OWNER DETAILS
Name: Jonny Belcher.
Scooter club & town: Oxford Roadrunners SC, though I now live in Berkshire.
First interest in scooters: Around 1984 as a mini Mod aged 11.
First scooter: Vespa PK50 XL in 1989.
Favourite scooter model: Not really a favourite model but the style of design through the Fifties and Sixties really impresses me.
First ever rally: Llandudno pirate rally 1989.
How did you get there?: On the aforementioned PK50 XL, two-up with my mate Terry!
Funniest experience involving scooters: Aberystwyth 1990, with Terry on our T5 and PX, on the way to meeting the Abingdon and Didcot gang. Between us we were carrying an old-school 10-man canvas tent on our backrests (I had the canvas part). Somewhere remote in Wales my 28mm Dell’Orto cable decided to snap which prompted me to bodge a throttle cable out of the currently working clutch cable. After fixing the throttle cable off we rode, with me clutchless but at least able to move. It was only about a mile until I realised, I hadn’t screwed down the throttle slide cap properly and the whole slide mechanism sprang out of the carb, causing the engine to race at full revs! All this without a clutch. Brakes weren’t doing the trick, either. Approaching was a long bus stop so I decided to swing in at a hefty pace and knock down the gears to slow it down. From fourth to third was good but third to second or maybe it was straight into first by accident. Either way the revs shifted dramatically and with the weight of the 10-man tent on my backrest the front end shot up and I managed a wheelie with myself horizontal and practically the length of the bus stop, into a tree and with myself laid on my back for all astonished passers-by to see and for Terry to have a good laugh at, once he pulled up!
Furthest you’ve ever ridden on a scooter: Great Yarmouth going north or Venlo going south.
What would make our beloved scooters better: Personally, looking to the future, I would love Vespa to produce true retro machines with modern auto running gear or when ready, electric running gear. I had a GTV250 and really loved the retro low light style and modern performance it gave but it still lacked (to me) the personality of the older geared Vespas.