Modern Vespa

With or without the tilt-lock engaged???

my girl dropped it the first time she was on it. Now it was only a moth old

im suprised the little damage it had only the side skirt above the front wheel and the brakehandle. I used an edding to make it black agani.

I've yet to own an MP3 so I can safely say I've never dropped one.
However, quite a number of years ago, I dropped a 'fizzie'. I was trying to do a v. slow u-turn in a lane that was narrow and my front wheel hit the wall.
My friend was with me and watching at the time and she said that after I hit the wall, I did this wicked little wobble trying to reclaim lost balance before keeling over. She did the finger pointing whilst laughing thing. lol

Let me just say simply, I have in my private stock all the black plastic fender and reflector bits to replace both sides.....I'm not changing out until I feel I won't have reorder for sometime...being short is tiresome.
cheers....jacquie

Not the MP3 yet, but in riding for 40+ years, have had most of the usual slow speed "lessons learned" as well as a few high speed get offs that required plenty of medical attention. One of my favorite articules regarding how to drop your bike are here:
http://www.msgroup.org/tip.aspx?num=077

Heh, all so true.

Dammit. Put me in the 'those that have' column. Shit happened today... no injuries except pride, no damage except cosmetic scratching. A number of factors contributing to a simple low speed, tight turn drop - slowly dropping her down on the street. She wasn't taking no for an answer and I wasn't going to argue. Dammit.

Perhaps the only good to come of it was that I easily jumped clear when it was obvious I could do nothing, and how fast and efficiently I responded, hitting the kill switch and lifting her back up on all three within ten seconds or so. Seriously, I was back on the ride with the group in half a minute without losing position. In retrospect I am surprised how easily she lifted back up, using the established method. But I still think I could have avoided it... a very short radius, low speed turn on an uphill slope.

Dammit. Did I say that already??

Dropped every bike/scooter/bicycle I've owned. Gravity wins sometimes.

"Almost Dropped" my last bike (sidecar Ural) taking a right turn in a rather silly fashion. Yes, it's the RIGHT turns towards the sidecar that can tip your rig...sounds weird, but it's true. Got it to go back on three wheels pretty quick...but I hit a garbage can in the process. No harm done to me, not much to the bike either. Had no one in side car at the time (which probably contributed). BTW -- Found out about 2 weeks later I was pregnant My son just turned 4 last weekend. I thank God every day!

Semi-dropped my 500 night before last riding with my wife 2-up on the back.

We came to a stop sign, ready to make a right turn, and the scoot just started leaning over to the right. I couldn't stop it. My wife jumped off and between the two of us, we managed to keep the scoot off her side. I used the backwards butt technique to get her upright again. I set the wheel lock, we got back on board and rode back home.

Today, I was just kind of playing with the balance a little, riding single, letting the scoot sway from side to side while stopped at a stop sign. I almost lost it! It's surprising how heavy the scoot gets fast!

Just drop it and get it over with...happens anyway. Love my battle scars!

I totally disagree with this attitude and think it is a bad one to have. I have never "Dropped" one of my street bikes. I don't understand coming up to a stop sign, loosing balance and dropping a bike.
I laid my Kawasaki Z1 900 down once in the rain going around a turn and it hydro planed out from under me. Nothing I could do about that. Have laid my dirt bikes down on the dirt hundreds of times, but that's what happens on the dirt.

Closest I have come to dropping the MP3 is while I was sitting on it, putting on my gear and I hit my Hippo Hands and it in turn, unlocked the tilt lock and it started going over. I grabbed it by the mirrors and I was not going to let it hit the ground. Pulled my left arm muscles pretty good on that one, but it did not hit the ground
So, at some point this week I am expecting my MP3 500 to just fall over as I am walking up to it, just for saying this

Wayne B

Mine still hasn't after my similar thoughts earlier in the thread.

While I agree that while learning the chance of dropping the bike is higher, as you gain experience, the chance should reduce to nearly zero. BTW: I differentiate between crashing and dropping the bike. Risk of crashing reduces also but even with experience it won't get as close to zero.

The attitude of "it will happen" might be ok when beginning, where you may make a choice of bike based on this (i.e. used rather than new) but with experience that attitude should change.

//Dennis.

I have been replaying in my mind the events that led up to my letting my Mp3 lay down yesterday. It was a simple matter of physics since she was too far off center of gravity to stay upright and a little throttle just pushed her rear wheel right out from under her...

I can't find any one thing in particular that was the specific catalyst, but can enumerate several reasons that when taken as a whole, may have combined to create a situation in which the likelihood I was going down was inevitable. These are not excuses.

· Executing a very small radius U-turn
· From an immediate left turn
· Onto a very narrow street
· That was steeply sloped upwards from my turn
· And was crowned to the curb on either side
· With a severely exposed, large aggregate surface
· That had the aggregate smoothed from many, many years of wear (old road)
· And that was damp and had some wet leaves on it
· Following another, smaller scooter closely that was negotiating the same U-turn
· While being followed very closely by another scooter as well
· While wearing stiff new high ankle boots for the first time (Danner Striker II GTX #4298)
· And new Fieldsheer Adventure Pants too (love the name)
· And lastly, the notorious poor slow speed performance of the scooter (lack of fine acceleration control)

It was like the perfect storm of events culminating in the inevitable laying down: bad road surface, low speed, slow motion, pressure to stay in line and an inability to get my foot on the street quickly enough. While it's true some other rider may have been able to handle all this at once, it's equally true that most would likely not - I tell myself.

Next time, if there is one, I will pay more attention to my instinct - which was telling me attempting to stay in line and make the U-turn was a bad idea. For now I have already done some minor touch up and there's little evidence Loretta had to meet the pavement in such fashion, and I am pleased with how easy it was to right her and carry on.

One thought bugging me tho is if I had been using the hippo hands I have on order I may not have been able to get off in time at all and gone down as well. More reason to listen to instinct.

<sigh>

The ride to work today was invigorating at 36 degrees, the ride home in the dark with full moon in view a treat, and she and I enjoyed it immensely; on to the next event!