Modern Vespa

i have the bike for eight days now and i've scraped the kickstand at least five times already. am i riding it wrong? i am not a valentino rossi wannabe but is there a way to prevent this, short of removing it altogether?

Treat it as the sacrificial protection for the exhaust and the transmission case - another degree of lean and they'd be scraped instead! If it's stopping you going fast enough around bends, hang-off and knee down.

bet your scraping the left side Valentino.

nope there is nothing you can do about it. Your just having too much fun going around corners.

Actually I figured out that I needed to go up a notch on my rear shocks - I was getting scraping in turns with rough surface. It finally dawned on me the ***krrccccchhhh* was happening shortly after he front went ka-thunk. I hate crappy roads. We have a few mixed sections with cobblestone, concrete AND blacktop. Going from the concrete to the cobblestone on a curve can have a high pucker factor.

I wish the roads around my place were good enough that this was a real problem for me. Count your blessings

Not too many places I go can pose that problem without creating serious stability problems. Can anyone explain to me why California has such crappy roads when we have such a moderate climate?

look at what just happened in your recent ca budget fiasco. its your govt doing what they want to do and the voters getting screwed.

Man...That must be some turn...

well i wouldn't mind if the scrapes kick up some sparks, know what i mean? but they just go KRRRRGGGGG and everybody turns to look at you expecting to see you fall or something or thinking there must be something wrong with your bike which is the usual case when they hear something but see nothing. time to weld some high-carbon steel shoes on them. if i can't get rid of the scrapes at least let me kick up some sparks with them!

old as dirt, i scraped both sides, 3 left and 2 right. twice with a pillion on. you are spot on about the having fun part. never had i carried so much balls into a turn before.

bubbajon, i've upped the rear shocks to the 3rd highest notch cos any higher and it'll be a real stiff bumpy ride.

jimc, you really think i should ride like rossi or stoner? don't tempt me...

What's with the scraping on turns?

If you have someone riding with you then you do
indeed need the adjustment all the way up and the tires
aired up a bit too. This may not stop the grinding of the
kickstand but it might help.
I ride that way all the time solo, and yes, the ride is a bit harsh,
but not unbearable.
I suppose a lot depends on the combined weight of you and your
pillion.

Yeah! Wished I have the skill to do so too! Cheers!

Not for nothing but if I was riding pillion and you took a turn like that, then at the next traffic stop, I'm off and hitching the way back home.

Amen - sounds crappy and definately tarnishes the image of being in control. Sounds like you're about to crash and burn. Now that may be a valid supposition - in "Proficient Motorcycling" he mentions that applying throttle in a turn will in fact raise the suspension increasing your clearance. I'm always too busy paying attention to the road to verify that but it does seem the harder I hit a turn the less likely I am to hear that damned scrape.

LOL... my wife were least concerned about the lean. she actually elbowed me and said i shouldn't be scratching my new bike like that. go figure!

no skills required, just lots of vacuum between my ears i think . try it on a dry clean road on a sunny day (no traffic, of course) and you'll be surprised how low our mp3s can go!

but i think it's more of my riding stance than anything. as i sit pretty upright on the scoot i have to physically push the bike down to prevent understeer, hence the grind.

I have yet to scrape anything, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that I could.

From my two months of non-car riding experience, it seems to me that on good pavement and at any speed over about 20mph, the MP3 is virtually self-supporting regardless of angle. Now if you want to low-side I'm sure ways can be found... but even as a new rider I find that my relatively unrefined technique is good enough to lean into turns very deeply and still be confident that the traction and suspension won't let me down (literally).

It's ... inspiring. As I mentioned, I haven't pushed her "all the way over" yet, but I'm edging slowly in that direction. Of course, as winter rolls in and the traction situation declines, I'll revert to my more natural conservative nature in leaning.

it's a very delicate balance between gravity, centrifugal force and traction. i read somewhere that leaning your body instead of the machine puts less stress on the tyres.

i salute the GP riders that they lean so much they seem to disappear behind their machine, much like cowboys hiding behind their horses on the gallop from arrows in cowboy movies.

Leaning your body is to help the bike maintain lean as it naturally wants to stand up straight. Just as a point - you should always keep your head level to the road - that in itself restricts the amount of body english you can put on the bike.

Ah yes....The old "keep the head level to the ground trick..."

On a chain/belt drive rear wheel the rear lowers a little as you accelerate.

On older, shaft drive bikes (BMW, Moto Guzzi) with reactive drive shafts, the rear rises under acceleration. On later ones with non-reactive drive shafts, the rear is supposed to remain level irrespective of engine power being applied or removed.

On telescopic forks the front end rises under acceleration. The overwhelming majority of motorcycles, and many scooters, use telescopic forks with a chain or belt rear drive, so that the front end rises while the rear squats when you accelerate.

The MP3 is a little different in the front end, having a leading link front suspension. Some of you should have noticed that the front end does not dive under brakes like a normal or telescopic fork scooter or bike, because the leading link arrangement has a degree of anti-dive built in.

However, on the MP3 the rear would still squat a little under throttle.

All the best

Trevor G

a picture of the kickstand of my two-week-old 400.