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My
Scooters, Past & Present.
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1980 Bajaj Chetak
This is the before picture of my mod style
Vespa Clone bike. I managed to
pick this
bike up at a very reasonable price about 7
years ago in Austin.
This past winter we
stripped the bike down and gave it a complete
a make
over (see opposite picture)
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| The after picture. I added
a trapzoid headset, gave it a fresh coat of paint and rebuilt all
of the bits and bobs. I'm
absolutely thrilled with the results. |
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1974 Lambretta
TS1
This is my pride and joy, I absolutely love
this scooter .It is a Jet 200 and has a TS1 power plant,
which means that it has
more power than I will ever need. |
| These pictures were taken
at the Texas United River Rally in 2003,
my bike won the Best Lambretta Award. You can visit scoot.net to
see more rally photos. |
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Vespa 50
Special
This was my wifes second bike.
It had been floating around the scooter club
for a while, it was owned by Steven.
Everybody calls it Dorothy(remember oz?)
because of its ruby slipper paint job.
It has a ET3 power plant.
This bike has now been sold. |
Vespa Gran
Tourismo
We picked this bike up as a kit bike from ASC.
It has all new parts including, new paint, rebuilt
motor, wiring harness, cables etc...
This bike has now since been sold. |
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My
Current Line Up
I'm down to 3 scooters right now which I'm happy about.
All three have been featured above and all run tip top.
The wifes ET3 now has a Mallossi 135cc kit and Polini kit
to match. The
Bajaj is bone stock with a 150cc engine, its a bit of a slug
but its dead reliable. The Lambretta Jet 200, still has the TS1 set up and
runs like a champ.
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Scooters
I've owned in the past, projects & beaters.
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Mini Line Up
A mini line up of my projects a few years back at the time,
an original Innocenti Lambretta Li 150 Special, my Bajaj as
featured above before the strip down and a US spec Vespa 50 Special. |
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Vespa
50 Special
This was a US Spec Vespa 50 Special, with the Battery side door etc. I picked
this up from a motorcycle salvage yard for $90. It was in really rough
shape
but I started putting it together with extra bits and bobs that I had laying
around. We let this go so we could get the Primivera ET3 that we currently own
now. |
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Allstates
I picked up a couple of the Allstates (Vespa sold through Sears)
one was a 58 and I can't remember the year of the other one,
probably early 60's. I had great intentions for these, I was going to restore
one for my wife and the other I was going to build a street racer out of it.
As with all projects some you never finish and you pass them off to get other
bikes, this is what happened to these two. |
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Lambretta
Li 150 Special
I bought this original Innocenti Li 150 Special from a friend up in Austin a
few years back. As with all projects I had good intentions but never finished
it. I let this one move on. I still regret it to this day. |
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Vespa
50 special
Me on my first scooter in the early - mid 80's, Boston, UK.
I think almost everybody around that time started out on the same scooter. This
is when I just got it, I immediatly started going around scooterboys garages
picking up lots of chrome, mirrors and
bars that they were stripping off there scooters while making them cutdowns.
I ended up with 10 mirrors on this scooter, a rack full of spots, and a top speed
of 30 mph. I wasn't going any where fast, but loving it all the same. I ended
up thrashing this scooter all around the countryside and country, until I moved
onto a 100 sport that gave me a whopping
10 mph extra speed:) |
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Got Scooter, will travel!!
More photos of my first scooter after it started gettign MODified!!, I still added more lights later on. These photos were taken in the summer of '85. I started playing lead guitar with Mod band "The Threads" and these were taken when I rode over to Paul's (lead singer) house for probably a band discussion a quick trip to the pub. I have great memories of these days. That particualr day the weather was lovely and it was great to be buzzing around the countryside of Lincolnshire. |
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| more photos of the same day, capturing the life of an '80's Mod. |
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Absolute Beginners
Skegness
National Rally 1984
This was the first scooter rally I went to. I can remember that we had
to go on the bus because we wasn't yet old enough to ride. It was a real
eye opener, there was so many scooters there it looked liked Skeggy had
been invaded by scooterists (which technically it had). This is also
the infamous year that things went sour between Skegness and scooterists,
beach huts got smashed up to be used for firewood, and also the usual
spot of bother. It would take many years for the police to not be so
twitchy with scooterists. You can view more patches like this at the
Paddy Smith website. |
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Lowestoft
Mod Rally 1985
As we enter 1985 we are now armed with our 50 specials (you've
gotta start somewhere!). We set off to the Lowestoft Mod Rally, thank
god for young innocent enthusiasm, all 4 of us rode a 300 mile round
trip. All I can remember is that it was cold & miserable and we wasn't
going anywhere fast. Was it worth it? of course it was. There were
lots of tall tales to follow and this was just the start.
So what was it like to be a UK Mod in the 80's? Visit the Mod
Revival website here to read the stories, we've all had the same experiences. |
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Lowestoft
Mod Rally 1986
Whats this then? After riding to the same rally a year before I never
imagined that I would be playing in the band that I was currently in
at the first Mod Rally of the season. Your author is the boy circled
in red, playing the same Rickenbacker that I still own to this day.
The article is taken from Scootering Magazine issue 7.
Click on the image or here to read the full article. |
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