Spare Engine

It has been a while since posting about the recent Scooter Cannonball Run.  Writing every day was cool, but not much to write about since.  Until yesterday.

There was a posting in Modern Vespa last month about a wrecked 5000 mile Vespa GT that was disassembled and parts made available to purchase.

Those parts included an engine.  With Rocket at over 71,000 miles and Razzo making a strange knocking sound, I thought it to be a good idea to go ahead and purchase this one.

I wasn't a good blogger because I didn't take photos of the parts or nice family, but I did get some photos of the long ride yesterday.  760 miles in an Acura TSX.  It is a great touring car.

They live north of Atlanta, a 375 mile ride up I-75.

I left at 7:00 to meet them at 1:00 at their house.  The ride up was pleasant enough on I-10 to I-75 near Lake City, FL, but traffic steadily increased as I drove north.  Around Macon I was in fast moving packed traffic.  As I approached Atlanta I rode through an area where I could see that construction had traffic backed up for miles.  I knew that I didn't want to go back through that.  In Atlanta, traffic moved quickly but it was not pleasant to have so many cars on the same highway.

Near Macon on I-75.  Traffic actually much worse than it looks here.

Approaching downtown Atlanta.  The Garmin said to stay on I-75 but kept directing me to the exits.  I didn't trust it and made my way without making mistakes.

Bad photo of downtown Atlanta.

 

Near where Sam lived for his year at Georgia Tech.

I was early arriving, so I stopped at a Wendy's for lunch.  Then arrived at exactly 1:00.

Parts purchased included the complete engine and transmission (all in one piece), two wheels with decent tires and the exhaust system.  I would have gladly purchased the entire damaged scooter before disassembly for probably more than they are going to get for the parts, but I am pleased with my parts.

After visiting for a few minutes, I headed back.  The problem is that I was too lazy to stop and program a route on the Garmin, so I picked a few waypoints and headed out.  The Garmin alone is not a good way to plan routes.  Because it shows such a limited amount of information on screen, it requires matching shapes of roads for picking waypoints.  Then, simply touching the screen can send the pick in the total opposite direction.

I stopped for gas shortly after leaving and picked a point off I-20 to head south to home.  Then accidentally picked another location in the opposite direction.  Luckily I realized this quickly and only lost a few minutes.

The opposite of I-75.  I had pleasant roads to myself the entire way home.

Pecan Trees

The highlight of the ride home was riding through the beautiful small town of Monticello.  All of the houses were fine houses, well maintained.  Of course the Monticello Bank had to copy Jefferson's house of the same name.

A drive by photo of a house in Monticello

The Bank of Monticello.  Did Jefferson live here?

I avoided I-75 and Atlanta, but rode on I-285, I-20 and I-16 for a total of around 100 miles of the trip.  All of these were better than I-75.  The trip home took almost seven hours, but was much better than five on those highways.

I much prefer back roads.

Because you never know what you might see.

Architectural comment:  That base doesn't appear to be the right size for Lady Liberty.