Every year the Barry Sheene memorial ride leaves from Bairnsdale and they ride to the MotoGP site on Phillip Island, it is always a spectacle to see all the road bikes, cafe racers and what ever else, the one scooter rider (PX200) I know that normally does the ride hasn't come this year. The ride was this morning.
What I like to do is wait until all the bikes are parked up in the main street having hard core lattes and a pastry before heading to the Muster point and cut a few laps past them, giving it a bit of a rev as I go, now the Sito+ has a sound like a pinging popcorn machine so I don't have too much trouble getting thier attention. Nobody ever waves, no surprises there, some point and smile, but the majority either try to ignore me or just scowl in my general direction. Makes my day every time, I love it and will miss not being able to do it next year.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
One year on.
A year ago today a rickety crate was man handled off the back of a ute in my driveway and a new chapter in my scootering life began.
It has been interesting and frustrating, fun yet challenging, a learning curve higher than I expected and I have had help and encouragement from all corners of the globe, I have tasted the camaraderie that exists between vintage scooter enthusiasts, as they tweak and tune, break and fix and most importantly the passion for such a simple yet hardy, confusing and yet so beautiful little machine that has withstood the ravishes of time, and the crafty workshops of Indochina, only to enjoy a resurgence in popularity that can only grow further.
The year in a nutshell. Brilliant, loved every minute, mostly.
I have built up a knowledge of the scooter through reading, asking, guessing, but mostly by pulling stuff apart to fix something that has broken or find something odd whist pulling it apart and the can of worms is cracked and the fun begins.
What I have spent to get where I am now, I couldn't say, but I have a box full of old, broken, useless, mismatching parts that I may make into some form of contemporary art piece one day, I'm keeping it to remind me where the Sprint was when I got it. I have replaced just about everything you can without pulling the whole bike apart.
The engine, I haven't touched it, save pulling the head once and the flywheel 3-4 times and cleaning it occasionally. Once it dies I will split the cases and see what exotic workmanship I find, until then as long as it runs, I'll maintain it and enjoy the riding. Speaking of riding, I have had a busy week or so with the new addition to the family and the things that go along with that and juggling work and two other young boys, the weather hasn't been the nice sunny, cool spring weather it should be. The scooter takes a back seat. I have managed just over 3200 kms on the clock and about 180kms when the speedo was broken, not bad considering it was off the road for at least 4 months. I've soft seized 3 times, forgot the fuel tap half a dozen times, stalled at the lights, tightened an exhaust bolt up on the side of the road, ask me how I knew it had come off..... walked the highway looking for a dampener bolt, a new one, that had come out, pushed the scooter to work on the footpath like an actual scooter because I thought I'd broken a gear cable, I didn't, it was a two minute fix. and numerous silly things that you only do once, learning the sequence of which the parts go back on...it goes on.
My favorite moment is giving up on the waiting for the wiring harness to arrive and just doing it myself. I wasted three months, still waiting too by the way, when in an afternoon I made up the harness, put all the bits back together and it worked, well a minor brake switch issue and the horn doesn't work since I haven't touched it since, and I was running a full set of working lights. That was very satisfying and had I listened to the good advice from a Mr Porter from MD, USA I'd have been on the road three months earlier. Thanks to everyone else who have offered advice when I have been lost in a head scratching moment, you know who you all are.
I do have a small list of things to do, but since the big move across the state is about six weeks away I'm reluctant to do too much while the GT200 is off the road, I need one running. Gloria is also due for a once over, grease this, clean that, check those too, that sort of thing.
The future....well the next few weeks will be busy, finishing working full time, packing up the house and moving, preparing the house for renting, actually moving, settling the young family into a new temporary home on my wife's family property while we look for land and build a new house, start a new job, thankfully I have one lined up, and the next chapter of our lives.
One thing I am excited about the move is being closer to Melbourne and being able to participate in the activities of the new Vespa Club of Melbourne and even closer is Geelong, where there is also a growing group of Vespa riders planning regular ride outs, these guys are connected to the Melbourne Club also and the future looks bright as the Club is rapidly growing after only a few months and there is always something happening.
http://www.vespaclubmelbourne.com.au/
The Sprint V's future is in the hands of the gods, what the future will bring, I don't know, what I do know is that as long as I'm riding, from now on if it ain't broke, I'm not going to try and fix it.
If it does break, you guys will be the first to know.
Cheers for reading, hope you have enjoyed it so far, I do feel that it is far from over though.
It has been interesting and frustrating, fun yet challenging, a learning curve higher than I expected and I have had help and encouragement from all corners of the globe, I have tasted the camaraderie that exists between vintage scooter enthusiasts, as they tweak and tune, break and fix and most importantly the passion for such a simple yet hardy, confusing and yet so beautiful little machine that has withstood the ravishes of time, and the crafty workshops of Indochina, only to enjoy a resurgence in popularity that can only grow further.
The year in a nutshell. Brilliant, loved every minute, mostly.
I have built up a knowledge of the scooter through reading, asking, guessing, but mostly by pulling stuff apart to fix something that has broken or find something odd whist pulling it apart and the can of worms is cracked and the fun begins.
What I have spent to get where I am now, I couldn't say, but I have a box full of old, broken, useless, mismatching parts that I may make into some form of contemporary art piece one day, I'm keeping it to remind me where the Sprint was when I got it. I have replaced just about everything you can without pulling the whole bike apart.
The engine, I haven't touched it, save pulling the head once and the flywheel 3-4 times and cleaning it occasionally. Once it dies I will split the cases and see what exotic workmanship I find, until then as long as it runs, I'll maintain it and enjoy the riding. Speaking of riding, I have had a busy week or so with the new addition to the family and the things that go along with that and juggling work and two other young boys, the weather hasn't been the nice sunny, cool spring weather it should be. The scooter takes a back seat. I have managed just over 3200 kms on the clock and about 180kms when the speedo was broken, not bad considering it was off the road for at least 4 months. I've soft seized 3 times, forgot the fuel tap half a dozen times, stalled at the lights, tightened an exhaust bolt up on the side of the road, ask me how I knew it had come off..... walked the highway looking for a dampener bolt, a new one, that had come out, pushed the scooter to work on the footpath like an actual scooter because I thought I'd broken a gear cable, I didn't, it was a two minute fix. and numerous silly things that you only do once, learning the sequence of which the parts go back on...it goes on.
My favorite moment is giving up on the waiting for the wiring harness to arrive and just doing it myself. I wasted three months, still waiting too by the way, when in an afternoon I made up the harness, put all the bits back together and it worked, well a minor brake switch issue and the horn doesn't work since I haven't touched it since, and I was running a full set of working lights. That was very satisfying and had I listened to the good advice from a Mr Porter from MD, USA I'd have been on the road three months earlier. Thanks to everyone else who have offered advice when I have been lost in a head scratching moment, you know who you all are.
I do have a small list of things to do, but since the big move across the state is about six weeks away I'm reluctant to do too much while the GT200 is off the road, I need one running. Gloria is also due for a once over, grease this, clean that, check those too, that sort of thing.
The future....well the next few weeks will be busy, finishing working full time, packing up the house and moving, preparing the house for renting, actually moving, settling the young family into a new temporary home on my wife's family property while we look for land and build a new house, start a new job, thankfully I have one lined up, and the next chapter of our lives.
One thing I am excited about the move is being closer to Melbourne and being able to participate in the activities of the new Vespa Club of Melbourne and even closer is Geelong, where there is also a growing group of Vespa riders planning regular ride outs, these guys are connected to the Melbourne Club also and the future looks bright as the Club is rapidly growing after only a few months and there is always something happening.
http://www.vespaclubmelbourne.com.au/
The Sprint V's future is in the hands of the gods, what the future will bring, I don't know, what I do know is that as long as I'm riding, from now on if it ain't broke, I'm not going to try and fix it.
If it does break, you guys will be the first to know.
Cheers for reading, hope you have enjoyed it so far, I do feel that it is far from over though.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
A new addition
At 2 am I get an elbow in the ribs six hours later.......
Welcome to the family little Campbell, Younger brother to Angus, 4 and Merrick, 2.5 he is a wriggler and has a big appetite. He weighed in at 7 pound or 3.15kgs and was 51 cm, both mum and bub are happy and healthy and his brothers can't wait to meet him.
As for the scooter, she's doing great too, next week it will be a year since I got the Sprint V, so I'll do a summary then.
Monday, September 19, 2011
plugs
here are pics of the two plugs, the top is after 100 odd kms all styles of riding B6HS, the bottom is the B7HS after about 30kms, not much difference and I believe this is how they are supposed to look, I'm going to run with the B7 as the weather is starting to warm up.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
A milestone, a victory, a problem.
Now to address the soft seize I had earlier in the week.
My plug was black and dry. I was running a 105 main jet, one size bigger than stock 102 as I changed to a Sito+ exhaust, a 160 main air bleed, which is what came with the scoot and is bigger than stock, 140, and a B7HS plug. Everything else is stock, Now I'm no expert and I consulted wiser folk than I and opinions differed and I realised that I just needed to try a few things and see what happened, I also read a few related posts on the Modern Vespa site, great info.
Firstly I increased the idle slightly as someone very experienced told me it was a bit slow, now this won't affect the running of the bike once you actually move off, but it did sound better, and I thought a hotter plug might not foul so much when I have it idling for some time
I'm not sure why but I thought I'd go up another size jet to a 108, and a slightly hotter plug B6HS, after the ride out the plug was clean, the ceramic was white with a tinge of brown, the little bit bent over at the top was the same brown. I did a lot of riding between 60-80, a few squirts above 90 but after the seize, I was reluctant to push it for a long period, I might throw the B7HS back in and see how it goes.
I gave the engine a clean and noticed that I had a drip of oil on the clutch arm and the hub had patches of oil in it too, this was probably one of the first things that happened when I first got the bike, I replaced the small o-ring back then and will do the same again if it gets worse, there hasn't been a drop on the floor yet.
My youngest son Merrick just loves "helping" when I do any work on the scooters, I'll have at least one riding buddy when he's big enough.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
softly seizing in style
NOT.
Last night I had half a dozen guys from the Vespa Club of Melbourne, as well as the President of the Vespa riders Club of Australia and a fellow non Vespa rider, stop in town on their way back from the national scooter rally they had in Sydney over the weekend, it was good to catch up with the guys I had met before, as well as meeting the ones I hadn't, we had dinner at the pub and good conversation about all things Vespa and about the adventures on the road, good food, wine, beer and company. A good night all round.
Breakfast was also a fun and soon enough they were on their way, I led them out of town and to a back road that would get them off the highway for a bit and as we scooted along at about 80-85kms, Gloria decided enough was enough and bogged down and locked up for a split second before I clutched in and rolled off the road, Not sure who was behind me but within a minute I had six guys there wondering why I had stopped before I said I would. I kicked her just to make sure it would start and she did thankfully, I bid the guys farewell assuring them I'd be fine and would get home OK, did a u turn and did just that, except at about 60kmph instead. Now it's one thing to seize when your by yourself, it's just you and the machine, but when you are leading a group it's a little embarrassing, sorry guys. I received a message that they made it home safely later that day, well done.
Now what to do.
First thing I did was pull the plug, black but dry, pulled the jets and made sure they were clean. scratched the head and thought it better to do a bit of reading before I do anything. I don't think any damage was done, but its the third soft seize I have had in just under 3000kms. I'm having issues with my GT200 and I really need one running all the time so I might wait and just not do any WOT riding over long straights.
Update to come.
Last night I had half a dozen guys from the Vespa Club of Melbourne, as well as the President of the Vespa riders Club of Australia and a fellow non Vespa rider, stop in town on their way back from the national scooter rally they had in Sydney over the weekend, it was good to catch up with the guys I had met before, as well as meeting the ones I hadn't, we had dinner at the pub and good conversation about all things Vespa and about the adventures on the road, good food, wine, beer and company. A good night all round.
Breakfast was also a fun and soon enough they were on their way, I led them out of town and to a back road that would get them off the highway for a bit and as we scooted along at about 80-85kms, Gloria decided enough was enough and bogged down and locked up for a split second before I clutched in and rolled off the road, Not sure who was behind me but within a minute I had six guys there wondering why I had stopped before I said I would. I kicked her just to make sure it would start and she did thankfully, I bid the guys farewell assuring them I'd be fine and would get home OK, did a u turn and did just that, except at about 60kmph instead. Now it's one thing to seize when your by yourself, it's just you and the machine, but when you are leading a group it's a little embarrassing, sorry guys. I received a message that they made it home safely later that day, well done.
Now what to do.
First thing I did was pull the plug, black but dry, pulled the jets and made sure they were clean. scratched the head and thought it better to do a bit of reading before I do anything. I don't think any damage was done, but its the third soft seize I have had in just under 3000kms. I'm having issues with my GT200 and I really need one running all the time so I might wait and just not do any WOT riding over long straights.
Update to come.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Checking in.
The Sprint V still gets plenty of attention and makes me smile every time I see someone stop and look, or the school kids waving, although I can't honk back this time, must get to that horn one day. This evening on the way home I had stopped off for some supplies and parked in the mall behind a big arse Moto Guzzi, the rider was gearing up when I came out and was suitably impressed with Gloria, "is that original?", "yep" well sort of I thought, "it's great to see old things all restored and running, don't see many things like that these days" A smile and a shake of the head and a short conversation later I left him in a cloud of two stroke and went on my way.
I have gone and invested in a new jacket, which was kind of a birthday/fathers day gift, a new black Armadillo Parka, see pics attached, as you can see I'm missing my calling as a Parka model, I wore it for the first time today and was impressed at how warm it kept me compared to the old one I was using, its a lot longer and has some armour in the elbow and shoulder areas, with provision for a back plate if I want one. First thing I did was put my new Vespa Club of Melbourne Patch on it, and I was good to go.
My wife has finished up work now in preparation for the birth of our new baby in a few weeks, so I will have two days over the weekends now to get out there and ride, which I plan to take full advantage of when I can.
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