Could some one tell me how many bleeding barns there are in this country please?? as a hobby I rebuild classic mopeds or vespas if and when I can find decent ones and not too far to travel to, but on every page I look at on ebay nowadays its all barn find, barn find, barn find, are these people taking the p... or what\////
With the need now, to register motor vehicles as 'Sorn' perhaps all those people with old mopeds and vespas stuck in their barns for years are getting worried and flogging them off on ebay.
lambies couldn't keep up with the bees mate, in Italy I use to race them, we were the original cut and trim vespas, I was only 14 when I won my first ever race from Sorrento to Amalfi and back, boy that was FUN.
In my youth I was in the merchant navy. I can't remember now if it was Italy or Spain but you could hire motorcycles and scooters. No licence or crash helmet required.
I now have a full motorcycle licence but at that time I had only ever driven a car. I can recall trying to hire a motorcycle with some mates and I couldn't coordinate the throttle and clutch and after nearly upending the bike the chap hiring it wouldn't give me one so my mates went off on their own.
Later in the evening one of my mates turned up in a dishevelled state. Apparently his bike had caught fire and he fell off it and abandoned it somewhere and daren't go back and tell the hire place - lol
My loyalty to Lambrettas is that my dad had one and built a sidecar for it. Being a cabinet maker by trade he was a perfectionist and built the sidecar so watertight (and airtight) that my mum nearly suffocated on the first trip in it
Good days and you've brought back some good memories for me
Oh yes those were the days! 1966 and me on my Vespa 150 complete with chrome crash protectors, spotlights, whip aerial with a tiger's tail attached. I almost forgot the parka (on me not the Vespa).
Anyway I'm still riding motorcycles and have been through every make and style from superbikes to mopeds. And you know what? I'm back on scooters (without all the gubbins though) but nowadays it is a 400cc Suzuki Bergman - like the Vespa on steroids!
Anyway about the barn finds. There is only ONE barn but it is a flipping BIG one and it is crammed with old cars and bikes...