New Addition and Back to the Beach

Both of us love scooters. That much is obvious. We started collecting them soon after we got together starting with Simon's dad's old Maicoletta that we rescued from the garden shed. Shortly after we snapped up a vintage Triumph Tigress but decided it wasn't for us and sold it very quickly. The Tigress ended up being replaced by a bin of parts to produce another Maicoletta. We then bought a pair of vintage Vespa Supers that had been imported from Bali (we think...), one in a creamy white that was dubbed "The Colonel" and the other in robin's egg blue. All these vintage and classic scooters are amazing and we loved them all. But alas, none of them were road legal. We decided we needed some scooters that we could ride. The Colonel was listed on trademe and we started looking. We bought the blue ET8 you all met in our last post and fixed it up and found out how great it is to ride without any pomp, circumstance, or hassle. We decided we definately needed another.
The second ET8 showed up just this week. We bought it from a lovely die hard Christian lady named Karen who had taken wonderful care of it. Despite the relatively high milage, the scooter is in great mechanical and body condition and totally warranted and registered.


There was a bit of what Karen called "sign writing" on the bike as you can see. One side pod directing you to read Galatians 2:20 and the other displaying the phrase "Jesus Wept". The top box was also covered in various religious bumper stickers. Since we will probably go with a different theme for any stickers or "sign writing" on the bike, Simon carefully removed the wording from the body and took off the top box which is to be replaced with a chrome rack matching the other bike. To honour where the bike has come from, we are for the moment calling it "JC".
Once we had some spare time, we decided to go out for a ride with both bikes. We went back to Shelley Beach since it was such a lovely ride last time and because we wanted to get some of the really awesome avacados that come from an orchard out that way.


Ready to Ride


View of Shelley Beach from a Vespa


Simon on his new scooter


Scenic shot of Simon and JC


Angelle with the bikes at Shelley Beach Store

First "real" ride

Recently we purchased a Vespa 150cc ET8 (in other markets ET4) scooter. We got it as a bit of bargain as it had been in an accident when it was nearly new and hadn't been repaired to make it road legal since. The damage was fairly minor and we were able, with Simon's garage handiness, to repair it to the standards required to pass the Warrant of Fitness and Registration checks here in NZ. The ET8 is a welcome (RIDABLE) addition to our collection of vintage scooters, none of which are able to be legally ridden at present.
So, after having the scooter for a little while in order to work on it and having taken it only down the road on very short jaunts, we were able to take it on it's first "real" ride. We live in the country and the first road you come to has a speed limit of 100km/h which is why we needed the 150cc engine at the least. For our ride, we turned right from our private road and continued about 20km to Shelly Beach. As there is only one scooter at the moment and two of us, we were riding 2up with Simon as the pilot (not an uncommon role for him since he also flies planes...). The road to Shelly Beach is winding and there was a fair amount of traffic while we were out. We easily made 80-90kms and got up to 100kms at times. There were several approving looks and hoots from children as we passed which is always fun. All in all, it was an enjoyable first ride to the beach and back. We plan to do it often this summer!

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