This is the story of my '64 Vespa 150 - how it became mine and how it has given me a new vespatude.  I'll be recording the neat places I visit, the different things I do to make the Vespa my own, and - oh yeah - those reactions I get from both friends and strangers.




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Sunday, May 28, 2006
Oh, am I ever sore!
Yesterday I removed the side car from the Vespa. The 150 just can't pull the thing up and down the hills here in Greenville. After getting it off, I decided to go for a ride to my church.

It is located in the nearby town of Greer. I get there by driving down Wade Hampton Blvd. to South Suber Road. On the way back, I typically try a different route that takes me down Brushy Creek and East North Street.


The blue line shows the route of my trip over Paris Mountain. Click here to expand the map. The bubbles are different locations that figure into my Vespa chronicles.

Leaving the church and riding down Suber Road (check out the bubble closest to Greer), I noticed I just was putting along with hardly any speed at all. Then on Brushy Creek it started to get down right dangerous. I was going to get run over if I didn't get more speed.

I pulled over to see what was up. I found that the throttle cable was loose in the carb box. I tightened it up some and YES there was the power I was missing. Maybe the bike could pull that side car after all. I made it to the YMCA on Brushy Creek before the bike just quit on me.

It appears that I must have over tightened the cable and it broke up in the headset. You guessed it. I had forgotten to put my extra cables in the glove box. Now I had to figure out a way to get it going again.

I thought I had something worked out. I took the cable fastener out of the carb box and used it to hold the cable in place in the head set. I then "tied" the cable to the throttle arm in the carb box. This did give me a small amount of throttle control, but I couldn't seem to get the bike to run very long. It would run a couple of feet and then stall out - I would get multiple backfires and then it stopped. Finally, I couldn't get it to run at all!

Add to this that I had pulled the bike up on the curb to do some of this work. When I got it running and came off the curb, I must have messed something up (I am hoping I did not crack the frame!) and when I sat on the bike it made very odd sounds. Almost like it was dragging the kick stand under the scooter. I even checked that.

The bottom line is that I had to push the bike from Howell Road to my house. If you have ever gone down East North Street you would understand that is not very fun. This morning I am VERY sore. Not to mention that I am concerned about what might have happened to Heebie.

The was a silver lining. As I was walking the bike along, I came to an intersection and I heard from one of the stopped cars, "Nice, 'scoo tah'!" It was that accent that you hear from Britishers who have lived in the States long enough to pervert there Queen's English. They asked me what was wrong and then told me that they had scooters as well. I can't remember what the one was, but I do remember they said they had a 63' GS. I gave them my name and they said they would look me up in the phone book. Maybe we could get together for a ride.

That is if I can get Heebie running again...



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