Hindsight - after trip info

The tour is over and I guess this blog will stay here a while and may be of benefit to future two wheel tourers. To finish off, here is some wisedom that only hindsight brings. I will give general information first and then follow it with country specific. If there is something that I have missed fell free to email me.


Vespa Touring Tip 1: Paperwork is the hardest thing about Vespa touring

We had real problems registering our scooters because no one in the UK will insure non-residents (no insurance = no registration). The only way to get around the problem is to get a UK residient to register the scooters and have an insurance policy that allows non-residents as named riders.

Related Links (so you can find out the latest info):

Friendly advice available from fellow two-wheeled travellers www.horizonsunlimited.com

Maria Alessie will do her best to provide insurance (which is possible if you are exporting a vehicle)
Www.alessie.com

Knop Tours can provide greencard insurance www.knopftours.com

The UK Licensing people (DVLA) offer helpful advice via email www.dvla.gov.uk

British Insurance Brokers Association can attempt to point you at an insurer (note that this is different to the Association of British Insurers who will not) www.BIBA.org.uk

Norwich Union Direct may not insure you but they did inform me that they do allow non-residents to be named drivers www.norwichunion.com/nud.

In summary for this tip, sort it out before you leave. Even bank transfers are a headache from the UK (and the greencard insurance companies don't take credit cards).


Vespa Touring Tip 2: Take a GPS! Mine cost AUS$150 off ebay and it has been the best money that I have spent.

Vespa Touring Tip 3: Philip's Multiscale Europe 2005 Map was another great purchase. It has Lat + Lon, which allows you to enter points into the GPS straight off the map (take a ruler to help get accuracy down to a few km). The map also indicates scenic roads with green, almost every green road we went on was a fantastic motorcycle/scooter road.

Vespa Touring Tip 4: Use hard case luggage, so that you can park your scooter and not have to lug everything around (of course never leave anything too valuable). Niall gave us brilliant lock which we could lock our scooters, helmets and stinky fuel can in all sorts of ways.

Vespa Touring Tip 5: Our hard case luggage were Samsonite cases. These were great because we could unbolt them and wheel them with us to the hotel/campsite etc. In hindsight, 80% of the stuff is not used each night. Next time I would have two boxes, one permanent on the scooter and one carry away (but which is still secure when fitted). When you need 100% of the stuff is only when you are camping, then the scooter is beside you anyway. I am in the process of implementing the better luggage system, so check out the Internetscooter Project site for details.

Vespa Touring Tip 6: Big tent! We didn't do much camping but when we did my big 4 man tent was a blessing. All our gear fitted in the tent, without use having to try and sleep with our legs banging against helmets. I could stand up to get dressed, it was luxury. It was only 8.5Kg, so the main sacrifice was space.

Vespa Touring Tip 7: The Lonely Planet guides are good but be aware that they are backpacker centric. A backpacker arrives by train in the centre of the city and walks about. We have to drive through peak hour traffic, through shitty looking suburbs in choking smog. That small town just before the big one, that Lonely Planet doesn't know about, may be a better bet, because it hasn't cost you 2 hours of frustration to pay twice the price for a hotel.

Vespa Touring Tip 8: More power! When I toured over 10 years ago, 100Km/hr was not too bad a speed. However, now you need to go at least 110Km/hr (if not 120Km/hr) to keep the groove on motorways (i.e. to not be the slowest). Also Vespa speedo’s lie by about +10Km/hr. Vespa have done nothing to the Vespa PX 200 over the past 25 years to improve speed (if anything they are slower). So I am experimenting with reliable but fast engine modifications with a 213cc Pinasco Kit, Sito Plus exhaust and Vortex Carb (along with some engine temp gauges). Again check out the internetscooter project to see if I get a Vespa doing 110-120Km/hr reliably. Also don’t think about touring on a 50cc Vespa (I’ve had a few questions on this), I’d rather ride a bicycle and use the train to get to locations.


Country specific bullets points:


UK
- note the insurance problems above
- watch out for traffic cameras, they are everywhere and not just for speed, so learn the rules of where you can get caught (e.g. Bus lanes are one)
- you can’t park on the footpath

France
- fill up when you see a petrol station with staff in it and have a fuel can. Their automatic machines don't take foreign credits cards (have cash, an alternative is to give a local money to buy you petrol)
- a motorcyclist passing and swinging his foot in your direction is not threating to kick you off, they are just waving with their foot (because their right hand is on the throttle).

Italy
- Have cash, some of their automatic petrol stations take Euros (note - some stations shut for lunch).
- in tourist traps, public toilets are a good place to get water. The W/C’s have vending machines, which will sell water for half a euro (where in a shop might sell it for 2 euros and a restaurant 6 euros)

Switzerland
- even in Spring the mountain passes are snowy and some are not open. Try and check before you go to see if a pass is open (we missed Interlaken because we couldn’t get through).
- Swiss auto petrol stations take foreign credit cards

London, England

As promised here is the last diary entries on our trip. I am in the process of creating a "debrief" for those interested in the technical details (e.g. Insurance, tips, etc). I am also in the process of making my Vespa in Australia a custom tourer, ready for the Dubbo scooter run (812Km away). I will add details to the Internetscooter Project page, so keep an eye on that if you are interested in making your scooter a super tourer :)

London, England, Wednesday (1/06/05)

We are now back at our starting point, back with our friends in London. The scooters made it fine, the damage report below...

- 7,000+ Km added to clock (Vespa speedo error taken into account)
- Laura's left wing mirror feel off (looks like it was damaged before we left)
- Scratches to Laura's front guard and side panel (from falling off stand twice)
- Scratches added to in Laura's scooter by Brighton wankers
- Loads of dead bugs
- Luggage system a bit wobbley but still secure and intact (better brackets required next time)
- One flat tyre

To fill in the rest of the details between Paris and London, here is the poop...


Rouen, Monday

We left from Paris after doing some scooter shopping at Department Scooter. Hmmm, probably the least friendly service that we had in France, maybe we should have turned up on the packed up scooters or maybe they weren't bothering to rip us off like the hotel did. Anyway Laura got her Paris Vespa legwarmer for her scooter, a very good souvenir.

We then headed to Rouen via a Versailles and a green road. Versailles was mostly closed but we got to do a turn around the gardens (or at least a portion of them). Very impressive even with the fountains turned off and the maintainence trucks driving around.



The green road that we took this time was a bad one. Loads of small villages, one after the other and no road signs as to how to get to the next. What should have been a short pleasant trip took about 6 hours. We got to Rouen and did not do much after but eat and go to bed.


Brighton, Tuesday

Checkout time was 11:30, so we did a quick 1 hour tour of Rouen in the morning. We packed up and then headed for Dieppe, worried about not being able to get on the 4:30PM ferry to Newhaven. We got there by 12:30PM and with some ummming and erring by the ticket person we were booked.

We did another 1 houir tour and had one last quatre fromage pizza in France. We were on the ferry by 3:45PM and found that it was a pretty shitty ferry compared to the one over.



We go into Brighton late and the first places we tried were booked out. After following some suggests from the hostel, we got a room around 9:30pm.


London, Last leg

We parked the scooters in a motorcycle parking spot a few streets away. The next day we found that both Laura and my scooter had been kicked over!!! The scooters either side were left alone (or their owners had also found the kicked and righted them). Needless to say Brighton is not on my favourite list, we had travelled 7,000Km+ without incident but less than 12 hours in Brighton we had vandals attack our scooters for no reason. Fortunately, my scooter which had no damage to start with, was saved by the back box and Laura's was only scratched on top of.the previous scraps.

We righted the scooters and then did a quick tour of Brighton. We saw the mesuem where the local Vespa club had a display to try and show that Vespa's were not evil (i.e. There were Vespa's before Mod riots). The museum was good but the vandals left a bad taste in my mouth (no sticker bought to advertise that I had been there).

Next we took the short road back to London, with the long treck across London to Niall's... Our journey over!