| VESPA PX125 | LAMBRETTA 125DL | VESPA PX200E |
| SCOOTER STORIES |   LAMBRETTA
GP |
SCOOTER PHOTO'S |
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VISITOR'S SCOOTERS | PLEASE SIGN MY GUEST BOOK |
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MIDHURST DETOURS SC Do At The Gordon Centre Bognor Regis March 6th 2004 |
Mysterons
SC present
The
2nd West London Saturday 31st January 2004 |
Follow The Links Below To The Relevant Sections
| VESPA PX125 | LAMBRETTA 125DL | VESPA PX200E |
| SCOOTER STORIES | LAMBRETTA
GP |
SCOOTER PHOTO'S |
|
|
VISITOR'S SCOOTERS | PLEASE SIGN MY GUEST BOOK |
This was the first scooter I ever owned. I purchased it the day before my 17th birthday in 1984, from Jack Lilley's in Shepperton for a sum in the region of £800 to £900 and I thought I was going to be “Charlie Big Potatoes”, whilst riding it. In fact it took me a little while before I mastered things like clutch control and trying not to thrash the nuts off it. Anyway it was red in colour and I thought I was the bees’ knees whilst riding it that was until I had my first prang.
The first day I was legally able to ride it I went round to see my mate Shaun Ellery (who had a 50 Special at the time), I’ll never forget the look on his face. I was unable to ride it properly and if my memory serves me right, I was wheelying it up and down his road due to lack of clutch control and was lucky I didn’t write it off (I’m not surprised that people now have to take a CBT). I’m sure Shaun felt that the bike was wasted on me.
I attended my first scooterist event on this bike, which was an allnighter at Peterborough in March 1985. Being young and stupid at the time I managed to get 6 points on my licence for the trouble. I managed to not only get caught travelling on the A1(M) by the police going there, but also coming home in the morning.
My first rally was the Easter Bank Holiday Mod Rally in Clacton 1985, one of the only things I can remember of this was riding around the campsite so much so that mud had accumulated between the frame and rear wheel and that my scooter wouldn’t do no more than 35mph. There was another incident I remember but this involved a friend being attacked with a bottle (or glass) resulting in serious facial wounds, not very nice.
My first national rally was to Great Yarmouth, Whitsun bank holiday weekend 1985. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. If I remember correctly I only went with about £35 in my pocket, nowadays I would probably be lucky if I got change from a couple of hundred. The things I remember the most are the custom scooters, the arcades, the Northerners and Tiffany’s with Edwin Starr performing.
In
1985 I also attended DISC 85, Exmouth and the Isle of Wight rallies on this
scooter (well alright, I attended the Isle Of Wight on the back of Steve
Pottingers’ PX).
In 1986 I discovered things like performance exhausts and conversion kits. So I purchased a Polini 175 kit off my mate, Steve Bland, and bought a 28ml Dellorto carb, because I thought this would make my bike go faster. When all that happened was the acceleration got better but no improvement on the top end. Another hiccup was the carb was equipped with a flip-up choke, so to remedy the need to keep taking off the side panel I got another mate to cut some holes in the side panel ( a la ‘Disco Connection’ ) with the aid off an oxyacetylene torch. The burn marks on the otherwise unblemished paintwork were something to behold. Like I said before I was young and stupid at the time.
One evening during the summer of 1986 I was travelling home from work, when an unsuspecting car driver thought he’d see how far I would slide down a road after he drove into me. To rub salt into the wounds after he had wrote my scooter off, he telephoned me to say “ If you pay for my cracked headlight, I’ll forget about the insurance claim”. My response to this was less than complimentary.
After the accident my scooter remained in my back garden for a few months until I gave it to a mate at work who wanted it for spares.
This bike was to give me one of my best ever moments on a scooter rally, but on to that later.
After
having my Vespa written off it was time to be different and as two of my mates
had Lambretta GP’s (Indian ones), I thought why don’t I get one.
Luckily at that time somebody had imported ( I assume AF Rayspeed)
a batch of Lambrettas that were bound for Sweden or Switzerland or somewhere,
that were no longer required for the original destination.
Unusually enough one of them appeared in the showroom of AJ Suttons in
Ealing, as I was always under the impression that the owner was a Vespa man
through and through, I was surprised to find him selling a brand new Lambretta.
Anyway to cut a long story short I bought it.
I remember the proprietor of AJ Suttons (being the law abiding person
that he was) got me to sign a disclaimer as it was a 150cc and had not been
converted to a 125cc, he gave me the barrel and piston for the 125cc conversion
in a carrier bag, what I did
Now
onto the scooter, I had never ridden a Lambretta before and I remember how much
lower the riding position seemed to be in comparison with my PX (and better I
hasten to add). It became even
lower when I replaced the standard seat with a Snetterlotti, bought from Mark
Fowler.
Whilst it was still standard I attended the Scarborough rally in October of 1986 on it with Steve Bone and Kevin Jackson riding 2 up on Kev’s Vespa PX200, but my Lambretta had a fault. The fault being that whenever the speedo hit 50mph whilst I was riding it the engine would seize up, but whenever Bone rode it he seemed to be able to thrash it about without ever the hint of a seizure (him or the bike). So we took it in turns to ride my Lambretta whilst the other went pillion with Kev. We managed to get to Scarborough and back home without too much trouble, eventually.
During
the winter months between 1986 & 1987, I decided that I was going to do up
my Lambretta little did I know that this would take the best part of a year.
First of all I required a bank loan to pay for this project, once that
was acquired I placed the scooter into Surrey & Hants Scooters, which at the
time was run by Nick Jolly. At the
time Nick was turning out some nice scooters and as he was close to where I
lived I was more than happy, to leave my scooter in his capable hands.
Now for those of you that aren’t aware my scooter was to become the
Twix Special, although at one point I was toying with the idea of spraying it
metalflake red with white panel stripes (which would have been better,
answers on a postcard please). As
well as the paintjob and a few bits of chrome work, I had the flywheel taken off
my old PX and had it adapted to give me an electronic ignition system, a 30ml
Dellorto carb, a 175cc conversion, a DJ mini muffler exhaust and a custom made
seat from CJ Scooters. I thought I
was the ‘Dogs Bollocks’ when I got it out of the shop.
The
first rally I attended when it was in this condition was Newquay in October of
1987. The day before this rally
there had been terrible storms battering the country especially in the South, I
believe this had a dramatic effect upon who went and who didn’t.
So I set off with some friends (Roy on a GP200, Bone on a PX200 and
Shaun and his then girlfriend 2 up on A 50 Special with a 135cc conversion),
anyway Bone and Roy soon pissed off as I was still running my scooter in and I
lost Shaun somewhere around Basingstoke. So
there I am on my own on the A303 in the middle of nowhere when my lights pack
up, I was thinking this could be handy as it was dark, cold and wet, the RAC man
will have to take me to Newquay. So
after waiting for what seemed like an eternity for him to turn up, what does he
go and do, but only fixes my lights. So
I didn’t get to Newquay until the early hours of the morning, where I had to
sleep on the B&B doorstep as I couldn’t get in.
Anyway on the Saturday afternoon we all went to the campsite where the
custom show was being held, this was to be the one time when everything was
going my way. Entered in the custom
show were scooters of the calibre of Photogenic and Nosferatu, luckily for me
all Vespas and a distinct lack of custom Lambrettas.
So with a lot of prompting from my mates I entered my Twix Special and
with the aid of Shaun’s scarf to wipe the dirt off my bike, I managed to win
Best Lambretta. If my memory serves me right one of the judges, Stuart Lanning
announced “ Best Lambretta, that Twix thing over there”, music to my ears.
A lot of celebrating was done that evening at the NRC do. I’ve still
got the trophy that I won sitting upon my desk above my computer.
Twix Special was featured in Scootering magazine (edition No. 28) and also pictures of it at the Newquay rally were in Scooter Scene (edition No.14). Also appearing in Scooter Scenes photos for the Newquay rally was Shaun’s 50 Special.
The Twix Special only attended two more rallies after this, Great Yarmouth and Scarborough in 1988. After it broke down at Scarborough I sold it to my friend Roy Bland. He then proceeded to fit a Jap conversion TS1 engine into it and had it resprayed British Racing Green. The last I heard of it was that it was sold to somebody in the Bognor Regis area.
If you know where it is now I would like to hear from you.
After
selling my Lambretta for a lot less than what I paid for it, let alone spent on
it I was unable to spend a great deal on it's replacement. My third
scooter was to only cost me approximately £150, a bargain when I remember how
much use I got out of it. I bought this Vespa PX200E from my friend, Steve
Pottinger, late in 1988. He had been in a minor accident with a car and as
a result the nearside side panel was beyond repair and there was a dent to the
rear of the frame as well. The first thing that I bought for this scooter
was a PM Tuning exhaust from another friend, Steve Bland. Steve at
the time owned a P200 which he had customised (Anyone remember "Easier
Said Than Done" ? I thought not.) and then turned into the
Kouros Special (as featured in Scootering Magazine), and he had a habit
of changing exhausts. I believe he replaced the exhaust he sold me with an
NFK exhaust from the Midland Scooter Centre.
The first rally that I attended on this scooter was the Isle of Wight, Easter 1989, this was then followed by Great Yarmouth, Fort William, Whitley Bay, Exmouth, Morecambe and Margate. I attended Abersytwyth that year on the back of Sharon Walter's T5. The highlight of that years rallies for me had to be Fort William, just a truly memorable experience.
During 1989 with the aid of Roy and Steve Bland, I transformed this scooter into a cutdown. We (or should I say they?) cutdown the legshields and rear end of the frame, then resprayed it yellow. I bought a chrome Up 'N' Over PM Tuning exhaust, complete with valve chamber, again from Steve Bland (I've actually still got this exhaust in my attic, open to offers), a cut down front mudguard, a new seat with grab rail and a pair of Sebac Shocks. It did look good and it hadn't cost me a fortune to do either.
In
1990 I only attended three rallies and only two of these on this scooter, those
two being Great Yarmouth and Exmouth (Exmouth was in fact the last rally that
I ever attended). During this year my relationship with my girlfriend
(now my wife) became more serious so scooter rallies took a back seat.
I continued to ride this scooter to work and back for another couple of years, until it was stolen from outside my house. I found it two roads away but the scumbags who had nicked it had smashed all the lights, ripped the seat, dented the legshields, scratched all the paintwork, smashed all the headset and broke parts of the engine casings near the flywheel, there was no way it could of been repaired or even if it was possible I didn't have the money, unfortunately. In the end a couple of kids knocked on my door and asked if they could have it, so I let them take it away.
The only scooter I have had since was a W reg (1981?) Vespa PX150, (my wife saw it advertised in a newsagents window) I paid £75 for it. Due to a lack of funds as well as no where to work on it, I sold it a couple of weeks later to my Brother in Law, who still happens to have it and has used it to attend a couple of rallies.
Hopefully in the future I maybe able to buy another scooter and go to a couple of rallies, who knows?