Trigger Happy

A voice from the Young Guns SC I’ve said a lot lately about our club’s adventures in Europe and, apart from a couple of hiccups, it was a trip full of happy memories. But as much as scooters can keep giving with one hand, they really do take with the oth

Ionce again had plenty of time to ponder the highs and lows of scooter ownership, when I was recently awaiting recovery en route home from the now infamous York SC rally. Twice in as many weeks a stator plate bolt had come loose, twice smashing up a BGM flywheel, one of which I’d just bought and fitted at Venlo. However, this was not the most heart-wrenching breakdown I’d ever suffered. In fact a repair was quite easy to undertake but I just needed to get to the bottom of why the bolts were coming loose.

A lot of things are a case of trial and error, but the inexperience of youth can make the errors many times more catastrophic. I think back to when I first bought my Lambretta and recall some of the trials and tribulations I had to suffer to get where I am now. I picked up a copy of Sticky’s book and methodically rebuilt my Jet 200 engine, along with all the trick goodies I could then afford. A tuned engine soon showed any frailties in my component selection (or build quality) and after soldiering on through tedious breakdown after tedious breakdown, I was finally beginning to get a small degree of reliability. So I sent the top end off to tuning guru and club mate Shaggy for a little tweak. I hastily rebuilt the top end and it performed well, really well in fact.

I was pulling incredibly high gearing and clocking some very respectable speeds. Racing home from work one evening though, my euphoria was about to be crushed... Any of sense of achievement in my engine building skills was immediately removed when I heard the sound of raw metal smashing against itself. To add insult to injury I had to push the damned thing up a huge hill to get it home! With a bottle of beer in one hand, and my head in the other, I proceeded to inspect the damage. It was truly a gut-churning moment to start pulling out huge chunks of engine casing from the inlet manifold.

I had to take the engine out to get the full picture of the damage: the con rod had snapped, cutting a huge gash through the piston, through the barrel and worse… through the damn engine casing! It shows how quickly you can go from feeling on top of the world to having your soul destroyed. It can either make you want to jack it in, or cherish the good times while they last!

It’s strange how we can form such sentimental bonds with our scooters, even after such short periods of time. Not just how we can feel sentiment towards the machine, but how we can feel grief if it is involved in an accident.

Dan, from Southampton, tells his own tale: “My PX was an 18th birthday present that I’d got a few months early for the start of the rally season. It was something that meant the world to me; I carefully spent time making some simply tuning modifications and creating a Red Bull paint scheme. Unfortunately, my good mood was not going to last… I was on my way to work one morning and approached a roundabout, when a car came flying out from the left, not giving way!

“I smashed straight into the side of it. In the accident I broke my femur, collar bone and fingers, leaving me needing months of physio. It wasn’t the physical damage that I’d suffered that hurt most, but the fact my pride and joy, my birthday present was destroyed. The PX was a write off, but straight away I was looking for another, I needed something to fill the gap! One thing that did give me faith in humans however, was the daily hospital visits from friends, family and fellow scooterists.”

It wasn’t the physical damage that I’d suffered that hurt most, but the fact my pride and joy, my birthday present was destroyed. The PX was a write off...