Courtesy of Ken, NY Scooter Club

I finally got the old Vespa out of the backyard, and began the cleaning and tweaking process, to get her ready for the riding season.  Going over every inch of her, detailing the lines and curves, has made me fall in love all over again.  It’s a beautiful design, and it’s something that I have always wanted.  A nice looking scooter, for my 2-wheeled adventures.

When I first got this scooter, and started frequenting the bogs and forums, I was hit back with a resounding, “be prepared for it to be wrecked.  It WILL get knocked over!”  The NY Scooter Club has a thread dedicated to it!  This is obviously the last thing I wanted to hear, and I tried my best not to let these opinions (or were they fact?) seep into my enjoyment of this beautiful machine.  I wanted so badly for my experience to be carefree, but as time went on, and I took a look around at other bikes on the street (it’s amazing how many more scooters you see once you own one), I realized that these people were probably right.  In open lots, I did everything in my power to park away from other cars.  At home, I was lucky enough to be able to keep it on the sidewalk directly against our building, away from careless drivers.  These seemed to have been decent precautionary steps, because I made it through my very first riding season without any serious damage (OK, I scuffed the fender parking too close to a fence, but that was ME messing it up!).

The other day a friend of mine, who collects and refurbishes vintage motorcycles, told me he is thinking of selling one of his prized possessions, because he fears what might happen to it if he treats it like a daily rider.  Despite his skills with wrench and paint, he considers himself a rider, first and foremost.  He does not put in the blood, sweat and tears, to have it sit in a museum.  These bikes get overhauled, and then he hops aboard, and off he goes, into the streets of this potentially damaging metropolis.  The motorcycle in question, a 1971 Honda CB750, has become quite the collector’s item.  Motorcycle enthusiasts covet these bikes, considered to be among the very first “sport bikes (think early 70′s Ninja).

The problem is, he feels he may have made it too nice.  The idea of having a 40 year old bike, restored to near mint condition, has made him start to wonder if it’s in fact too sweet, for the streets of Brooklyn.  He worries each time he takes it out, fearful that this might be the time that someone backs into it while attempting to parallel park, or a kid might be just drunk enough to feel the need to mess with it.  These are the things that run through your mid when you ride a nice, perhaps too nice,  2-wheeler in this city.

So he has mentioned selling it, wondering whether it might be best served by an owner in the suburbs, who has a perfect space for it, in a secure garage.  It would be sad to see it go.  It is a bike that he has wanted to own for quite some time, and after all the work he has put into it, it would be a shame to forfeit this enjoyment he has earned.  But I understand his reservations.  I can feel his apprehension each time he pulls it into traffic, or parks it, perfectly legally, on a side street in his neighborhood.  The reason I can relate. is that I feel these same apprehensions with my vintage Vespa.

I made it through one riding season, unscathed.  But how long can this last?  Is the sight of my bike, knocked over on it’s side, bleeding gas and oil, only a matter of time?  That is a day, and a sight, I do not care to experience, yet it seems, according to many NYC scooter owners, to be an inevitable reality of owning a nice bike in this city…

How nice is too nice?

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