Modern Vespa

The longest one day ride for me was about 450 miles. The longest total was 900 miles for round trip through Vietnam's Mekong Delta last year. Last month I went on a 800miles+ round trip from Ho Chi Minh City to the Vietnam/Cambodia border city of Ha Tien.

You can follow the trip here.
http://www.modernvespa.com/forum/topic9351.html
http://www.modernvespa.com/forum/topic9662.html

I'm planning a 1200miles round trip from Ho Chi Minh City to the city of Nha Trang, hopefully for next year. My dream trip would be riding from the south of Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City to the north Vietnam city of Hanoi, which is a 1800miles round trip., some day.

A little over 90 miles.

Which is a bit underwhelming since my round-trip commute is about 60 miles.

I really have to get out more.

San Francisco to the Point Reyes lighthouse, I believe thats about 120 round trip. Not a giant trip I know, but last weekend was a beauty..

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Last edited by culturesponge on Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:17:29 +0000; edited 4 times

A 700 mile, 3 day trip from the Bay Area, over the Sonora Pass and then up Tioga Pass through Yosemite. Can't wait to do it again in June, as soon as Tioga Pass opens for the summer. Anyone want to come? I'm thinking of leaving early on a Friday to avoid the heat of the valley and returning Sunday.

My furthest was from Dallas (Richardson actually) to Achille Oklahoma, about 205 round trip, but when my first Stella was new I decided to ride it in for the first 300 mile service. The only dealer anywhere around here then was Randolph Garner in Cleburne, and I'm not sure how far it is if you go on the freeway and busy highways, but I did a route that was about 100 miles each way. I scheduled a day off for when my odometer hit 200 miles, then started out early that morning heading into downtown, then south through what I suppose is the lowest socio-economic area (miles of that) then to Waxahachie, west to Maypearl, SW to Grandview, then NW to Cleburne, we worked on the scooter, even removing the fuel tank, kinked the line, had to remove it again after he removed the carb, put it all back in and I left headed for home at maybe about 3 PM. Well of course, there had been a fuel spill and I think that scooter had a problem with picking up all of the available fuel so I passed the last gas station in Cleburne figuring that I'd just get gas later. I get about 7 or 8 miles out of town (rolling prarie kind of thing you see in Westerns) and the scooter dies. I switched to reserve and it started, then died. Crap. There were 2 houses a ways back toward Cleburne and I was near the top of a little hill, so it started and went just a bit and I coasted back toward the houses. The one on the left had several tractors there so I went up and knocked on the door and a little old lady came, I explained all about Randolph and my predicament and asked if I could buy some gas. She said that she thought there was some in the garage and to help myself. I get in the garage and there are several 5 gallon cans with gas in them so I filled up (couldn't have taken 2 gallons) and went back to the door to give her $5 (gas was around $1.40 a gallon then) and she wouldn't take any money at all. She said she just wouldn't feel right and that maybe I could help someone else out some day. Talk about nice. I rode on home and think I may have gotten there about 6:30 or 7. What a long day for a new rider.

PS. Sometime when I have more time I'll tell y'all about me heading out of Maypearl toward Grandview (same trip) on a downhill doing 60ish and there was this buzzard up ahead flying the same way I was going and he was scanning the road for some tasty bit of meat and was getting lower and lower as I was getting closer and closer so I started honking the horn..... Ok I'll tell y'all now. Just about the time I had to either hit my brakes hard or swerve way over to miss him he flapped his wings a couple of times and banked left as I blew by. Exciting, huh?

My last scooter was a Honda Silverwing. I don't know if that counts for this thread, but from where I live in the Los Angeles area, I rode it to the Seattle & back twice, and once to Orlando with a detour to the Blue Ridge Mountain trail on the way back. That bike, with it's twist-&-go, and it's power, was great for touring.

I think anyone trying to ride a Vespa on long rides on a regular basis would have to overcome serious deficiencies. I'd need a new custom seat and some stuff piled on the seat behind me to lean on for starters. More power too. I'm sure one could do it, but all the pain...

My GTS 250 is what it is: a brilliant little vehicle made for the shorter haul.

on my 2001 honda reflex...Oct 2004,my longest ride was Baytown, Texas to Orlando, FL .. I drove about 15 hours straight, around 950 miles...never stop..oh I mean just stop for gas,bathroom,food near every 2.5 hours..
I left in early afternoon and arrived 5 in the morning in Orlando, I always like night driving... no cars and very quiet.

I drove back to Austin from Orlando.
in sept 2003 I took round trip to Phoenix, AZ from Loveland,CO (I lived there) then back.
Aug 2004 Loveland, CO to Austin, TX.
End of April 2006 Austin, TX to Atlanta,GA then back.
Many short trips like Austin to Houston/Dallas something like that.. yeah that show 52,000 miles on the odometer.
I am glad I have piaggio fly now so I don't use reflex full time anymore. Soon i am buying new 07 suzuki burgman 400 so I will use it for long trips and reflex stay in Texas.

All the trips just for wakeboarding, competitions and stuff.

Bad experience on my trips..
I had four flat tires on rear, alternator broke, drive belt broke, two times gas tank went dry..(one happened at 2am, I slept on side of freeway over the night, no signal on my phone and got cop's help in early bright morning to get some gas on Utah/Colorado border, just found out that gas station is only two miles away!!!! grrr!)

Oh wait, the longest drive was 1,339 miles straight... Austin, TX to Jackson, MI stop for the night sleep in a hotel then woke up drove to Atlanta from Jackson, MI 745 miles.. then go back home... stopped in Jackson at same hotel for a night sleep
Funny.. when I was in Vespa Austin shop, a guy around my age, he was sitting on a BV500 and I was talking to him, he asked me would this scooter good enough to drive to San Antonio from here and I was like heck yeah geez I drive my honda reflex it's only 250cc all over the USA ! He was like WOW, that's so funny!

cinco de mayo ride in the south bay
210 miles from leaving my driveway to returing.
after battling thru hollywood and what-not to get down there it was a beautiful ride around the PV hills and in the southbay. totally worth it.
took a LONG freekin' time, but not more than i expected.
i was riding my '59 series 1 lammy. yeah, the one with saddle seats. i think my arse is still bleeding from that ride... i didn't walk right for a week.

why... beacuse i'm crazy...

best,
-greasy

My longest ride? Tomorrow's Napa ride:

http://www.modernvespa.com/forum/topic9479.html

Jupiter to KeyWest Florida (250 miles). Got there and could not find a room so I turned around and came back. That was on a chinese 150 down and up US1. I made the same ride on the Vespa GT but booked a room before I made the trip. With the GT I went down the Florida Turnpike with the speedo pegged.

The national Run & Race-weekend at Oppheim in august 2005, close to Bergen, was 700 miles from Trondheim and back.

http://www.tosk.no/nyheter/nyheter-2005.htm
http://www.cscb.no/oppheimtreff05.html

Climbed 2 mountain passes at around 4000 ft each.

http://www.turistveg.no/modules/module_123/templates/fp.asp?iCategoryId=86&vt=fp&iTVID=66&iInfoId=106&lang=eng

Drove through the Laerdal tunnel, 15 miles long


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lærdal_Tunnel
http://home.no.net/lotsberg/data/norway/laerdal/tunnel.html

The trip home that sunday took 12 hours. My GT-seat is quit good but the guys on classic Vespa and Lambretta had a tough ride.

The last 60 miles was in night conditions and the classic's had to "use" my GT headlight to see anything at all...

About 150 miles non-stop. Total time was approximately 3.5 hours.

Update: Total distance (including the ride from SF to Napa and back) was 180 miles.

My longest trip so far is when I rode my P200 up to San Francisco from LA, approximately 375 miles. We took the 5 up there and it was 12 hours each way *we made lots of stops* After riding around all weekend I thought my arm was going to fall off.
This past weekend I rode down to San Diego from Northridge which was about 150 miles each way.

I ride a lot out. For me to ride 70-80 miles a day is common. I just turned 21,000 miles on my 2004 et4. I've had it about 2.5 years.

George

How's your ET4 doing with 21k on it?

I think some scooter people, and Vespa people in particular must ride more than a lot of motorcycle enthusiasts. This whole thread is truly impressive.

Ok, so I think my longest ride was a little over two hundred miles in a day. The way my life is currently structured I don't have time to get out as much as I'd like. But Wednesday I did get out for a little over 170 miles.

This thread proves to me its not the size of the bike but the desire, willingness and ability of the rider which determines what a true enthusiast is. I'll also mention availability of time to ride since its currently something I really lack.

Roadbum

From St. Louis MO to Rockford Ill. on a stock 2003 Bajaj Chetak, no windshield or nuttin'.
It was something like 350ish miles, took 9.5 hours (each way), Over the whole weekend I ended up doing something like 900 miles.
Rode up there for a scooter rally - my first rally ever!
Had a great time and the ride there and back was spectacular. It actually took a bit less time than I thought it would. Got my best mileage ever for the bike on that trip too - 110mpg!

Long non-scooter rides I've taken have been:
5,000ish mile tour from StL to Sturgis, then down through Colorado to Ouray & Lake City and back on a 2000 Ural Bavarian 650 w/sidecar.

Did a "National Parks Tour - Master Traveller" Iron Butt on a 2001 Royal Enfield Bullet - one year, 27 states, and about 140 National Park Units. It all added up to something like 14,000 miles on the bike.

Did a "Saddle Sore 1000" Iron Butt on my Guzzi Breva - from StL to Albuquerque. 1040 miles in 18 hours. Nearly totalled the bike near Sante Fe the next day. Came home in a rental car

Longest was my 1380 mile long weekend out to WKRP. Philadelphia - Cincinnati and back. We split way out and back in halfs so I did around 300-325 miles a day ... flat out ... WFO

Damn, you beat me. Last weekends trip from SF to LA and back for the Glendora Ridge ride put on 1,200 miles in 3 days

Longest scooter ride in one day? That was 420 miles, going from Irvine to Solvang and back, with lots of detours and side-trips along the way. It never felt too long. With enough stops to revive the butt, I could have gone on for more.

My longest ride was in Feb of '06. Memphis, Tulsa, Las Vegas, Memphis. 3289 miles. Longest day was Gallup, NM to OKC. 620 miles for the day. The Corbin seat paid for itself that day.

The week started off with a big snow
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/10/snow-event/

Preparing the 2005 GT 200L
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/09/make-all-preparations-for-getting-underway/

The night before departure
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/12/ready-set/

Memphis,TN to Tulsa, OK
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/14/go/

Tulsa, OK to Gallup, NM
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/16/catching-up-whilst-broke-down-in-gallup-nm/

Gallup, NM to Las Vegas, NV
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/18/on-the-road-again/

Vegas
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/19/catching-up-2/

Mo' Vegas
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/23/las-vegas/

Mo' Mo' Vegas
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/23/sunday-vegas-sunday/

Vegas to Memphis
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/23/leaving-las-vegas-she-sang/

Final pictures
http://doghouse.blogsome.com/2006/02/25/last-pictures-of-las-vegas/

I flew to New York in May 1981, bought a P200e new at Kings Motorcycles in Brooklyn and rode to New Orleans, a long meandering ride across the south. I then went to Key West looking for a ferry to Cancun, which had been discontinued ten years prior to my arrival... I was 23 at the time and footloose so i turned around and went north to New Orleans again and on to Big Bend and over the river to Mexico, south to Guadalajara and on to the pacific Coast where the under toad nearly got me at Mazatlan.
Then I went north to Nogales and California and Nevada hitting the grand canyon and other major parks.
I toured california for a month and left the P200 with a friend in Richmond California. Subsequently i commuted on that indefatigable Vespa for ten years before selling it when i took off on my first sailboat trip.
The best ride I ever took, sleeping where I could in a goretex bag with no tent, no cooking equipment and I spent about $7,000 during six months. Always was a terrible budgeter, so I spent what i had.
When I was a youngster in Europe I'd take off work and ride at every opportunity around Europe and north Africa but i never went to Greece or turkey to my everlasting regret. Two years before my US trip i rode a 500cc single across Central Africa and that was when i wished I was riding a Vespa so on my next trip I did just that.
Next year I'm planning on shipping the GTS to Santa Cruz and taking off back to Key West to celebrate my 50th birthday recreating the trip in three weeks! Work can be such a bummer...

Not having kept track, I'd have to say about 200-250km or so at last year's Alpha Scoot rally in Toronto. Yesterday I rode into the city and back, 173 km return. We were planning on another ride in the evening to a warehouse sale about 40 km west of us, but my sciatic nerve was pinching from the day's ride, so we drove instead.

jacqui

Wunderlust strories are the best!

We had a printing saleguy in at work once, who knew that my coworker and I ride Vespas. He was about 60 or so. He told us of the time when he was 14 years old, and living on Vancouver Island. He managed to convince his parents that he was attending a church youth group summer camp program for two weeks. He infact took the ferry to the mainland, bought a Honda Cub with his newspaper money, and rode it to California and back, using collected soda bottles along the way to buy gas, and getting by on the good grace of people who took him in the feed him and let him sleep in their barns or whatever was available. When he got back to Vancouver, he sold the cub and took the ferry home again, telling his parents camp was great. He said it was without a doubt the best two weeks of his life.

I think this would make an interesting screen play...

jacqui

April 1st Ride from Tulsa to OKC and back - down rte 66 - approx 250 miles. I really cannot understand how people can finish an Iron Butt - mine was very sore after only 250 miles

Longest Scooter ride on a 4T was GT200 to detroit Mich and back home in one day aprox 500 miles, On a 2T was on a 177cc moded Stella to Traverse City Mich and back home about 200 miles.

On my BMW mc Alaska was 4 month trip and 14K in total and in one day 1100 miles to home from devils tower, wy

2 wheeled travel is the best!

Chas

Hey chas1969,
I stopped by Devils Tower too. I was on my Journey from South Dakota
to California during the summer 06. I rode over 3,200 miles in about
10 days. All secondary roads... on a 150!!! My a$$ was kicked, but
i had a great time though.

I'm updating my own post.... Today I got out more. I decided earlier this year to cover every ride in my area listed here....
http://www.motorcycleroads.us/index.html

A couple of weeks ago I completed one of them...there were six. Yesterday I noticed that another one was added. I was getting behind!
I couldn't waste all this beautiful weather on stuff I was supposed to do, right?
So I picked two of the routes that were furthest away from me (It took me two hours just to get to the starting point of the first one) and covered every back-roads inch of them.

220 miles. 7-1/2 hours.

It was worth every second.

Four more routes to go.

My longest ride was about 410 miles in one day, when I moved from Sherwood, Arkansas, to Tyler, Texas, going Interstate highways and major roads all of the way. That trip took five hours. Before that it was Sherwood, Arkansas, to Shreveport, Louisiana, about 240 miles one way, using secondary roads, taking about 4 hours.

I, too, have been using www.motorcycleroads.us/index.html to find new roads in my part of Texas, the Piney Woods. I have completed three of the mentioned roads in the past two weeks, and took a side trip off one of them, total of 112 miles round trip, a leisurely 2-hour ride. That one is probably going to be my favorite ride of all time, because I enjoyed watching a couple of vehicles ride the shoulder and slow down when they saw my new headlight modulator. Today I'm going on the last of the rides mentioned, probably another 100 miles or so. One of the rides I took cries out for a camera, so I will be going back there soon.

Read the first couple of posts:

Jess is not riding his GT on the freeway 'In fact, just barely touching 60 on San Pablo Dam Road, I was pretty much in fear for my life.' Now he has X number of scooters, is on whole scooter double secret restriction and isn't asking what the route to Santa Barbara is.

NapaCoach is still...... well, the same.

Memser has done his Ironbutt ride (and it was one of his very first posts) been approved by the IB board of Governers or whatever?

Len Smith's mileage is so low he hadn't had his first service yet, and 'doesn't want to open it up on the freeway.' Now he's putting together a rally and building scooter only workbenches?

Further reading, and you will find tha this is TOPIC #8.

Wow!

I've done several all day rides, but I think the longest one way all day ride I have done has been Seattle to Vancouver, BC on a stock ET2.

You folks that take Interstate or major highways - do you ride outside the white line on the side to avoid heavy traffic? If so, do you get problems from cops for using the edges? Just wanted to know.

Absolutely not! You are entitled to the full use of the traffic lane, as long as your scoot is highway legal.

I ride the freeways all the time and actually feel much safer there than on surface streets. I like lots of space between me and other drivers....

Steve

This thread is quite inspirational.

After riding my Honda Elite 80 for years and then getting a TNG Venice 49 for a few more, I couldn't wait to take my GTS and let her rip on the highway. I have been wanting to take a long trip on my 2 wheeled vehicle for a long time. I just didn't think it was practical on 49cc engine (although many posts have proven otherwise).

2 weeks ago I took it on a half interstate half back road jaunt to Mississippi and back. 240 miles. I was a little freaked out when I looked at the speedo once during in the interstate ride and saw it pegged 85 MPH. I got a dirty look from a guy and his chick on his Harley as I blew past them. I am going to take it to Biloxi in 2 weeks for a 200 mile run.

I am trying to get ready for my ride to Virginia and back to NOLa in the fall. Around 2200 miles. It is a really weird coincidence that the workshop is going on up there when I was planning on going. Serendipity.

A recent addition: I took a trip last month from San Jose, CA to Seattle, WA to attend AmeriVespa. Over 2000 miles total. Some days were close to 400 miles.

On the way up, I traveled with Jess, Glasseye, Napacoach, and others from Northern CA. That was mainly on Highway 1, up the coast. We also detoured around Mount Ranier. A beautiful ride. I returned solo down the 5, which was a shorter, less scenic route.

I learned the my bike (GTS250) was capable on running all day at high speeds, only stopping for gas every couple of hours. I, however, did much better with frequent (hourly) breaks.

over 540 miles in one day on a fiddy...over 2535 miles in 6 days on the same fiddy on the same trip....scooter cannonball here I come!!! too easy