Tastes in Trade

Sometimes they leave me too. Adios, CH250.

I was contacted by an acquaintance I knew through reddit.  He had seen that I also had a Vespa project going and asked if I might help him with reconnecting the cables on his 1963 Vespa VNB. I said I would be happy to help as I was about to go through the process with mine and would have the immediate experience working with them. 

I knew from reddit that he rides a Honda Ruckus and had once ridden from Austin down to Eagle Pass on the Mexican border. That, of course, just impresses the shit out of me. Riding a 50cc bike that far on those roads definitely takes perseverance and balls. In our discussion of that trip and Hondas in general he mentioned that he'd like to get a Honda Helix. The Ruckus was too small for some places where a motorcycle (his other ride) was too big and impractical. The Helix was the continuation of the Elite 250 and shares the same basic frame and engine. 

Well as it turns out, I had an Elite 250 out in the driveway. I had picked it up to work on after I had such a good experience with the Elite 150s. It came with a complete set of black panels with gold trim and in my Craigslist searching, I had picked up another nicer and complete set of the same black panels for free. The bike they came from was somehow used for launching hang gliders!! I am really not sure how that went down. (I will make a note to call the owner of the hang gliding company and ask. Maybe I will have a Scooter, Texas special report on it!)

My acquaintance expressed interest in the Elite 250. He said he enjoyed the Japanese bikes and liked the Japanese mod style, low and clean. He also said that he was less interested in the Italian bikes for the same reason, the metal unibodies (monocoque) weren't very good for structural modification. 

In the long and short of it, we decided to trade scooters. I love the Hondas for sure. I have an Elite 80 out in the driveway I am working on now. But I could tell we were both more interested in the other bike. So today I loaded up the CH250 and all of the MANY spare parts and panels (2 OEM seats!) and drove over and had a great time talking with him and trading shop talk and riding stories. He's signed up the September Rally and we talked about going for some rides around Austin in the meantime. I think we both came away from the trade satisfied with our new bikes. 

This is a 1963 Vespa VNB. It has a 125cc engine with a 166cc top end and an aftermarket foam intake filter and carburetor. I got a box with a lot of the original parts along with it as well. 

The first thing I am going to do is slap a Texas flag sticker over the Union Jack. No offense to the Brits, but I have to represent!!

The body is in good condition with only a little rust here and there. It was repainted at some point with inferior paint and it has crackled some which actually makes for a great patina. You can see that the  original center stand has been replaced with a kick stand. This was done to accommodate an aftermarket muffler which is now gone. With the original stock muffler in place, I will go ahead and reinstall the original center stand. It's nice to get extra parts along with it. I will begin work resetting all the cables this week.

"Sembra una vespa"

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Now some patina porn: