June 2013 Archives

Nice street scene, somewhere in the Netherlands in the 50's.

Oh fashion world... is there anything you can't do with photoshop? If you can make models look taller and superhuman, you certainly can remove a scooter's centerstand!

As you may recall, I had recently purchased on the hot new "Clubman" style exhausts made by BGM.  (get yours here). I thought it would be a straight up fit, but alas, I was mistaken.  The exhaust header would not clear the fins on my cylinder.  (photos here) 

With that problem, it seemed only brute force would be my solution.  So I got out the trusty Dremel tool and got to grinding.  I roughly marked where I thought the header was hitting the cylinder, and cut away.  As you can see in the photo above, I got the small bit off that was interfering.  Then I cinched up the header.  You can clearly see how beefy and huge it is.  Nice!  As an added bonus, I should be able to get the pipe and u-bend off without taking off the motor tin.  I like it.

Here is the pipe on the scooter.  As you can see, it looks totally stock.  I can report that, at idle, it is surprisingly quiet.  It is almost as quiet as a stock scooter.  However, once you get on the throttle for any amount, it gets loud quickly.  No big shock, I mean, it is a performance exhaust.  I can also say that this scooter is crazy fast with this pipe on it.  I still have to do some jetting work, but it just feels like it wants to rip through every gear.  It is very very quick.  (note, the motor is a mildly street tuned 175 with a mikuni flat slide)

Last month I got a chance to join up with other Lambrettisti on the annual LALO rally in San Francisco.  LALO is the "Loose Association of Lambretta Owners," which really isn't an actual group, but just a few guys that organize this ride every year.  It is Lambretta only.  I think I've been on every one they have hosted.  Usually I truck over from Oakland, but this year I rode over the Bay Bridge with my pal Pelayo.

The San Francisco area has a high concentration of classic scooters, and a ton of Lambrettas are among them.  I guess that there were about 40 scooters on the ride this year.  Some years have seen huge turnouts.