Scootering OCT 2015

Scooter

security

ight Isle ootferW Rally

Tagging

your classic

Sco

11-page

#352 October 2015

special

The

Russians are

SCOOTER TRADER

INSIDE!

coming!

Cold War Clone vs

The Vespa GS Bentley & Breitling

❱❱

Lambretta custom

30hp lowered

Vespa PX ❱❱ PLUS

Scooter news, product reviews, music, books, rallies, events & more!

CONTENTS 03From the Archive 06Kickstart The Blackpool show, 1965.

The front section that we’ve packed full of useful stuff from news and reviews, products tested, clothing worn, opinions, readers letters, Dave’s Nostalgic Custom Corner, book reviews, a little music and plenty more besides.

28

Spanish Barber

Mixing sailing and scooters in Spain, a finely customised Eibar Lambretta.

36

Russian Roulette

Don’t worry, our cover story isn’t about a new cold war. Instead Sticky puts the Vyatka VP150 against a Vespa GS150 VS5.

44 46Perpignan 2015

Club do’s & events A calendar of scooter related events.

Paddy Smith goes to the south of France.

50The Derby 150

Riding scooters in beautiful scenery, what more could you want?

55EuroYeyé Isle of Wight 56 International Scooter Rally Mod rally in Spain.

The biggest and the best, a fantastic Bank Holiday weekend!

Modernist 68NuTs & 60s Weekender A splendid time was had in Brighton, and no mistake.

Island 72Mersea Scooter Rally

The fun continues on this little Essex island.

76Tougher Than Tough Is there such a thing as an urban-style classic? This Vespa VBB might be such a scooter.

82Security Tagging

Making life harder for scumbags by giving your scooter less thief-appeal.

86Specialist Services

Planning your winter project or resto?

Whatever you want, from platers to tuners, engineers to painters, fabricators to upholsterers, you’ll find them all here.

Hopefully.

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91Scooter Trader

Classified and business advertising, for all your scootering needs.

for 110Instruments Professionals

A beautifully customised Lambretta with inspiration from Bentley and Breitling. Classy!

117Various events Roadtrip 128Vespa to Corsica

WoT, Spain and Shrewsbury.

SIP Scootershop and friends on a beautiful summer holiday.

132Twofold One-off

Amazing German engineered Vespa PX; lowered, tuned, radical, and very tidy!

138Into the Sunset

Your scootering stories that keep fellow riders on the edge of their seats.

Next Month!

As the rally season draws to a close we’ll have a review from the penultimate BSRA event in Woolacombe, as well as the final BSSO race meeting at Cadwell Park.

We’ve also got some rusty Lambrettas, a well engineered Vespa smallframe, an amazing tale of touring into Eastern Europe and we look at some tools. You can never have enough tools. Probably.

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Adrian is a 34-year-old bloke from Alicante in the sunny South East of Spain. He likes Crossfit and Skrillex, both of them weird and daring to me.

Not keen on reading (apart from books on how to rebuild certain engines) or films with the exception of action thrillers, he’s recently become a captain and owns and sails a Catamaran. Summarising, he’d have nothing to do with me (or some of you) if not because of his passion for Lambrettas.And this is one of the most beautiful things of this scene.

(Félix Dominguez)

e t t e l u o R n Russia s Vespa GS150 VS5

Vyatka VP150 v

Location: Berlin Dateline: Summer 1961 A Russian spy purchases designs for a new Vespa from an Italian agent‌

Isle ofWight International Scooter Rally 2015 Destination Scooterland

We didn’t invent scooters here in Great Britain, and I doubt we invented scooter rallies, but now, in the 21st century, I’m pretty sure we organise some of the best scooter rallies in the world.

Quality Street What never ceases to amaze is the variety of scooters in attendance. Maybe I scrutinise them a little closer – and of course I get to relive it all a week later as I sift through hundreds of photographs – but it is a genuine pleasure to see anything and everything from humble mopeds to rare classics, Vespa and Lambretta, as well as British, German, Indian and other Italian produced classic geared-scooters this year.

Of course the ‘scooterboys’ who don’t go say that it’s because the Isle of Wight is full of Mod scooters, while the Mods that don’t go say it’s because of the cutdowns and chops. The reality is that there is a generous sprinkling of everything, the

56 | SCOOTERING | OCTOBER 2015

aforementioned plus rustorations, restos, customs, autos, vintage, modern classics, racers, crawlers, trikes and more, ridden from all over England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, as well as France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy and probably elsewhere this year too.

I saw at least one American who’d flown over and hired a Vespa, while someone else told me there were also a couple of lads from Chile (or at least from somewhere in South America – if not Chile, maybe they just thought the IoW cold by comparison?). As we, and indeed many other scooterists have said in the past, if you like scooters what better place to be on a bank holiday weekend than the biggest scooter rally of its kind in the world?

Warm Up But let’s rewind to Thursday and the advance group of party-goers who arrived on the island for a warm-up, après rally as it were. Our early evening ferry included a few Brits and a trio from the south of France who unfortunately rode in the only rain I’d heard of that afternoon, from their first ferry to Newhaven until arriving at the IoW boat.

Still dry ourselves, despite over six hours on the road, we arrived on the site at Smallbrook Speedway stadium to discover that the place was already alive with scooters everywhere, the dealer village looking packed and plenty of friendly faces offering welcomes and a cold tinnie for those not long out of the saddle, plus of course the pre-rally party to enjoy!

Friday Friday morning arrived with the sun continuing to shine, so much so that I managed to get burnt. Happy days indeed!

With the fresh new day, so the site exploration could take place, although first some rather disappointing news; apparently the mobile shower block brought in for the weekend had ditched their ‘70s disco’ compilation CD which they’d piped through the units last year. You can’t beat formation Kung Fu Fighting to cleanse the soul first thing in the morning. Allegedly.

Into the Dealer Village and the first mental note I made was to return later to the inflatable bar, where you literally could bounce off the walls after one too many (except that you were

SIP’s Vespa Road Trip to Corsica 128 | SCOOTERING | OCTOBER 2015

A I knew immediately that it was going to be a big trip again when my passenger buckled his 15kg baggage into the footwell at the crack of dawn, and puttered along with me, relatively relaxed, to the SIP Scootershop in Landsberg am Lech.

total of 17 Vespa scooters of all shapes and sizes met there. From PX to VBB, Rally, SS, SS180, Sprint and even two GTS 300s, we set off from there together in the direction of Corsica.

First stage destination Bergamo. The weather was excellent and I enjoyed cruising with my siblings over the well-developed country and pass roads.

We rode up onto the Hahntennjoch at an altitude of 1895m above sea level – during which one of my companions was given a new stator plate to keep him on the road – with an amazing backdrop. Then it was on to Reschenpass, past Lake Reschen and its sunken church tower to Latsch, where SIP customer Egon Vent welcomed us on his Struzzo, and led us to his favourite pasta location. There we waited patiently for our riders in a shady car park.

Then the air became thin, because we went bend by bend up Stelvio Pass at 2757m above sea level.

The view and atmosphere were breathtaking, for me in the most literal sense of the word. We reached Bergamo late, and were parked on a terrace in the middle of the old town, with a view of the discreetly lit little town, to sleep.

The next morning we visited a supplier, DMD Helmets, and our riders rummaged through the wellstocked shop, before it was on to the hot and turbulent Autostrada to Milan. The sun shone from above at what felt like 200°C, and the hot asphalt simmered below. I felt like we were continually blazing towards a wide-open oven, and envied my newer siblings with their water cooling!

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WoT Rally

Now in its fourth year WoT Scooter Rally at The Ukrainian Youth Camp at Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire is firmly established in the rally calendar and has consistently attracted more than 1000 attendees.

Despite the inevitable clashes in the ever-crowded rally calendar, this year was to be no different.

M

embers of Gatecrashers & Skegby Scooter Clubs were on site Thursday to get the site ready and with an acceptable weather forecast Friday was soon upon us with early arrivals starting to fill the site up.

The two halls on site provide ample under cover entertainment space and as always we kicked off with a karaoke style ‘Rallyaoke’ in the Northern room from dinner to around 8pm. A massive plus with this rally is your ability to sup your own drinks anywhere on site although many choose to sample the ‘local’ Ukrainian beers and suffer the hangovers these strong ales bring the following day. Friday night’s bands, locals The Preposterous Monkees and from Glasgow Dexys Bootleg Runners, both went down well and at around 2am the last of the stragglers were heading back to their tents.

A slightly overcast but dry Saturday soon turned the site into a very busy one with hundreds of day trippers swelling the numbers to participate in the Custom Show or shop the well attended parts fair with a variety of inflatables also provided for the youngsters.

Rallyaoke again saw the Northern room heaving with budding singing stars.

With Barry and Paul from Lincolnshire agreeing to judge the Custom Show for us they certainly had their work cut out with the fine array of entrants. Notts/Derbys Club Borderline Drifters duly picked up the best turned out Trophy for their impressive attendance numbers.

Saturday evening in the main room saw us issuing a ‘parental guidance’ announcement for the support band Hung Like Hanratty and with tracks like The Ghost of Jimmy Saville and Clean up your Dog Shit you probably get the picture, however to say they went down well was an understatement. Sheffield’s Jungle Lion headlined with a top crowd pleasing set of covers that kept the room bouncing.

It was on Saturday evening that the usually spotless shower and toilet facilities started to cause some concern and we were left wondering if bears really do poop in the woods as we chased down blockages throughout the site finally to receive the ‘all clear’ at a minute past five in the morning.

Lots of happy smiling faces leaving the site on a very sunny Sunday is always a good sign and in 2016 we are back to our regular slot of two weeks after the August Bank Holiday.

Andy Butler

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