Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 18:31:15 -0500
Subject: Re: anarchists & voting & cycling


At 06:07 PM 5/21/04, Bob Gambs wrote:
>Still ridin' them little scooters?  I'm thinking about selling my
>motorcycle--the Queen says I'm way too old for such nonsense.  Can one of
>them Vespas pull a old 250#  guy around?

Half my club weighs that much or more (our club name is HardLuck, but I've 
heard us referred to as Hard Lunch a few times), they hold up no problem - 
we even road race them.  The new ones are over-priced, but then what 
isn't?   There's a reasonably priced Indian version called the Stella 
that's a good buy now.  When Vespa first went to India, they had a company 
called Bajaj make the scooters under license.  When Vespa pulled the 
license, Bajaj just went ahead and kept building them.  Then Vespa gave the 
license to LML, and when LML lost the license, they too kept building them, 
and now LML imports to the US as Stella.   It's funny as can be.  Piaggio, 
the Italian company that owns Vespa sued both times, and the Indian courts 
ruled against them both times.  Now the current company building official 
Indian market Vespas is wholly owned by the Italians.

cheers,
scott