Stealing Her Ride

"You need new brake pads" Jiri told me over the phone. "Your bike won't be ready till next week." He added, "It's Memorial Day and they won't deliver the pads till Tuesday, at least."

"Oh," I said, trying not to sound too cheery. He didn't know I was borrowing my wife's Vespa while the Bonneville was in getting it's annual tune up. My Bonneville is supposed to get a check up every 12,000 miles according to Triumph and about that time, more rather than less, I drop it and the Haynes manual off at Jiri's motorcycle shop on Stock Island. It works out to be about once a year give or take with a home oil change in between.Which means I have the perfect excuse to purloin the wife's Vespa from her place of work where she keeps it to ride around town. We bought it about 6 years ago from a lady on Cudjoe Key who lost her nerve at 238 miles and put it up for sale. My wife always wanted a Vespa for their classic style and she has put almost 8,000 miles on it since then. The Vespa too goes to Jiri every couple of years for fluid changes and tire changes and stuff. It runs like a champ and quite surprises cars on the highway when I zip up behind and beyond them on the little cream "moped." The 150cc single cylinder four stroke is actually freeway legal.
"That thing does sixty miles and hour...?" a surprised car driver said at the gas station after he pulled in behind me. "Apparently," I said not telling him I've seen 70 on the optimistic speedo downhill with the wind. American Vespas get a silly little notice for the under seat storage much prized by riders in other countries whose owners appear to have more common sense than we do.

When the ET4 automatic Vespa first appeared in 1996 it was a revolutionary step for the Italian factory moving away from two strokes with gears, even though it retained the familiar curves and leg shield of the timeless 1946 design. Nowadays the ET4 series and the ET2, 50cc two stroke automatic are classics in their own right.The new LX series has just switched to fuel injection to meet emissions standards but the old carburettor works fine for me. The worst thing about riding the Vespa on Highway One are the low expectations of motorists who expect the "moped" to be slow and get in their way. After a few miles of chasing me at speeds beyond their wildest dreams they generally give up and fall back and leave me alone but it is a frequent drama. Not to mention threatening the penis size of riders on "real " motorcycles who glance fearfully in their mirrors at the creamsicle that won't lose speed and fall back respectably out of sight as they rumble down the freedom highway...70 miles per gallon I guesstimate and each fill up is about 1.7 gallons of premium gas which makes car drivers look green as I drop the seat and power up the scooter with a loud rattle of it's electric starter.It's not that I don't miss the Bonneville for the ten days it's getting fussed and preened, but I sure do like stealing my wife's Vespa for cheap commuting thrills.