Modern Vespa

I'm grinding a lot of on the turns when I ride my 500. I noticed to night that my exhaust has some marks from me turning and also on the left side the foot thing has some marks where it has it the road along with parts of the plastic has rubbed off from rubbing...I'll post pics later tongiht or tomorrow. SHould I stop taking the turn so hard? Input please

No, just get some hardened steel ends made for the center stand.

Wayne B

Lots of us would love to be able to do that! If we can just have the skill or the 'youthfulness' to do it. I think it is nothing to worry about as quite a lot of ther MV MP3ers member have done it before. Cheers!

You have to be careful.

Lean it over too far and the bike will pivot on the part (stand or muffler) which is in contact with the road and actually lift the back wheel. This can result in an instant loss of traction, followed by a loss of "uprightness".

I'm not saying "don't have fun" - just remember that too much can be a bad thing.

Cheers

Trevor G

haha yea i know what you mean. I always have that in mind when I hit a turn.

and don't forget also the MP3s have a max lean angle of just 40 degrees (from vertical, not from the ground). At that angle the two horizontal pieces on the front "forks" are hard together and any further lean may result in the outside front wheel lifting off the ground completely.

did you remove your centre stand or has it been grinded into submission?

Suggestion would be to learn about getting off the seat in the turns. That allows for higher speed turns while keeping the bike more upright (at least according to David Hough in More Prof. MC, I do not know that from personal experience).

Lifting of the front tire on a MP3.

Wow, that's an interesting photo. But doesn't leaning that far negate the advantage of an MP3? You're just riding a motorcycle with a small front wheel.

yea i've been leaning off the bike on some turns...but it still grinds....i just love riding the MP3 hard. It's a blast!