So I was at a friends house sitting on her deck with her admiring my Derbi in the parking lot. When all of a sudden two guys pull up. One on a beat up rampage, and the other on a brand spanking new Aprilia SR50R (which I later found out had just 300km on it where the rampage had 37000)!
I yelled from the balcony to get his attention to say the Derbi is mine. After a wave and a compliment from the gentleman, I offered to go for a ride completely leaving my friend in the lurch (she'll survive, a real friend understands). I took off.
At the red lights he was explaining to me that it's unrestricted but he still has the stock pipe. So Derbi may lose in the glamour department, but at every straight I was whipping past that modern machine at much greater speed! I couldn't tell you how much greater, but he could. All he had to do was go in to the menu (yes, his scooter had a menu) and select one of the many options like lap time, average 0-60, average rpm, top speed, tire pressure, etc. etc. etc...
So we spent the next 45 minutes riding beside and past each other looking the bikes up and down, nearly hoping for a red light to admire more and chat (but not quite).
And after a wonderful ride full of a few tricks and plenty of laughs alas the scooter gods felt it was best to not have us become greedy. And the ride had come to an end. Even still we held on to the final few minutes enjoying each others company until he finally had to leave. But not without engaging the alarm system!
Regardless, he's already been thinking up what upgrades he's going to buy, so it won't be long until my Derbi will be a DONTbi (and yes that's seriously the best I could come up with). So where can I get a cylinder kit!
In the end we exchanged numbers, and hopefully there will be plenty of rides to come. I rode away from that night very confident and fulfilled. Somehow two modern scooters riding beside each other matches better then one sandwiched in between a couple of lambretta's...
Derbi Dan
A little evening story.
Moderator: Moderators
Funny you should mention that John. As a result of your SIP-thing, I susbscribed to them, and yesterday got a newsletter. I clicked on the pictures thread, which showed a trip that all of the Sip-guys took....amazing how much time guys-in-the-know spent on the side of the road, underneath their rigs. I would have thought that those guys would have had everything on their units right up to snuff and tweaked to within a hair's breadth of....reliability (?) I was going to post my impressions yesterday, but out of respect for our own vintage types, I didn't.
One of those classic trade-offs in life I guess: you get the big-style, but have to deal with the break-downs.
One of those classic trade-offs in life I guess: you get the big-style, but have to deal with the break-downs.
Johnny Redbike.
We, the unfortunate, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful.
We, the unfortunate, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful.
Usually the SIP bikes are modified to the nuts which doesn't do much for reliability. For example clutches that can take the added hp have a heavier spring which increases the force required to operate the clutch which places more strain on the clutch cable. So, clutch cables break more often than on a stock scoot.
The other bugaboo is quality. Regardless of how snazzy they look to us now, vintage scoots were built to be cheap to buy. Even OEM parts are not exactly of the highest quality. Add in even cheaper, made gawd-knows-where knock off replacement parts, and we are talking a short working life.
In contrast, modern scoots have a much simpler design, better materials and better production methods. There is just simply, by an order of magnitude, fewer things to go wrong. As a bonus, new Vespas are viewed as a "luxury" model and Piaggio can charge a bit of a premium. This leaves room for specing better quailty components right from the get go.
The other bugaboo is quality. Regardless of how snazzy they look to us now, vintage scoots were built to be cheap to buy. Even OEM parts are not exactly of the highest quality. Add in even cheaper, made gawd-knows-where knock off replacement parts, and we are talking a short working life.
In contrast, modern scoots have a much simpler design, better materials and better production methods. There is just simply, by an order of magnitude, fewer things to go wrong. As a bonus, new Vespas are viewed as a "luxury" model and Piaggio can charge a bit of a premium. This leaves room for specing better quailty components right from the get go.
Johnny It happens when guys try and squeeze out 25 horses out of an engine build for 10 max and then pin the engine for hours on end.
On Sunday I passed 2 guys parked on the side of the road, tinkering on a hotrod that had to be worth 100,000.....funny thing they have the same look of false hope on their faces as we vintage riders do...
On Sunday I passed 2 guys parked on the side of the road, tinkering on a hotrod that had to be worth 100,000.....funny thing they have the same look of false hope on their faces as we vintage riders do...
�Long live vintage motorcycles that are too tough to die...�
- Dustin Kott-
- Dustin Kott-
Re: A little evening story.
Dan you really must have had a Gooooooooood time the nite before (Saturday) as you were still obviously seeing double. There was only one Lambretta riding with you on Sunday!DoesDerbiCount? wrote:Somehow two modern scooters riding beside each other matches better then one sandwiched in between a couple of lambretta's... ;)Derbi Dan
�Long live vintage motorcycles that are too tough to die...�
- Dustin Kott-
- Dustin Kott-
- DoesDerbiCount?
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