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http://edigimag.coma eDIGImag® publication of

Vespa® logo used with permission

an Internet Subscription Servicehttp://egraphine.com http://ciaovespa.wordpress.com

International $ 26.00 South Africa 96.00 Published bi-annually (6 Issues)

April 2009Volume 1 Issue 1

Image Copyright paul lindenberg©

A Sunday out ride for a Johanesburg Vespa® owner’s group

Piaggio Vespa®Enrico Montesu©2009

World Imagery

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IMAGES

http://cafeden.wordpress.com chuẩn không cần chỉnh

IMAGES

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http://www.motorcyclemedia.com/piaggio_images.htm

IMAGES

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IMAGES

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http://vespalx150.blogspot.com/2007/09/vespa-photographs.html

Steve Williams

* Industry: Arts * Location: United States

About Me

I ride, write, and make photo-graphs to better embrace and understand the world around me, a search for heightened awareness.

BLOGGERS

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BLOGGERS

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BLOGGERS

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http://vesparis.hautetfort.com/le PARIS VESPA®

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le PARIS VESPA®

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le PARIS VESPA®

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le PARIS VESPA®

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http://surfvespa.blogspot.com/

twstngogrl and vespajitsu

What started as a Vespa blog has kind of gone off into many directions. Like life, always changing and never stagnant!

vespajitsu

* Industry: Government * Occupation: Fire/Rescue&Esthtician * Location: Hobe Sound : Florida : United States

About Me

A Florida boy and a California girl.East meets west and its a match made in heaven!

TOURING

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TOURING

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Dave Dixon * Gender: Male * Industry: Education * Occupation: Teacher * Location: Maple Ridge : BC : Canada“I am a big guy who rides a small scooter - an LX50 - and absolutely love it! I live in a suburb of Vancouver, BC, Canada.” What I love to do : * Riding my Vespa LX50.

http://lx50vespa.blogspot.com/TOURING

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It was a beautiful Saturday today - sunny and crisp - and I felt like go-ing for a local scoot. The temperature was pretty good for a day in February - around 12° C. - but I didn't feel like a long trek.

After coffee at a relative's house in Port Coquitlam, I headed to-

wards my destination, Buntzen Lake. Buntzen lake holds many warm summer memories with my side of the family as we often meet there near the end of summer and catch up on vacation highlights.

I turned off the Lougheed Highway and went up Ioco Road and then to-wards the community of Anmore. It was quite a steep climb up the hill and a fairly twisty road. On the map above, it's the red route. Parts of the road in Anmore were very rough and bumpy and I had to slow down considerably.

I went through Anmore (basically a residential area) and continued onto Buntzen Lake. At the entrance of the park was a sign that read "Cau-tion - Extremely Slippery Road". At this point I thought, hmm, may-be the fact that I'm on a scooter means I'm a bit of risk taker in the first place so perhaps I will carefully try this road. Also, the temperature was warmish and the sun was out so I carefully went down the road.

I did notice a fair bit of snow on the sides of the road but there were no near death experiences on the road or, for that matter, during the entire ride.

I arrived at the lake to a beautiful vista. I snapped a few photos, notic-ing that the people that were there to have a picnic had the whole

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beach for themselves! I would have stayed longer but I smelled hot dogs cooking over a over a barbecue and realized I had missed lunch.

I went a different way back, through Belcarra and Ioco. The road was much better as were the opportunities for photos.

I first stopped in Ioco and took this picture looking at Burrard In-let. It was very bright out at this point which is why the photo is a bit washed out. Still, I liked the sparkling water from this viewpoint.

On my way down the hill, I also saw this church/religious cen-tre. I liked the look of this old house and how it was being used.

I ended up in Newport Village (where Ioco Road meets the Lougheed High-way) and had a latté and a prosciutto and bocconcini sandwich at an Italian café before heading home - feeling warm and content despite the crispness in the air.

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Dateline : Zambia, 1970.I had the good fortune to own a ‘68 Vespa 125cc Piaggio. I had bought it off a young lady who was in the throws of moving to South Africa and parted with much angst with her pride and joy. My advantage. All I needed to do was to check the oil, kick the tyres, load up a full tank of fuel ( a stagering equivelent of ZAR 2.00 for petrol and oil mix - a two-stroke of course ) and pack my photo gear. I was off to my third assignment for a national newspaper, as a sports journalist, On the road to a race track out of town, riding the Vespa was great - the free-dom, the wind in your hair (helmets were not compulsory in those days) and the absolute smugness on my face. Dateline : South Africa, 2009.I saw a Vespa, a new Vespa at that. Sitting at a set of traffic lights in my ve-hicle, I spotted a bright light approaching in my side-mirror and before long, a young bearded lad passed me and was soon at the front of the queue. He was riding a silver Vespa and looked the part too. A smart leather jacket like you would see being worn by the young guns at a sidewalk cafe and a stylish Vespa branded helmet made up the picture. I was astounded. I had last seen a Vespa scooter driven in anger in Tailand and was unaware of the brand’s comeback worldwide. Mmm, time to investigate, I thought. I was busy at the time with a project concerning motor biking in South Africa and, over the last month of weekends, I had interviwed, photographed and gathered informa-tion about the social aspect of biking. It struck me that I had never once seen a Vespa anywhere near the locations I had visited. The biking project included a photo magazine and a casual website to bring the phenomenon within the public domain. Now to Vespa. Was this merely (the Vespa sighting) a case of an exotic vehicle imported in isolation? No, I had found. I searched the internet and came across www.vespa.co.za. I made contact, thinking to include the Vespa story in the biking documentary, as the project was called.In short order, a test ride was arranged for me to ‘evaluate’ a couple of models of this stylish Italian icon.

My 1968 Vespa

Text and Images Copyright Paul Lindenberg©2009

Vespa® Revisited See some detail on this sitehttp://www.khulsey.com/motorcycles/vintage_motorcycle_vespa-scooter.html

And Peter Moore’s Travel bloghttp://www.petermoore.net/books/ssbd/ssbd-sample-chapter.html

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I thought I’d drive over to the Vespa shop but no, the Vespa people insisted they would collect me from the office and deliver me back all in good time. Here’s the crunch - I would be collected on a Vespa - I reluctlenly aggreed. Goodness, Jeff arrived at the given hour, right on time, and without further messing, Vespa helmet and all, we left my office, right into the rush-hour traf-fic. I was horrified. How long was this going to take? Twelve kilometers in 2 hours perhaps? Not to worry, Jeff was a competent, street wise rider, and with me as pillion, we sorted the distance in twenty minutes. Here the advantage of two wheels came to the fore and the Vespa is right at the top of the tree. Comfortable (as a pillion rider), nippy (well within the speed limits, and oc-casionally beyond) and of course safe. I had the gloat and smugness written all over my face. Vespa revisted. Viva Vespa..

Pillion views shot off my cellphone.

Text and Images Copyright Paul Lindenberg©2009

Vespa® Revisited

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Stylish and unmistakably Vespa, exceptionally comfortable to ride with low-environmental-impact engines and disk brakes, the new-generation ET models are now also sold in numerous "Vespa Boutiques" in the US (over 60 from California to Flori-da and from Hawaii to New York, with the latest two boutiques in SoHo and Queens).Having returned to the US in 2000 after exiting the market in 1985 because of new emissions legislation that targeted two stroke engines, the Vespa was an immediate success all over again, and has achieved a market share of 20 per cent of the small (40,000 units a year) but growing scooter sector. 6,000 Vespas were sold in the first year, 2001, and over 7,000 in 2002. But the Vespa isn't just a market phenom-enon. It forms part of social history.

In the "Dolce Vita" years the Vespa became a synonym for scooter, foreign reporters described Italy as "the country of the Vespa" and the Vespa's role in social history, not just in Italy but abroad, can be seen from its presence in hundreds of films. And it's a story that continues to be told today. Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in "Roman Holiday " were only the first of a long series of international actors and actresses to be seen on the world's most famous scooter in a filmography that goes from “Quadrophenia” to “American Graffiti”, from “The Talented Mr. Ripley” to “102 Dalmatians”, not to mention “Dear Diary ”.

In photo shoots, films and on the set, the Vespa has been a "travel compan-ion" for names like Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, Geraldine Chaplin, Joan Collins, Jayne Mansfield, Virna Lisi, Milla Jovovich, Marcello Mastroianni, Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, Anthony Perkins, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Nanni Moretti, Sting, Antonio Banderas, Matt Damon, Gérard Depardieu, Jude Law, Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson.

http://scooter-lovers.blogspot.com/Vespa®, the cinema

and the USA

Audrey Hepburn

And the Pin-up girls, in Art

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http://www.vespafascination.comVespa® Fascination

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Together with the subsequent PX version, it was the most durable Vespa model. It derived from the new 125 but with considerable dif-ferences in the engine, which raised its top speed by 10 km/h. Great attention was paid to details, which included the classic, practical bag hook.VIN # Year PrefixFramenumber 1967-83 VMA2T 20001 - 240329Technical Information engine single cylinder, 2-stroke cylinder bore 55 mm piston stroke 51 mm cubic capacity 121.2 cc bhp at rpm 5.56 @ 5500 lubrication 2% carburetor Dell'Orto SHB 19/19 gears 4 chassis one-piece metal pressing tires 3.00x10" weight 74 kg max.speed 85km/h

Vespa® Fascination

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Riding Impressions

Vespa granted me the opportunity to ride two of the current models on my “test ride”. I rode the scooters around the office complex, so city and open road impressions (except for the Vespa GTS300 Super later that weekend) are not entered into.

Vespa LX 150.

Looks damn fine, rides comfortable and seems to fit into the light bike in traffic category. It’s the smallest displacement Vespa, more of an entry level machine, and at the highveld altitude of 2000MSL, I can imagine it’s a bit try-ing on the open road. Its 150cc engine is mated to an automatic transmission, and twisting the throttle produces decent thrust for city riding (though keeping up with faster traffic in town can be daunting.) Fuel economy is rated as very economical. The LX 150’s wheels are small, but that’s part of the deal: twitchy handling and a scrunched riding posture have been hallmarks of Vespas for decades, and if you’re not into those traits you might want to investigate a bigger bike. But if you’re on board with Vespa’s vision of la dolce vita, you’re in for a good time on the LX 150. There’s something about step-throughs that spreads good cheer, and those accustomed to big bad motorcycles might find the scooter experience refreshing— if a bit limited in terms of performance. It takes some focus to keep those tiny and 10-inch wheels on track, and despite an adjustable rear shock, potholes or humps can be jarring. As an aside, I did notice a number of 150’s on the Sunday out-ride, one of which riden by not a small owner.

Vespa LX 150Image ©Vespa

Off the Net. The original 150. Copyright Image

That’s me at the bar. Under instruction, in case I had forgot-ten, from Jeff. Look, no gear changes, and the cut-off, and how to start it. Bless him, the old-dog new-tricks expression comes to mind. Picture by Annie Hodes

Text and Images Copyright Paul Lindenberg©2009

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Riding Impressions Vespa GTS300 SuperNow this is it! Maximum perform-ance, well balanced Vespa ride, and looking slick too. Larger wheels and bigger frame suits the normal dimensions of a South African rider (1.8m/6FT person). Perfect for the traffic and better still, the open road. I am a bit biased, having been impressed with the GTS300 Super model, on the ‘test drive’ around the office complex, from the moment the words “start and go” entered into my vocabulary. And on the Sunday out-ride, impressed again. Just the right formula - power, performance, ease of handling, superior braking, and above all, the balance, the cen-tre-of-gravity, which enabled me to do one-hand camera work as well as ‘look Ma, no hands” work.

Picture by Annie Hodes

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A Full-House Vespa 300 GTSImage ©Vespa

Riding Impressions

Turning the key makes the GTV 300 Super come to life.

Buzzing around the service roads of the office com-plex, I had the hair-brained moment where I threw the machine into corners, doing traditional motor cycle ‘sweeps’, and heavy braking. All composed and stylish - made me look good.

The frame size is just right for me, and the seat is firm but comfortable, and, I must emphasise, the balance (the no hands thing) is simply perfect - like riding a peddle bike while your hands are off the handle bars.

More impressions about riding the GTV300 Super within the out-ride chapter.

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The Vespa GTS300 Super has the largest displacement engine ever produced since 1946.

Piaggio

The Vespa GTS 300 Super brings the exclusive elegance of Vespa to the over 250 class. The classic, unique Vespa style is combined with a distinctly sporty and modern personality, giving the clean Vespa lines a decidedly rugged look. With its sporty design, the Vespa GTS 300 Super embodies the style, conven-ience, safety and sturdiness of the Vespa brand.

With an ultra-modern, powerful 4-valve liquid-cooled engine, electronic injection and Euro3 approval, what sets the Vespa GTS 300 Super apart is the incredible flexibility and exuberance of the engine, which means it can really take off at the lights.

The Vespa GTS 300 Super is here, continuing a line of sporty elegance which boasts legendary models like the 1955 Vespa GS, the 1964 180 SS, the '65 90 SS, the 1972 200 Rally, the 1976 Vespa ET3, and the 1985 T5 “Pole Position”.

Legendary names in the history of the most famous and – with over 17 mil-lion produced since 1946 – most widely ridden scooter on planet Earth.Ever since its very first years of life there have been sporty versions of the Vespa, often used in speed road racing, and sometimes in major off-road rac-ing events too. This meant that some tantalising racing prototypes were cre-ated, as well as the “6-day Vespa”, which consistently dominated the 1951 International Six Days, winning 9 gold medals.This road racing experience gave rise to the model that many people, to this day, regard as the most beautiful scooter in Vespa history: the 1955 Vespa GS, which was later immortalised in the film Quadrophenia, the rock opera by The Who, and ridden by a young Sting.

Today, the Vespa GTS 300 Super picks up this outstanding sporting tradition which has characterised some of the happiest years in Vespa history. And it does so in a golden age for the Vespa brand: in just a few years production has more than doubled, from around 50,000 Vespas produced in 2004, to 100,000 in 2006, and over 117,000 in 2007 – in testament to a fascination that is still intact after 62 years of history and 145 different models.

STYLE

Once again the Vespa gets a new look, to enhance the range.And this time it gets a new body, built without compro-mise, which emphasises its sporty character. A body with forms, details and colours that all express its sporty dy-namism. The Vespa GTS 300 Super blends not just sporti-ness and performance, but distinctiveness and character too.The Vespa GTS 300 Super, thanks to its design and technology, reinterprets a sporty classic from the great Vespa collection.The frame (the metal heart of the Vespa) has undergone some major modifica-tions. On the right side panel there is an eye-catching grille with horizontal slots – an obvious reference to the most stylish Vespas of the past – which gives an elegant sporty touch to the side of the vehicle.The new two-tone alloy wheel rims recall the removable ones of past times and highlight the sportiness of the 145th model in Vespa history.The suspension cover is painted racing red on the front spring, a racing detail that makes the new GTS 300 Super stand out.The new front shield also underlines its sporty personality: the parking light has been replaced with a stylish air intake enhanced with chrome features.And the headlight – which is round, in the best Vespa tradition – now has a black rim, giving the Vespa a more serious look.

Riding ImpressionsVespa GTS 300 words and images by Piaggio

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The instrumentation, which is completely analogue as in the best racing tradi-tion, has new graphics, with white numbers against a black background: easy to read and highly distinctive.The seat features forms and materials typical of sporty Italian vehicles. The black upholstery has a contrasting light grey outer trim – an explicit refer-ence to the past. Two versions are available: the "Touring", fitted as standard to maximise comfort and usability, and the "Sport" version, available as an option, which enhances the dynamic overall line of the Vespa GTS 300 Super with its single seat configuration.

The Vespa GTS 300 Super comes in two strong colours which emphasise its sporty personality: Shiny Black and Montebianco White.

TECHNOLOGY

The increased engine per-formance has been designed to provide maximum per-formance in pick-up and acceleration – essential quali-ties for city commuting.The displacement of the 4-valve single cylinder Quasar, with electronic injec-tion and liquid-cooled, is now 278 cc thanks to the increase in both the bore (now 75 mm), and the stroke (63 mm).

The new GTS 300 Super is different from the GTS 250 because the new engine has a higher level of torque (22.3 Nm as opposed to 20.1) along with fewer revolutions per minute (5,000 rpm as opposed to 6,500 on the 250). On the road, these numbers translate into flexibility and pick-up from low speeds

that are unequalled in this displacement category. So the Vespa GTS 300 Super is the perfect vehicle for the city, where it can show off the very best of what it has to offer.

Vespa is the only scooter in the world with a steel frame – an exclusive design feature that has set Vespa apart from other two wheelers ever since the first model was brought out in 1946.Put simply, the Vespa does not have a welded plastic-covered tube frame.

Instead it is the "body", made entirely of steel, which supports the engine and all the mechanical parts.It's a design philosophy that gives Vespa superior rigidity (up to 250% more than a scooter with a tube frame), providing incredible precision control and sturdiness that is now legendary.Inside the Vespa GTS 300 Super frame, underneath the seat, is the fuel tank. Although it can hold a good 9 litres of petrol, giving all the advantages of fuel distance, this does not restrict the under-seat storage space or easy access to the engine once the helmet carrier, which can hold two demi-jet helmets, has been lifted off (no tools required).To the rigidity of the frame, the Vespa GTS 300 Super adds a chassis featuring 12” wheels with a size 120/70 tyre on the front and a size 130/70 on the rear.

The front suspension has the classic link arm, a traditional feature in Vespa history with excellent dynamic functional characteristics: this system separates the support and shock-absorbing functions, resulting in neutral braking and an anti-lunge effect. The spring in racing red is a distinctive feature of the Vespa GTS 300 Super.At the rear, two spring pre-load-adjustable hydraulic shock absorbers are fixed to the transmission crankcase and exhaust support.

Riding Impressions

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OUTRIDING

The term “Out Ride” was born during the days of the Wild West in the USA, and made more civilised when equestrian sports and social horse riding be-came fashionable. In modern times, as in this century (21st) the social aspects of “out riding” belong to those who, by mutual ownership of a different type of horse, a pow-ered two-wheeler, gathered togeteher in clubs and groups (and solo riders too) to venture forth to destinations within easy reach, and comfort. Historically, the Mods & Rockers, and the “Hell’s Angels” grouped together in gangs, and participated in ‘out rides’, not for pleasure, but to prowl their defined territories and ‘patches’. Occasional anti-social behavior brought the constabulary and law-enforcement manpower to limit, and even prevent, gang related activities.Out Rides today are for pleasure, for enjoyment, for social networking, using a mode of transport which is affordable, iconic and best of all, trendy. The Editor went for an out-ride, invited by Vespa®, and on the 300GTSSuper mentioned in the previous section “Impressions”. A fairly round about route was presented by the “Road Captain” (a Motor Cycle Club term) starting in Four-ways at the Vespa® dealership to The Cradle of Mankind West of Johan-nesburg - estimated to be around 45Km. The group assembled (slowly) and in a bunch, left at around 09h15, stopping almost immeadiately for a photo opportunity. And then, on our way.

The Bunch of Social Riders pose for a photo opportunity. Image Editor.

Test and imagesCopyright Paul Lindenberg©

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OUTRIDING

All in convoy, avoiding heavy traffic situations

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OUTRIDINGSingle file on the back-roads, enroute to the Cradle of Mankind. Sharing the road with Cyclists, runners and motorcyclists. Hand-held shot using the stable Vespa®300GTSSuper. Editor

The Group of Vespa® riders stream out onto the roads, led by the road-captain. Encountering other modes of transport, like bicycles and motor cycles, plus the runners of course.

A comfortable speed of around 65 Kph made sure that the bunch stayed together with a safe following distance between riders. Vespa® models on this out ride covered the full base : LX 150’s to 300GTS (not in picture) and at the speed set by the group, it was easy for hills to be negotiated, still maintaining the gaps in the single file. Editor I found the 300GTS was bal-anced enough for left-hand, one handed shooting with the Canon®EOS 30D© and 17mm lens. Now that’s stable.

The Vespa VagabondI am 30 years old, a writer and photographer. After living in San Fran for years I decided to move back to New York City, which prompted the ride - why not get there by Vespa, I thought. Once I got to NYC, the country had put its spell on me, and I promptly moved to Wyoming instead.Joy, freedom, faith.... somehow these gray out at times in our lives, in the rush of society, normalcy, shoulds. For two months I lived outside all that, lived fully im-mersed in the thrill, the ecstasy, the unknown. And it was divine. This site recounts the ride - August 1st to October 1st 2005 - and all that I thought and saw and did.

http://vespavagaphotos.blogspot.com/

Extreme

A selection of web sites/blogs which bring out the Vespa Life Style and the characters who have done the most amazing journeys, for whatever reason, on a Vespa. Click the URL’s to visit the originals sites.

Big boys’ toysStory and photos by GRACE CHEN©

Turn an old machine into a new, mean machine.

WHY a Vespa? Because your uncle gave you a ride on one 20 years ago and the memory still brings a smile to your face.

Because it’s classic. Because it’s cool. Because it’s cute.

It is, affirmed Eddy Ten who has been restoring and modifying vintage Vespas for the last four years, an answer that can stretch on for kilometres.

Ten should know, as the 33-year-old me-chanic has been salvag-ing old, broken down Vespas and transform-ing them into, as he calls them, stylish “big boys’ toys”.

“Some of the old Ves-pas we found had been rusting away in their owner’s backyard, eye-sores which had been written off as scrap metal.

“We buy these, take everything apart, do some welding and anti-rust work on the frame and give the engine a complete overhaul.

New lease of life: Restored Vespas awaiting ownership.

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“As to how the paint job is to be carried out and what sort of ‘look’ the Vespa will have, that is left for the customer to decide,” said Ten.Rescue operation: Ten finds old Vespas, often written off as scrap metal, and restores them to mint condition

What makes a modified Vespa unique inadvertently lies in the owner’s creativ-ity.

“One Irish expatriate wanted me to paint his in the flag colours of his country, while another wanted everything in black.

“One lady buyer enquired if the bike’s registration number could reflect the husband’s birth date, as she wanted to surprise him with it on his birthday,” recalled Ten.

It takes about two months to restore an old Vespa to road worthiness.

“Everything is done by hand, from paint work to engine overhaul”.

Ten also handles the paperwork required for the road tax, insurance and the registration for the chassis and engine. All this can cost the client at least RM6000.

The endearing appeal for the Vespa, as Ten pointed out, lies in its classic shape.

The protective front fairing, for example, meant that lady riders never had to worry about the wind blowing up their skirts; the flat footboard helped to re-duce the feeling of pins and needles on the legs and the side cowling kept the engine free from dirt and grease.

A separate seat for the pillion rider also made it more comfortable for a pas-senger. The Vespa, which uses an internal mesh transmission engine, does not have the standard motorcycle chain, a feature which many riders will agree, has been at one time or another, a source of misery.

Wheel replacement is also a breeze. In the case of a puncture, one only as to deal with five screws.

“The oldest Vespa model that can be found in Malaysia dates back to 1963 and the lat-est, 1998. The models manufactured in be-tween this time frame are considered ‘clas-sics’,” said Ten.

The tell tale signs are easy to spot. One is at the headlamp of the Vespa handle: in models dated from 1963, is the presence of something that looks like a cock’s comb above it. This comb is, however, ab-sent in models produced between 1968 to 1970.

In 1972, the Vespa head-lamp traded in its circu-lar shape for a squarer form and by 1985, there would be the addition of signal lights by its sides.

Extreme

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And no, the vintage Vespa is not for speed demons.

“The first models were powered by a two-stroke engine which could only run up to 80km per hour,” said Ten.

Still, this has not stopped Ten from organising one-day trips to Kuala Selangor and Janda Baik for his clients.

However, that does not mean that the Vespa cannot take long haul trips.

Ten had heard rumours that one Malaysian rider rode his Vespa all the way to Thailand, Cambodia and then Vietnam!

Ten, who began his foray into the world of vehicular modifica-tions, had started as an apprentice at a motorbike spare parts shop at the age of 15.

When he turned 17, Ten fell in love with a Virago 535. Recall-ing the moment when he first laid eyes on it, Ten described it as if he had just had an electric shock.

“I went all the way to Johor just so I could get the spare parts to fix the bike,” laughed Ten who had bought it for RM2500 in 1995.

It was, said this father of one, the turning point in his life as he realised that he loved nothing more than to take a lifeless engine apart and restore it to working condition.

The next step, said Ten, is to try his hand at restoring Lambret-tas, a motorscooter similar to the Vespa.

> Eddy Ten can be contacted at PJ-One Motorcycle Acces-sories Centre, 5, Jalan MJ2, Medan Maju Jaya, Batu 7, Jalan Klang Lama, Petaling Jaya, Selangor ( 03-7785 0529).

Extreme

Total makeover: Anti-rust treatment in progress

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ExtremeAdventure in BaliImage Copyright©

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Africa Tour

July 01Nairobbery!Sadly, we have arrived at the final destination of our adventure - Nairobi. To retrace our steps since last entry: Mbeya - Iringa After the clothes finally dried, we set out for Iringa, a small town high up in the mountains. We rode a beautiful scenic route through deep gorges, Baobab valleys and green hills. Iringa had a kind of last cen-tury Western movie’s town. We finally had a more or less decent dinner and stayed in a motel with beauti-ful exterior and rather dreary interior. Maria’s speedometer cable broke on this trip, but we had the spare part and Joachim fixed it while Maria enjoyed her beer and her book in the sun, just the way it is supposed to be! Iringa - Morogoro This was another day with a very scenic ride, and not to mention the fact that we rode through a national park. We expected it to be just undisturbed nature, but undisturbed nature apparently includes zebras, impalas, giraffes, and once again - elephants! We were met by a big sign reading “DANGER - WILD ANIMALS” at the entry. However, this is the main road leading up towards Dar es Salaam, so we had no choice but to keep riding. The elephants were as close to the road as in our elephant encounter in Botswana, but the vegetation was not so dense, so it was easier to observe their reactions.

This was also the day we should contact our shipping agent, but we didn’t manage to reach him, so it was a bit worrying... We ended our day in Mo-rogoro - another chaotic town with no road sign, and very sparce accomoda-tion. We rode around looking for quite some time, tired and hungry. It all came down when Maria didn’t dare to cross a small path across an abyss - it was too narrow to put your feet down, and no railings or anything to protect you for falling 3 meters down. Joachim got really annoyed and screamed unmen-tionable things in the intercom, but luckily one can have a really mopey face without anyone knowing it outside the helmet. She tried to turn her scooter around, but the bumpy dirt road made it almost impossible, and all the locals were just standing there... Finally Joachim crossed the Bridge of Death to meet up with Maria... which of course managed to tip over on the dirt road a few

hundred meters later. Once again, no helpful gen-tlemen among the locals, but no serious damage to scooter or scooterist except minor bruises. We finally found a place to stay - Mack Lodge - small and clean, and were advised to eat at the “Blue Room”, or “Blue Loom” as they say here. The wait-ress was more eager to pick her nose than to do any work. Joachim got 5 small cubes of meat and some chips, while Maria at least got some sauce for her rice. However, we compensated by having a binge eating of chocolate (melted over and over again ap-parently, but it tasted good anyways).

Morogoro to Korogwe We made our own breakfast and started out early. Tride to find out where the road to Dar es Salaam was, but got no sensible answer. People really do not understand a word of English here, and their imaginations seems somewhat limited too. We tried to ask just “Dar es Salaam?” and they would answer “Yeees”, and we would say “Where?” accompanied by body language, and they would answer “Okeeee, okeeee”. Huh?

A European couple pull the long-est check ride they have ever done. Although the story ends in Kenya, it starts in Botswana, and you will read this article backwards. No editing has taken place and the images are the owners copyright. Off an obscure website.A pair of Vespa’s through Africa.

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Text & Images Copyright the Authors All Rights Reserved

Anyway, we managed to find our way. Another day of scenic routes and pleas-ant riding. For once, we also had rear wind, and were cruising at 90 km/h (Vespa km/h that is... in the real, non-Italian world you have to subtract about 10%). We decided to keep going beyond Korogwe to Mombo. We stopped at a nice looking motel by the road, but it turned out that Motel means resturant. It took us about 20 min to figure this out, since everybode just says Yeees, and points to an undeterminable place to their left or right. It turned out it was one of these places where long distance buses stops for lunch - 50 people rush in, buy food, downs it and runs back into the bus. We decided to have lunch there instead... not a good choice. First the cashier tried to charge Maria with three times the price, and it turned out the rice was burnt so the whole meal had a nasty taste to it. After this, the whole town seemed less appealing, so we decided to keep going and see what accomodation would show up along the road. An excellent strategy - after 20 km we saw a sign for Tembo camp site, and we followed it up the hill side. It turned out to be a nice place run by a Dutch couple who were also managing a wood chip factory. We had a comfortable stay there, with good food for the first time in days. They even cooked pan cakes for us when Maria said she had never seen a dessert in the whole Southern Africa. The closest we got, was when a waiter once said “Dessert, yes of course” and brought the salt instead. Korogwe to Arusha Nothin in particular to report from this leg, except that Joachim’s fuel gauge needle jammed, and his speedometer also broke. We also spotted two Vespas,

two Apes and one Bajaj, to Joachim’s excitement. It is the only ones we have seen since Ceres. We also beleive we spotted another motor bike overlander going the opposite direction, the only one we have seen. Arusha is a rather big town with lots of safari tourism, so we once again had problems locating a good place to stay. Eventually, we landed at Le Jacaranda, a nice enough hotel, despite their lack of milk, sauce and other nice things to put in your coffe and on your food. We had a few drinks and talked to some locals and met our first Norwegian. But we went early to bed to prepare for the next day with border crossing and the much dreaded Nairobbery. Arusha to Nairobi

We set the clock early, but ended up procrastinating in bed for over half an hour before we got up the meet the challenges of the day. However, there was no need to worry. Exciting Tanzania was easy enough - Maria had the carnets and passports swiftly stamped, while Joachim haggled over exchange rates and flag stickers with the usual crowds of border touts. Then we rode over to the wild side: Kenya. Immigration and cus-toms went fine, except for the customs officer who al-most made a thousand-dollar mistake with the carnet, and some negotiation over the road tax (zero tax in the end - Maria’s only succesful attemt on tax evasion)

Then we headed into Kenya. The road had few pot holes but was extremely bumpy and quite narrow, so it was a bit tiring. How-ever, the nomadic Masaai people herd their cattle close to the roads, and it was a very fascinating sight to see them walking with herding sticks, brightly coloured blankets and long ear rings on the savannah, much the same as they have for thousands of years. Again there were lots of police blocks along the road with nasty spiked boards for barrikades, and we expected corrupt officials, but were once again sur-prised. As usual, the only thing they cared about was to relieve free themselves

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from boredom, and they only asked about top speed, the price of a Vespa, where we come from, where we are going etc. and let us go. The ride into Nairobi turned out to be just as terrible as expected. The place we planned to stay was full, we had no map, tired, hungry, it was getting late etc. We passed the airport and some industrial areas but saw no hotels. Then we got into an impossible traffick jam, and were almost choked to death by all the fumes from the trucks, the matatu minibuses were driving like crazy around us, and everyone were honking and pushing. We had seen a hotel on the opposite side of the road, so eventually we decided to escape the jam, cross the ditch (and yes, Maria almost slid back into the ditch...) and head the opposite direction. Luckily, it turned out to be a veeeery good hotel with a view to the national park, wonderful, clean sheets, a luxuri-ous bath room and excellent service. Since it was our 5th anniversary this day, we decided to treat our selves to 5 stars, and booked a room. We had loooooong showers (however, Marias towel still got big black stains when she rubbed her neck after the shower), and then went for dinner in an Argenitian restaurant. They had this crazy concept where you have a little sign on your table - if you turn the green side up, they will keep bringing you more meat until you capitulate and turn the red side up. Maria lasted the longest and downed camel, goat leg, different kinds of beef, pork, spare ribs, ostrich, chicken, carpaccio, ram and much more - all grilled to perfection and 5 star service. Today we have arranged with the shipping of the scooters, which so far seems promising, and had a trip down town Nairobi to look for a cheaper hotel. We will probably stay at “The Ambassadeur” although there is nothing ambassa-deurial about the place... Anyway - we have been in Nairobi for 24 hours now,

and are still unstabbed, unrobbed and unkilled!

We finally managed to install the right soft ware and upload some pictures. At a speed of 2,46 Kb/sec you better appreciate them! We are actually stuck again. Maria’s great idea of sending all the dirty clothes to the laundry boy turned out to be not so great after all. When we came back from dinner, the clothes were still dripping. They don’t wring the clothes here... Anyway, we are just relaxing an extra day here in Mbeya, preparing to get up

early tomorrow morning to ride up in the mountains to Iringa, 400 km + 8-10 hours.

June 24Cruising in TanzaniaHo-ho! Things are going so well right now! Fringilla - Kundalila Falls After our little 3 days set back in Fringilla, we are back with a vengance! We said our good byes to Julie and Andrew early in the morning. We wanted to eat up some of the time we had lost, and had to settle for camping since there was no other place to be found.

Riding was easy, but the camping site was not marked, so we had to fiddle about quite a bit before we found the right road. It turned out to be 15 km on a sandy dirt road - ideal conditions for our rough off road Vespas... Maria (sic!) tripped over twice in the sand - with 20 children cheer-ing and running all over her, it was getting dark etc. But we managed to get there 15 min before the sunset and put up our kid’s festival tent next to 10 South African camping monsters. These guys really knew how to camp - they brought their own berbecue, fire wood, chairs, huge tents, thick mattresses etc. However, the Vespa crew knows how to look pathetic, so Maria managed to convince the braai-master to barbecue our sausages, and Joachim swore so much over the multi-fuel cooker (multifuel but not petrol apparently) that

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another guy took pity on us and lent us his gas cooker. We had a great meal of sausages, tomato soup and toast, some coffe and cognac, a game of cards, and then we fell asleep looking at the stars through our tent opening and listening to the Kundalila Falls. Kundalila Falls - Isoka This was our last full day in Zamiba, and after this day, we were ready to move on to Tanzania... We got up early to pack down our camp. Everything was damp and cold, and the the guy with the gas cooker was asleep, so we ended up with cold tomato soup, dry toast, tepid water and greasy sausages for breakfast. Yum. Then we hit the dirt road which took us 45 min, and were back on tarmac. Our first stop was lunch in Mpika, but fate had other plans. At the police road block we met Bad Cop and Bad Cop who suggested we pay them $250 since we had no head lights on and no fire extinguisher! As a favour to us, they offered us to pay on the spot, so we didn’t have to go to the police station. Haha. Joachim was put on the job, and went into their little hut to negotiate. Back and forth and back and forth. After a while, they got quite agitated, and started to get louder and louder - threatening to take us to court, want-ing us to sign papers, and one shouting to the other to TAKE THE KEYS TO THE MOTOR BIKES. Joachim wouldn’t budge (surprised anyone?). In the end, we called the embassy, who advised us not to sign any-thing, nor give them anything, just go to the police station and get a proper fine. Then, Bad Cop and Bad Cop’s offers started to drop lower and lower, and miraculously, a business card from one of Maria’s colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made their offers disappear totally. In the end, we gave

them two bottles of beer just to rub it in. The ordeal with the police took about an hour, and gave us very short time to get to our destination before dark... which we didn’t. We arrived in Isoka at dawn, and it quickly got pitch black, we had only drops of fuel in the tank, and were tired and hungry from being on the road for almost 12 hours. A drunk man approached us and took us to an ok guest house, but they were fully booked, and could only offer us a room under construction, at silly price. They told us everything in town was full (yeah right), so we went to another place, which was full (and a brothel, judging from the women in the back yard), then to a third place, which only had one bed left, a noisy bar, and drunk people stumbling all opver the place. On top of that, the owner gladly admitted there

was no safe parking there. He took Joachim to a few other places, while Maria watched the bikes (Maria had her two sharpest keys sticking out between her fingers as a pathetic attempt of self defence). Joachim returned - everything WAS fully booked - so we had to return to the first place. Luckily the manager didn’n recongnise our somewhat lousy bargaining position, and Maria managed to knock down the price by 50% - not hard, considering the cockroaches, the spiders, the rotten 60cm mattress, lack of floors, plaster etc. We had to use our own blow up mattresses, sleeping bags and towels, so it was just like camping again, only indoors. Isoka - Mbeya: Tanzania!After a nasty breakfast in Isoka, we headed for the bor-der. Exit from Zambia was rather quick, but we feared the Tanzanian side. However, there was no reason to worry - everything went perfect - no waiting, no hassle,

and no fees at all! What a relief! As soon as we crossed the border, everything changed: There was more people along the roads, wider, more mountaineous landscape, and a lot warmer. We arrived in Mbeya quite early, Maria convinced some poor young bugger at the lodge to wash all our dirty (stinky, sticky, disgusting brrrr!) clothes for a few

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dollars, and off we went in search of internet and food. Tanzania has so far been a very nice experience, and Mbeya seems like a very friendly town. We tried to upload some pictures, but it is impossible to install the MSN pic-ture program unfortunately. For the mechanically inclined - here is Joachim’s account of the problems with the ball bearings: Joachim writing about ball bearing problem: At Lusaka, I called Frank for some advice. My scooter was wob-bling all over the place, and the steering was a bit stiff, but no play was to be found in the forks. Was it the steering bearings??? Hardly, they usually never fail... maybe too much load in the front or the a loose pinch bolt??? You are breaking up Frank... well, I’ll carry on and see what happens. The problem worsened, until it got so bad that I had trouble staying in my own lane. As Maria wrote, luckily for us, we met our saviour Andrew, who literally saved our adventure (well, allmost, our Vespafriend Chris in Ceres, South Africa, would have come through for us, but it would have taken 4-5 days). Andrew spent a whole day and a half driving me around Lusaka, touching virtually all bicycle shops, motorcycle dealers, motorcycle garages, bearing centres, car and motorcycle parts stockists, etc., but no caged bearing was to be found in all of Lusaka. Without it the bearings would just not stay in place. We finally got a friend of Andrew to machine the top and bottom ball bearing race so that it could accomodate regular bearings, and it worked wonders! Andrew made quite the sacrifice for us, they must employ close to a hundred people, and his time is valuable... and he offered it to us free of charge... in addition to free dining and accomodation... and much more. The generosity was more than we

could bear receiving, we had to go behind his back to pay for at least some of the food and drink we consumed. If anybody is travelling through Zambia, spend a night at Fringila Farms, you will not regret it!

June 22Back in business!Joachim’s bike got the spare part, it fitted and the bike works perfectly. We will write a proper update as soon as possible, but we are heading north where there is less access to be found. Now we just want to ride and ride and ride. We definitely broke down on the best place in the whole continent. If it wasn’t for Julie and Andrew Woodley, our adventure would have been over now and

we sould have been on a plane heading for Oslo. There is no way we can ever thank them enough for their hospitality and help!

une 20Fingers crossed!

We are stuck in a little place called Fringilla with a serious problem with Joachim’s bike. The ball bearings weren’t properly greased, and the cage that keeps the ball bearings in place is beyond repair. This is the only part which isn’t supposed to give you any trouble on the Vespa. Anyhow, Joachim had ordered this part, but got

the wrong size, so this has to be the only spare part we haven’t brought with us. Luckily we broke down just outside a mechanic, who seemed to know what he was doing. He opened it up, and we tried differ-ent approaches to get around the destroyed cage, but didn’t succed. He even ripped apart his own bicilcly to find ball bearings. We can get the part shipped from Cape town by our very kind Vespa friend Chris, but this will take 4-5 days, and we don’t really have that much time. So plan A is to get the part manufactured or fixed in Lusaka (60 km from here). However, getting a vehi-cle is a problem, and the bill seemed to run higher and higher, while our mood hit rock bottom.

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We were still in the mechanic’s garage when the sun started to set - we had still not had much to eat since breakfast, and no place to sleep. We located a large lodge a kilometer away, and Joachim went to ask for a room. It was too expensive for our budget, so we ended up choosing the camp site. Not very tempting to sleep in our emergency tent (it’s a kids tent), on hard mattresses, thin sleeping bags and cook tomato soup and macaroni for dinner. But when Maria went to the reception to sign in, the owner of the place came and what a relief!!! He offered us to stay for free as long as we needed and all the help in the world with the spare part etc. , and sent his son to talk to Joachim. The son, Andrew, who rund a big farm next to the lodge, offered to take us to Lusaka and find a place to fix the spare parts. Then he offered us to stay in his guest house in his back garden, and his wife prepared this wonderful meal of lamb chops, mashed potato, gravy and lots of different vegetables. We just don’t know how to thank them enough, and the generosity and hospitality os just amazing! Now Joachim is with Andrew on the way to Lusaka, so finger’s crossed!

A few highlights since last update:

Gaborone - Palapye

We managed to get safely out of Gaborone by night and started out early in the morning to go to Palapye. In Mahalapye, Maria’s bike started to wobble, and it turned out her back tyre was flat as a pancake. Luckily, this happened just

outside of a petrol station, so we didn’t have to fix it by the road side. Joachim expertly replaced the tyre and we contiued to Palapye. Palapye is a small town a bit off the road, and when we rode into the town, school had just finished, so we were greeted by hundreds of cheering children along the way. We ended up in a charming, 100 years old hotel run by two funny old ladies, ate dinner and had a few beers in the bar with a crazy Irishman living in South Africa.

Palapye - Nata

The roads in Botswana are in excellent condition and people are really friendly - smiling and waving as we pass them by. We met this little curious village boy on on one of our stops. We offered him to sit on Maria’s scooter while we tanked up and had some lunch. He sat still for the full 30 minutes, never letting go of the handle bars... We stayded in a really luxurious place in Nata - a real safari lodge, swimming pool and the best breakfast ever! However, there was a funny little guy with a furry tail who discovered our biscuits in the night, so we didn’t get much sleep because of all his projects in our plastic bags.

Nata - Kasane

This leg gave us one of the most memorable moments of the trip. Shortly after we left Nata, the roads became narrower, and the cow fences disappeared. Maria was looking to her left as she rode, and spotted a giant elephant head a few meters away from her. We stopped and turned the scooters to have a second look. There were three large, male elephants no more than 15 meters away from us!!! We have been to the Kruger park, and know how important it is to stay inside your vehicle (but how do you stay inside your Vespa?) and how elephants can crush a car like a match box if they get annoyed. We were

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so scared! The elephants looked at us, but didn’t mind, and then they crossed the road and disappeared. Hopefully we got som good shots with the video camera.

Eventually we reached Kasane and found a place to stay. Kasane is by the river Chobe and is really out in the wilderness. We had wharthogs by the swimming pool, and some funny ferret-like creatures in the garden... and crockodiles in the river.

Kasane - Livingstone

Kasane is close to the border to Zambia, so we got up early to get the ferry across Zambezi and into Zambia. There are only two small ferries, and there is at least one week of queuing for the lorries, and at least a day for the cars. However, when you are on a scooter you just soot to the front of the queue. So we had to wait about 2 minutes before we were on the ferry!

On the other side, you meet the Zambian bureacracy with full force. Maria did the paperwork, and even though she didn’t have to wait in any of the offices, the whole process, involving seven different offices, took 2,5 hours. Everyone were friendly and polite, no bribes or anything except for a poor exchange rate from dollars to Kwachas.

We then rode th 60 km to Livingstone. On the way, Maria’s engine started to couch, and came to a stand still. Luckily, it was only a spark plug, so it was easily fixed.

In Livingstone, we stayed at the Fawlty Towers - a backpacker’s place with a nice garden. However, the 19 years old backpackers made us feel a bit old and past our sell by date... Anyway, we just stopped to unload and then went for the big attraction: The Victoria Falls! No such luck though, because out-side the money changer, Joachim’s tyre was flatter than flat. Maria ran for the tool kit, and it got fixed eventually. However, it was quite stressful with all the people around. But it was worth it: The Victoria Falls are the most spectacu-lar thing we have ever seen! It is impossible to describe what it looks, sounds and feels like. Amazing! Make sure to get there before your die of old age. Go

there!

Livingstone - Mazabuka

The next day we set off for Mazabuka - “the sweetest place in Zam-bia” where there are lots of sugar plantations. The ride was great - Zambia is more scenic than Botswana, and has more people and action along the road.

Mazabuka is not a touristy place, and there were no really tempting places to stay. We tried a few, and in the end, Joachim haggled like a mad man and we ended up in a small bed and breakfast where the owner went out of his way to please us. We had tradtitional Zambian

food - maize mash and chicken, and went for a walk in town. We were looking at a garage where some people were sanding down cars by hand, when a guy suddenly came up and started talking to us. We were a bit sceptic - wonder-ing what he wanted from us. But he just wanted to talk - he was a mechanic at Zambia sugar, and the guys started talking about how to fix old cars etc. Then he invited us into the garage, and we got to look at all these broken cars that they were working on. Its increadible what they can fix here.

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This experience made us realise that we had been far to sceptic. We have trav-elled a lot in South east Asia, and are used too being run down by people who want to sell you their things, who begs, who steals etc. But here, we have only been approached by people who want to talk to us or help us. There was even this guy who were calling us several times when we came into Mazabuka. We ignored him and thought he only wanted to take us to a B&B where he got comission or sell us some ugly carpets or whatever. But it turned out he was only trying to tell us that we were heading down the wrong road if we were on our way to Lusaka! An other example is from the parking lot in Victoria Falls - the most touristy place in Zambia with lots of salesman activity. Maria man-aged to forget her intercom, which looks like a fancy cell phone, on the seat of her scooter, and it was still there when we returned almost two hours later! And most surprising of all, we haven’t been hasseled by the police a single time. There are lots of road blocks, especially in Zambia, but we don’t even have to show our papers. Yesterday we met this sour looking policeman at a roadblock, and if they decide they need som extra money, they can always find something “illegal” to fine you for. He started asking for your number plates and we were sure we would have to pay up for something. But then he hasked where we were heading, and his face cracked up in a smile when we told him we were going to Nairobi: “On this bike? Hahaha!!! Drive safely!” And then he waved us off.

Well, I can’t occupy the computer in the reception for much longer, but I will try to write an update about the bike problem as soon as we know anything. Cell phone coeverage is poor, and sms does not seem to work, so this blog is our best link with home at the moment.

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Giorgio Bettinelli

The Italian writer Giorgio Bettinelli, has died in China at the age of 53. He was an incredible man, with a different path in life and a vision of things that was appreciated by many Italians.

Bettinelli was one who had travelled the entire world on his beloved Vespa, writ-ing about his adventures that then became books such as “Brum brum - 254,000 kilometres on a Vespa”, and “Rhapsody in Black - On a Vespa from Angola to Yemen”.

It’s probably easier to list the countries where Bettinelli didn’t travel, rather than where he did as he completed epic trips from Europe across the continent into China. Travelling with his simple and honest Vespa PX 150, with his guitar and backpack, Bettinelli did things that many of us dream of but never achieve in our modern life.For Italian owners and lovers of Vespa, Bettinelli was a legend, retelling adven-tures that gave some escape as people sit in city traffic, imagination what they could achieve with their own Vespa.

Bettinelli was unwell at the time of his death, and is survived by his wife Ya-pei, to whom we give our condolences. For a man with an adventurous spirit, he has left us with his stories to remember him by.

A Tribute to an Adventurer

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Giorgio Bettinelli

KING OF THE ROADA frontier-busting Vespa-riding adventurer has covered a quarter million kilometers so far — he’s effectively rounded the planet six times and vows he won’t stop until he’s visited all 198 countries of the world.

An interview with Giorgio Bettinelli

By LEONORA SARTORI

1992, Giorgio Bettinelli was 37 years old and living in village in Indonesia. A friend gave him a Vespa from the 1970s. In just three weeks, he drove the new/old Vespa over 2000 kilometers through Indonesia, Java, Sumatra, and Bali. Then he returned to Italy with a dream that sounded like madness — but which he’s managed to turn into reality.

In order to get a good sense of how far Bettinelli has traveled on his Vespa, just consider that the circum-frence of the globe is 40 thousand kilometers and Bettinelli has now made four transcontinenetal trips: Rome-Saigon, six months and 24,000 kilometers; Alaska-Terra del Fuiego, nine months and 36,000 kilometers; Melburn-Cape Town, one year and 52,000 kilometer; five continents Terra del Fuigo – Tasmania, three years and eight months and 144,000 kilometers. It is, in other words, as if he’s crossed the globe six times.

Do you ever get tired?No, actually. In fact, I can even reveal that I am planning a new trip, which will be the hardest, most risky, and probably also the last.

Can you tell us about it?I want to travel through all 198 countries in the world! It will take about four years though its difficult to be precise; there are hundreds of variables and potential delays.

What inspired you to undertake these trips?

Yakutsk, Siberia, Russia, 1998.

Text Copyright Leonora Sartori© Images Copyright Giorgio Bettinelli©

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Traveling has long been my dream. I was only fourteen when I hitchhiked to Copenhagen and seventeen when I went to India with the Magic Bus

I’m interested in the journey — everything in the middle between the point of departure and point of arrival. A Vespa has a million defects — I won’t argue with that — but slow as it is, it’s taken me everywhere. And I like to feel the air on my face while I’m driving..

Have there been discomforts?Every time that a trip came to an end.

Have you ever felt alone?I’ve always traveled alone, but I’ve never felt lonely. Many people have given me hos-pitality and invited me to eat at their homes. The Vespa is like a bridge to tolerance and sympathy.

What’s the other side of the coin?For me, now would be the time to have a child. But this last trip is so important that my companion and I have decided to wait.

What are frontiers for you, someone who’s crossed so many borders?Sometimes they give me a sense of incredible freedom and other times they piss me off a lot because I have to wait 15 days to get a stupid visa. Other times there’s simply no road connecting two countries. Between Panama and Colombia for example there are 200 kilometers of impenetrable forest. In situ-ations like I have to load my Vespa on a boat or plane and believe me, it’s not easy.

What happens when you cross a border? What’s the difference between being on one side or the other of a border?

Sometimes nothing changes at all when I cross a border. But more often, borders coincide with some distinct change in the landscape, like a river or a mountain. Other times it’s a political-economic change that you can see in the cities, in the buildings, the homes — like the borders between Rus-sia and Finland or between the US and Mexico. And many times, it’s the people themselves who change. The most striking example of that is the border between Paki-stan and India. It’s a religious border, and in just a few kil-ometers you go from the most rigid Islamic monotheism that doesn’t allow the showing of Allah’s image to the delirium of the Hindu pantheon. In that moment, even the expressions on people’s faces change.

Giorgio Bettinelli

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You’ve gone through many troubled countries?

Based on what I’ve seen I can say that we don’t live in a beautiful world. Which is why when I travel I never ever complain. I adapt myself to any circumstance because I know that for so many people, suffering is the rule of normalcy.

Giorgio Bettinelli, an Italian living in China, who is in the planning stages of a last four-year grand tour of the world. He was interviewed for COLORS by Leonora Sartori at the Festivaletteratura in Mantova, Italy, where he was pro-moting his recent book, Brum brum, 254.000 chilometri in Vespa (Vroom, vroom, 254,000 kilometers by Vespa), an account of his adventures thus far.

Giorgio Bettinelli

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Giorgio Bettinelli

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We are constantly bombarded by ads. On buses, garbage bins, TTC shelters and in the sky line they are hard to escape. But after a while of living in the city, one becomes immune to their carefully constructed lure. For better or worse, ads are a part of the urban fabric that you can learn to ignore. However, once in a while an ad comes along that captures our attention. It’s intriguing and beguiling. It’s edgy and cool…but, it’s an ad.

This is true of the life-sized hipsters with scooter heads that have been pasted at street-level on the sides of buildings across town. Canadian photographer and graffiti artist Fauxreel is responsible for the scooter-men, dubbed Antler-heads. Fauxreel’s work, especially his pasting, is known for being off-beat and innovative. He plays with perspective, pop culture and politics. The Antler-heads are so appealing that both the Globe and Mail and blogTO have praised their effective marketing.

The added mystique of the Antlerheads is that they are not labelled. There is no immediate brand recognition, or website to quell the inquisitive of their cu-riosity. But a stroll down a certain scooter shop on Queen St. East or College St. will reveal who is responsible for the ads.

The Antlerheads are part of an aggressive Vespa ad campaign to promote their newest scooter. These pasted hipsters are or will also be appearing in Vancou-ver, Calgary and Montreal. They will soon be accompanied by a television commercial and roving Vespas that will project images onto walls in the club district.

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ADVERTISING

VESPA® CLASSICS

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VESPA® CLASSICS

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Reviews

An adventure on a Vespa®, Italian styleBy Peter Moore

escape

November 12, 2007

Vespa power / Peter Moore

Carefree adventure ... Peter Moore’s bright orange Vespa® in Sicily. Picture: Peter Moore

I CAUGHT an overnight ferry from Sardinia to Sicily. It was called the Emilia and was a floating version of a rundown tenement building in the Bronx.The lower decks were dark and dingy. The cabins were cramped and worn. And the hallways echoed with the muffled sounds of men fighting, babies crying, dogs barking and couples cuddling.

I half expected to get a knock on my cabin door from someone called Jimmy “TwoFingers’’ Ragatoni, asking for a pizzo – a small bribe – to ensure nothing happened to me on the crossing.

Most of the Italian passengers were out on the deck feverishly thumbing text messages and making frantic calls on their cell phones. At first I feared that I’d missed an announcement to abandon ship.

The desperate way the Italians were trying to contact loved ones suggested that some sort of disaster had befallen us – a fire in the engine room or a rogue Mediterranean iceberg, perhaps.

It was worse than that. The mobile phone signals were fading and it would be another 10 hours before the ship would be back in range of the phone towers again.

The noise made by my neighbours meant that I was up on deck when we approached Palermo at dawn the next day.

The air was incredibly still and the sea looked like it had been buffed to a stun-ning platinum sheen.

Monte Pellegrino stood regally crowned by a wisp of morning mist and the high mountain range that ran along the back of the city glowed in the early morning sun.

The harbour was dotted with blue wooden rowboats and fishermen lazily dangling lines over the edge. The only

hint of the city’s dramatic history (Palermo is reputedly the most invaded city in Europe) was the dull thud of cannon fire from a fort to the west of the harbour.

I was travelling around Italy on a bright Vespa the same shade of orange as Donatella Versace. I had already traversed Sardinia, and the adventure of Sicily and the Amalfi Coast lay ahead. I had spent most of my sleepless night journeying across the Tyrrhenian Sea studying a map of Palermo in my guide book to figure out the best way to reach my hotel.

* This is an edited extract from Vroom By The Sea, by Peter Moore, published by Bantam Australia, $24.95.

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The map hadn’t indicated that most of the streets in Palermo were one way. In the case of the route I had mapped out, heading in the wrong direction.

Nor did it indicate that on Saturdays all the lanes around the hotel were closed and filled with stalls of the weekly Balero market.

When I finally got within a block of my hotel, my way was blocked by hun-dreds of stalls, tightly packed together under a sea of tatty canvas umbrellas, selling plastic colanders, big pants and the occasional slab of freshly caught tuna.

There was a tiny pathway through the markets but it was so narrow that people had to shuffle sideways to get through.

Occasionally, the produce from a particular stall overflowed on to that path-way and people were forced to jump over a pile of artichokes or melons. I was only a couple of hundred metres from the hotel, so I decided to chain my Vespa Marcello to a pole, lug my bag the rest of the way and retrieve the scooter at the end of the day when the market had closed.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a guy on a scooter ride into the stalls and negotiate his way through the scrum of people. I expected him to be abused, maybe even set upon, but people stepped aside and let him through.

The owners of the stalls that overflowed onto the path even shifted their produce momentarily so he could pass. I thought the rider must have been a one-off – a market official, perhaps, collecting stall fees.

But over the next few minutes at least half a dozen scooter riders plunged into a chaotic scrum of market stalls. So I decided to give it a go myself.

I wasn’t as skilful as the locals but I made good progress. I clipped a water-melon as I passed a fruit and vegetable stall, but luckily the owner was quick enough to catch it before it fell.

And at one point I had to wait while a guy unloaded ice from the back of a scooter to a stall selling tuna. (A coughing chorus of protest saw me switch off the engine until he was finished.) But soon I was winding my way past plastic colanders and cheap plastic radios like a local.

I found the hotel on a quiet corner just the other side of the market. The adrenalin was still pumping so I tossed my bags in my room and hit the streets of Palermo.

I rode past men selling shoes off blankets on the bonnets of their cars, food stalls set up in the ruins of crumbling buildings, and women selling embroi-dered items from the windows of their homes, passing neatly folded table-cloths, through the black and pink flags of the local football team which hung from lines strung between the buildings about them.

I immediately took a shine to Palermo. It had an energy, a brio, that suggested the citizens of the city were living for the moment rather than preparing for some illustrious future that may or may not come.

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Work of Art A Wooden Vespa®

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Work of Art

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Work of Art

The machine was made in ten months by Carlos Alberto and has been carved out of ten different types of wood and even has an original 1957 Vespa engine.

Capable of speeds of up to 46 mph, Mr Alberton first hit on the idea in 2001 during a conversation with a fellow Vespa enthusiast, but didn't start work on his labour of love until October 2007. Covered in a special fire-proof varnish and built using woods from Brazil and Mozambique, Mr Alberto's Vespa cost him £2,491 (2,800 euros), but to him the tiny scooter is priceless.

"The idea came to me in 2001 when I was lying in bed with a ter-rible case of flu," Mr Alberto said.

"I told couple of my friends who are crazy about Vespa's that I had seen an article about an Italian man who builds motorcycles out of wood and I told them I was going to emulate that.

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"They said that I must be delirious from my illness, but I kept the project at the back of my mind.

"I finally finished work on my Vespa in July of 2008 and to commemorate the support of my family I named the bike Daniela, after my daughter."

Weighing nearly 107kg (17stones), which is 20 more than the original 1950's model, accomplished carpenter Mr Alberto used only the finest rosewood and ebony woods to build his master-piece.

"The most difficult part of the construction process was arrang-ing to find an engine that would equal the 1957 original," says Mr Alberto.

"However all things considered it was my family who got me through the most difficult parts of the building process."

So impressive is the wooden scooter that Vespa has been trying to get in contact from Italy and the official Vespa museum in Germany too has expressed serious interest.

"Unfortunately my Vespa is not legally road-worthy as it is not considered to be a genuine motorcycle," says Carlos.

"However, if Vespa were to examine my cycle and see that it is possible to ride it safely then I would hope that they would give it its proper status."

Work of Art

A Portuguese carpenter named Carlos Alberto was thinking about popular-izing his skills when he remembered about the old Vespa scooter forgotten in the garage. All that is left for us to mention is that the engine, suspensions and wheels are still made out of metal. The rest is just poetry to our eyes.

Much better than any commercial, the scooter even got a new name – Vespa Daniela – as it is most likely dedicated to Carlos’s daughter.

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Car Shoe

Fall Focus | This footwear brand, now owned by Prada, was established in 1963 by a race car fanatic. The handmade driving moccasin that launched the brand has a sole set on small rub-ber nubs, now a patented design in Italy. Roberto Rossellini and John F. Kennedy were the type of aficionados that took to Car Shoe in its earliest days, and today many a stylish Italian man will pair the soft leather shoe with his finest suits, especially for a Vespa® trip to the office.

Where to Buy | Visit Bergdorf Goodman for CarShoe’s collection in the U.S., or the flagship boutique on 1 Via della Spiga in Milan.| Corporate Contact | Manager Valentina Danieli,Phone: 39-02-3498-1337; Fax: 39-02-3498-1377;Email: valentina.danieli@prada.com

KIT

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