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The Vespa at 80

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Re: The Vespa at 80

#121

Post by lostlogin »

perching_aix wrote: post #32
TacticalCoder wrote: post #18

Ah ah my youth! I had a Vespa with a 200cc engine, three speeds, from the 80s: this thing would do a wheelie in 1st gear. And very hard to control wheelie for the weight is uneven on a Vespa. My brother had a rare Vespa 125 cc from 1961 or something: when he left the country he sold it to a friend who still owns it. Another friend of mine --the reason we all had Vespa back then-- could disassemble and reassemble them…

> without having the majority of comments being from environmental-jihadists Not to break your wishful thinking filled bubble, but those are very clearly not "will somebody please think about the environment" type comments. Plenty of people simply fucking despise the ever living shit out of this class of vehicle, just in general. You really don't need to give two hot shits about the environment to find scooters obnox…

> the hate on these is entirely self-interested

I’ve never before considered altruistic hate versus self interested hate.

I’ve a foot in both camps over scooter noise and fumes, but do love a good Vespa.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#122

Post by perching_aix »

lostlogin wrote: post #121
perching_aix wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without having the majority of comments being from environmental-jihadists Not to break your wishful thinking filled bubble, but those are very clearly not "will somebody please think about the environment" type comments. Plenty of people simply fucking despise the ever living shit out of this class of vehicle, just in general. You really don't need to give two hot shits about the environment to find scooters obnox…

> the hate on these is entirely self-interested I’ve never before considered altruistic hate versus self interested hate. I’ve a foot in both camps over scooter noise and fumes, but do love a good Vespa.

FWIW, I have absolutely nothing against people loving these things, having fond memories of it, whatever. In fact, I do not see having a love for them and not wanting them on the/certain roads as fundamentally incompatible even. It was the absurd ideological pigeonholing that got to me.

Heartwrenching that OP has a hard-on against environmentalism and feels/is victimized by its proponents on the regular, but it's super not what people were yapping about, isn't at all required for the positions purported, and this really couldn't have been any clearer. Asserting otherwise is intellectually insulting.

I could even sympathize with not wanting to read scooter hate every time scooters come up, which I can definitely imagine to be a phenomenon, but then I would also appreciate not having to read people randomly soapboxing and projecting broad scale political alignments, so that's kind of a 1:1 unfortunately.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#123

Post by bootlooped »

mulmen wrote: post #103
bootlooped wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse, probably worse, the definitions of both "moped" and "scooter" vary from person to person or jurisdiction to jurisdiction. "Moped" is often used to describe a light motorcycle.

No. Mopeds have pedals. That’s the “ped” part of motor pedal.

I'm not disagreeing with the origin of the word, I'm just saying it's expanded and changed.

Have you ever "shipped" something that at no point in its journey was carried on a floating vessel? Do you correct people when they say they're shipping something by ground or air?

Re: The Vespa at 80

#124

Post by synecdoche »

guenthert wrote: post #61
tiew9Vii wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about a 1950’s Vespa or a 2026 Vespa? A modern 300cc four stroke Vespa will use 3.3 litres of fuel per 100km and Euro 5 means noise is quiet. As far as things go, modern scooters are great, practical, economical vehicles.

> A modern 300cc four stroke Vespa will use 3.3 litres of fuel per 100km Uh, I know motorcycle engines aren't particularly fuel-efficient (it's not a priority), but there seems to be, er, room for improvement.

A 2026 Honda SH150 uses 2.2 l / 100 km (up to about 70 km/h) and is very quiet. Made in Italy too.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#125

Post by furyofantares »

esperent wrote: post #66
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switched from Vespa (combustion) to Unu (electric) and Black Tea (electric) .. and the one feature I yearn for, from the Vespa era, is its noise factor. Electric is damn quiet, damn smooth, and damn fast. (And damn comfy.) And that can be a problem. Especially in a city like, say, Vienna, where people just do not check before they cross some of these little cosy streets. I became a much more alert and guarding rider…

> people just do not check before they cross some of these little cosy streets. Yes, you're supposed to be the one checking that you don't hit pedestrians. Cities are for humans first, machines second. Drive slower. If you want to drive fast, take a road trip.

The person with the vehicle is who should ultimately be held responsible in the case of an accident, but I also find it absolutely wild when I venture out into the city and see people on their phone with headphones on crossing the street when the walk sign comes on without so much as glancing in the direction of traffic.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#126

Post by 2dvisio »

pmontra wrote: post #43
amarcheschi wrote: post #33

Piaggio also designed a car (well, more than one including bad prototypes), which unfortunately wasn't sold in italy due to a gentleman's agreement with fiat (fiat being much bigger basically went if you start selling cars, we'll build motorcycles). The English Wikipedia doesn't include this snippet of history, the Italian page does though https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACMA_Vespa_400

Piaggio also designed the Ape (bee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape a 3 wheel tiny pickup. It was hugely popular, but of course not as much as the Vespa because of the smaller market. I still see some of them especially in country areas.

Still remember driving one with my dad (I was 6) back from a vendemmia (grape harvest) with the back fully loaded of at least 18 100-litre harvest buckets, on a 7-10% slope, which the ape did effortlessly.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#127

Post by mulmen »

vanderZwan wrote: post #107
mulmen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 300GTS is amazing. It can do anything. Split traffic on the way to the farmers market while getting waves from random people? Easy. 80mph up a hill on the way to the park? Also yes. Ride through the park to set up a picnic? Not only yes but it literally has a built in cooler. Just a total zero compromise vehicle. And you can buy one for what five grand? All other motorcycles (which I have many of) are stupid.

You're making it sound like the motorcycle equivalent of the original Fiat Panda 4x4 (well, except that you didn't mention anything about repairability, but you get the vibe I'm going for)

To be repairable it has to break first, which Vespas don’t. I did replace a voltage regulator once. It was a non-event.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#128

Post by bborud »

vanderZwan wrote: post #107
mulmen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 300GTS is amazing. It can do anything. Split traffic on the way to the farmers market while getting waves from random people? Easy. 80mph up a hill on the way to the park? Also yes. Ride through the park to set up a picnic? Not only yes but it literally has a built in cooler. Just a total zero compromise vehicle. And you can buy one for what five grand? All other motorcycles (which I have many of) are stupid.

You're making it sound like the motorcycle equivalent of the original Fiat Panda 4x4 (well, except that you didn't mention anything about repairability, but you get the vibe I'm going for)

Well, zero repairs so far.

And I live in a place where BMW sent two engineers and a test car to verify that, indeed, the roads here rattle cars to bits. They were not getting ripped off by people pretending their beemers broke.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#129

Post by mulmen »

bootlooped wrote: post #123
mulmen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Mopeds have pedals. That’s the “ped” part of motor pedal.

I'm not disagreeing with the origin of the word, I'm just saying it's expanded and changed. Have you ever "shipped" something that at no point in its journey was carried on a floating vessel? Do you correct people when they say they're shipping something by ground or air?

I’m a big advocate of two wheeled transportation. The differences between bicycles, e-bikes, mopeds, and motorcycles are important and meaningful. The misuse of terminology by entitled car drivers and the ignorant public literally kills people every day. Yes, I am aware people are wrong. No, I don’t care to compromise.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#130

Post by joe_mamba »

boomskats wrote: post #115
bananamogul wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solving the safety problem by making it loud does not seem like a great solution. Fast forward and everyone is driving nearly silent electric vehicles. I wouldn’t want loud Vespas then. Cutting city noise pollution is one of the benefits of electric vehicles.

It's not a great solution but it's the best one I've got, and it's still more ecological than driving the (electric) car for the same one-person trip. And audible != loud. Anyway, don't most places legally require nearly silent electric vehicles to emit some kind of artificial noise?

>And audible != loud

People who sleep with the windows opened in summer at night(most Europeans) facing the street where vespas are driving would beg to differ.

Then there's the separate issue that some(many?) owners either rev their vespas for more power(maybe due to worn belt) or they just fuck with their exhaust to squeeze more power at the expense of noise.

Either way, there's plenty of good reasons people find mopeds/scooter overall far more noisy and annoying than cars.

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