I prefer to coax her. She's got me this far, I'll get her the final bit. We are a team, we work together.
Poor old bike. There are times when she runs like a dream, but there are times when she runs like a real pig. And I haven't pin-pointed the cause.
It would appear that the main problem always occurs at the end of the day and this would suggest to me that it's a temperature problem (Scott also experiences slight running problems toward the end of the day sometimes). I guess after 7 hours of continual running theres a good chance it's going to be a bit hot down there. When the problem occurs she starts to misfire which I can tolerate on fast roads by blipping the throttle, but when we come to lights or run through villages it's a challenge to keep her running without gunning the engine (and that makes me look like a right wide-boy :-(
I had a peculiar (and frightening) experience earlier today when we pulled into a petrol station - the throttle wouldn't shut down (despite the twist grip fully closed) the engine was racing away - and it wouldn't even stop when I switched the ignition off! I had to slam it into gear and stall it!
All this unreliability does take the edge off the pleasure of this ride. I'm always slightly on edge that it might fail on me. That said, when she does settle down, she is a delight to ride.
So together, me and my bike help each other along. I don't need to be an alpha-male to make her run any better, just give here a bit of TLC here and there. As Swiss-Tony would say, "running an old Vespa PX is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman"
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