episode" by DJ Sanj and I got to introduce him to it.

That's enough to make anyone's day.


Sadly i'm back in MD but only for a few nights thankfully.

That's when you order a glass of wine and just sit and people watch.

I gotta say, I'm too old for that.

and the video

We don't need pics, depending. Just say'n.

Installed my new front rack this week and after committing a little surgery this morning, all is well.

She's now ready for camping season 2026.

Storage locker is empty. Truck is not super-full. Both of these make me quite happy.

But above all else, the hotel fixed their bloody wifi so i can use my laptop

Now that that's all done, welcome to Colorado.

On the weekly Tuesday scooter ride with the 7 Bridges Scooter Club, we had three Vespas last night.

With all the maxi scooters and now more motorcycles riding with us, it was a rare occasion.

The three were Russ' 2013 GTS, now well over 60,000 miles, my Ghost, a 2023 GTS and Razzo, a 2005 GT that I sold to my friends Paul and Nancy.

Bill

Already a resident just had to come back to MD to empty the locker. Live off Powers in Springs.

Finally got the MX-5 back from the body shop yesterday after having the scars I gave it repaired after backing it into a concrete pillar in its underground garage about two months ago.

It only took three days for the repair, but we didn't report it to the insurance company until about a week ago.

I'm out a $500 deductable, but the little Miata is once again perfect.

So, I'm all cheered up about it.

The cement pillar, the damage, and the repaired car.

Why am I posting these on a cheer me up thread….
Well… 😁 I got Tutti to keep me occupied for other reasons I'm not going into. Now normally in the past when I came across Barney Bodgit fixes, I'd get angry. Now, I just removed the split in two, duct tape joined breather pipe and said 'ah well'…. That's turning a corner for me.
I then saw the rust on the cogs and bizarrely just thought another job.
This is good…. honestly! 😊😊😊
Let's hope it lasts 🙄😊

I completed the Business Ethics course on Sophia Learning yesterday, and received my grade for the course this morning - 98%.

I've placed the order with Parchment.com to have the transcript sent to SNHU so that I can graduate in December when I finish this current term.

6.5 more weeks and all course requirements will be complete...

I took my first ever mock bike theory test today & got 45 out of 50

Didn't know about that! Just tried it and got 47 😊. Sorry 😔😉

I'd never heard of this, so I looked it up and took it.

Failed with a 42/50.

I don't feel too bad about that, though. Almost all of the ones I missed are UK-specific.

Pfft! Yeah, and they can't even drive on the right side of the road.

One of the questions that I got wrong had to do with being allowed to overtake on the left on a motorway.

Another was about what shape would the signs be in a certain geographic area.

Sunshine and 22 degrees. Took Kymco for a 66km ride. My first since turning
91 years young.

Good for you! Gives me hope for the future.

Not today, but the day before yesterday, temps touched 78F here so I got in 225 miles on the R1200R, rolling through Badlands National Park, then over to Wall, South Dakota for a coffee and donut, afterward zipping home on westbound I-90.

Not a bad day for early November, when we could be up to our asses in Snow and ice instead. So far, not a speck of the white stuff, and that cheers me up...a lot.

Caseys Taco Pizza.

Midwesterners know.

Looks interesting but I'll stick to my Quatro Stragione at the local pizza place in the small town of Sessano del Molise Italy ........mmmmmmm.
Can't wait to go back next summer.

This artist came out with a catchy song called KD and lunch meat a couple years back and recently released another toe tapping song with the same Tom Petty groove. Definitely cheered me up.
https://youtu.be/3c5PzrPsEPE

we'll be back in venice for carnevale again in february as per usual, follow-ons to florence and rome to show around a newbie who hasn't been yet.


shouldn't that be a moretti with the pizza anyway?

I always look forward to your Carnevale pics. Looks like a lot of fun!
I found Moretti too malty for my taste especially when eating pizza. I prefer the slight bitterness of Tuborg to wash my food down.....

That pic with Tuborg. It is shame that these euro-brands are cheaper in Italy than Italian "non filtered" Ichnusa or Poretti. Btw Poretti Luppoli 6 red beer is marvellous!

There is some snowing on and more coming, so its more like Lapland. But, every cloud has its dark middle part: The Levi WC slalom is getting hard time to get rid of the future snow from the course. So, this snowing should have been week or rather 2 ago.

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

I was in downtown Reno this morning so I stopped in to check on the machine work on my old motor bits. The flywheels have been reassembled and are in the process of being trued. I would love to do this myself but I don't have a flywheel truing stand and I really can't justify the $1000-$1500 it would cost to have one of my own. The motor cases have been media blasted and the new bearing races have been pressed in. Just need to line-lap the new races to fit the bearings and the bottom end can be reassembled. I hope to have it back in my hands by next week. This cheers me up!

Please send any extra snow to the northern Sierra Nevada mountains! We are behind on snowfall and way above normal in terms of temperature. The place I ski was scheduled to open in 2 weeks but I think they'll be lucky to open before Christmas this year. I've never seen it this warm in the middle of November.

I picked up a "76 Shovelhead many years ago from the original owner with less than 3K miles on it. The bike was garaged and looked mint but ran awful. I tried everything I could before I did a full tear down. I took the whole bottom end to a shop 80 miles away that was known for their excellent work. The mechanic said it was one of the worse he had every seen from the Milwaukee company. Balanced, trued, with all new bearings, checked over twice and it was back in my hands. Once reassembled, it was incredible smooth for a Shovel, I wish I could have have kept it.

First ride in over a week despite unreasonably warm November. Heading into town to pick up a few odd groceries ( could have had my wife do it as she drives past the stores, but figured I'd save her time...okay, I just wanted a ride. ).

I'm getting into my zone after a couple if miles, about to cross over the freeway on the divided road when I see maybe 8 guys on sport bikes approaching on the other side. I looked over at them wondering if I should bother to wave when 3 or 4 of them erupted into the most exuberant greeting I've seen. Hands overhead and all. I think they were a bunch of young guys heading out for a ride at the end of what's probably the last warm day of the year. Their sheer exuberance was infectious and I returned an enthusiastic wave.

Just what I needed to cap off an otherwise fair to middling day.

The mid 70s was a tough time for HD. Quality problems were at a high. AMF was having a lot of labor problems and that led to the workers just not giving a crap. But HD never put the effort into balancing and blueprinting a motor that a good engine builder will. It's just too labor intensive.

Yeah, we were all aware of the problems HD was having. I rode other Shovels and Pans, but this particular one definitely slipped thru the cracks. To this day, I can't say the Shovelhead is my favorite engine. And I love the old Pans and Knuckles, but for everyday riding, it's hard to beat the EVO.

Absolutely! The EVO is definitely the best motor HD ever built. The same solid bottom end that the Shovel had, but a greatly improved, all aluminum, top end. The heads flowed so much better than any of the previous designs. Credit to AMF for the years of development that went into the EVO. Reliability post EVO has suffered greatly.