I mentioned this idea to Joanie and who knows that I talk a load of rubbish at the best of times, and she said 'that's nice dear' and hoped the idea would pass. Unfortunately the man racing towards forty without a hobby had just found one. And my bonnet had a bee in it, so I took my CBT in freezingly icy conditions at the start of December and I think Joanie realised I was serious, I got up early on a cold morning and left the house without being a grumpy git, this is serious! Tim was still in two minds about the trip as he had then added up the mileage and found it was more than we thought, but I still had no bike, therefore it was still a slim chance of non-starter. We went to NZ for Christmas and my Mother pointed out that riding a scooter to Italy at my age with two kids at home was a stupid idea, which instantly made my decision for me.
So the hunt began, after furious saving/juggling of credit. Researched a fair bit about the cantankerous rust-traps that Vespa had the good sense to kill off 5 years ago after roughly 30 years of production, the more I found out the more I wanted one, and the game was on.
I found a nice one on eBay, not far from my house (I hadn't ridden one before, so the first ride would be a worry) which had a 200cc motor, in a pale pistachio colour, the current owner had the engine uprated and few other bits and pieces added, like nasty chrome. So I set my limit and watched it climb through the roof. Perhaps my budget was wrong, perhaps it was a stupid idea, but I was pissed off I missed out as I had been watching it for a fortnight and it seemed good, and to lose it in the last 5 minutes irked me. As the auction finished I did another search for Vespa PXs, and a silver PX125 came in at £1300 or make an offer, which had been re-listed about a 10 minutes ago. It seemed quite nice, and the guy had a super clean garage (I watch too many crime shows, I did my owner profile based on garage cleanliness, and good eBay ad grammar & punctuation), and the scooter had a Malossi 166cc kit, T5 carb, and Scorpion exhaust and only 4300 miles on the clock, which since I was going to do a 1000 miles in April, seemed a much better purchase. So in a moment of weakness I added an offer of £1100, hit send and got back to sulking about the first one. 2 seconds later, Your offer has been accepted.
I felt physically sick.
I had just agreed to spend £1100 on an 11 year old Vespa, I had never seen before, which lived in Rugby and was non-standard and had blurry photos. And I bought it because Tim had one. It was the right spec it had an uprated engine (I'm a bit porky), a disc brake (I will use to ride round central London), electric start for stalling in traffic and it wasn't covered in chrome mod-nonsense.
So, after mild panic attack. Told Joanie. Luckily she was in a pub with her friend and was quite supportive. I think my verge-of-a-nervous-breakdowness was coming through on the phone. I feel quite guilty as I would have shouted at her for spending a grand on something unseen which will be used to do something stupid on. I must buy her something nice in Italy.
So the plan was to get Joanie to drive me up Saturday, and I would ride the 90 miles back, taking all day in small chunks. By Wednesday the weather forecast had deteriorated and I hired a van (Mercedes Vito, the nicest van I have ever driven), and decided I couldn't wait any longer and went up after work on Friday. After horrendous London traffic I eventually got to Rugby and got to Jackie and Darren's house. I has shaking from nerves.
We introduced ourselves, and the tension must have been a bit obvious, as Jackie let me off the hook and took me straight out to the beast. And it was bloody awesome. I had aged about 10 years in the walk from the front door to the garage. Jackie fired her/him (still undecided) up. That heady whiff of two-stroke, reminded my of mucking around in boats with outboards when I was a kid in Auckland, and the Scorpion exhaust makes quite a racket I was smitten. We got the scooter in the van, luckily a friend of Jackie's was there to help as I didn't take anything for ramp, the cash was swapped for keys, spare carbs, a cover and a couple of tyres, and back to London I went.
It turns out that Darren has a Lambretta (single seat model) and bought this for Jackie, had the engine and gearbox uprated for her, and then used it on the weekends, and was in beautiful condition. A small bit of rust on the front mudguard (well it is Italian, so rust is compulsory) and they are emigrating to Australia, and there is only room for the Lambretta and the car in the container, so on eBay it went. She had to say good-bye to the scooter three times, and looked a little teary at it going so that meant it was loved, and nice to see.
The Thursday before I picked it up I had to get some gear and visited Harry Nash Scooters in Chiswick www.harrynash.com where Graham and Tony were awesome with advice and clothes for the portlier rider, with stuff I wanted in stock. I was very happy, got the helmet, gloves, waterproof trousers and not-too-biker looking armoured jacket all in one place. Their advice was a excellent, and I'm very happy with all my gear.
On Saturday Joanie and the kids helped me get the scooter out of the van, I got dressed up, and choke out, clutch in, hit starter make 20 month old Sam cry with the noise it makes, filled our cul-de-sac with oily smoke and I was off. Two 7 km laps of Richmond park (at a sedate 20mph) later and I was off on to the mean streets of Richmond. The Vespa is great fun to ride, comfortable, the gear change is a killer on the left hand, it's as noisy as anything, the exhaust pops and crackles during engine braking, but all in all… awesome.
Thank goodness.
When I told Tim this, I heard him inhale slightly… the Italy trip got one more step to reality!
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