Vespa PX – London to Oz travel blog: Part 1 – Preparation and setting off | FEATURE

On Monday 6th March 2023 at noon, we watched young Irish scooter lad, Ross Dicker set off on the journey of a lifetime. A solo ride by Vespa PX 150 from London to Australia.

Sound engineer, Ross may only be 24 but he’s been dreaming of this trip since 2019. London-based Retrospective Scooters boss, Niall had done a scooter trip to India and tales of that adventure inspired Ross to seek adventure. The wheels were set in motion.

To help finance the trip, Ross has been saving hard over the last few years and was ready to set off last October but things were conspiring against him, as often happens where scooters are involved.

Follow his trip

Ross will be sending us a monthly blog (whenever possible) during his journey so you can follow the trip exclusively with ScooterLab. He’ll also be testing out some products for us, with riding kit from Tucano Urbano, boots from Furygan and a MoniMoto tracker which will work anywhere in the world.

Anyway, here’s his first blog, where he realises that sleeping is best done AFTER riding, rather than during…

I finished up in my job in London in October and the lease on my flat was up too. I was meant to have set off travelling, but due to waiting weeks for parts to arrive, I was stuck. So I was now just staying with my mates.

I was waiting for multiple parts but mainly a new wiring loom, which was ordered on the 28th of September and still hadn’t arrived. Without it, I couldn’t really continue the build.

I was in Retrospective Scooters every morning waiting to see if the order would come and after a few weeks I reordered it all as the package was nowhere to be seen. In the meantime, though I was shadowing Gotch who was building restos at the shop. I picked up as much as I could about building scooters. It was a really good learning curve. I was also slipping away from the shop the odd day to go to the travel clinic to get jabs I needed for the trip.

Parts arrive

Finally, on the 24th of October, my parcel arrived with my wiring loom, I was delighted! Gotch and I had already prepped the frame with all the correct rubbers in place, so we were able to feed the loom and cables through straight away.

Once that was done we put the strengthened stand on and we were able to start building the front end. Now that the mudguard, forks and front wheel were on we were able to put the engine, back wheel and rear shock in place.

We then had the headset bottom on and were able to start connecting all the cables and wiring throughout the bike. The build was going well, the bike was taking shape quickly and it was now nearly the end of October.

For the last weekend of the month, I headed down to Brighton to visit family for a few days. Whilst down there I went to visit a guy called Toby Young. Toby had done the same trip I plan to do back in 1999. Niall had told me about how he prepped the bike for Toby and then left him in the north of Italy to start his journey.

When Niall and I called Toby up it turned out he only lived a couple of miles from my uncle’s house in Brighton. So we arranged to meet up and he said he’d talk me through his trip and show me all his photos.

Confidence boost

Saturday 29th October, I went down to Toby’s house and we went round to his local pub and he brought a carrier bag full of folders of photos to show me. Over a couple of beers, he went through his trip in chronological order with the photos. It was really inspiring to hear his story. For a guy who wasn’t a scooterist and with no mechanical knowledge, to ride from Northern Italy to India, I was amazed. Meeting Toby definitely gave me more confidence to do the trip.

Almost ready

We were now into November and the build continued; we were now tidying up wiring throughout, fitting the tank, glovebox, seat, and crash bars. Also adding extras like the USB charging port to the glovebox etc.

Back to Dublin

Finally, just after lunchtime on the 14th of November, the bike was ready. The plan for me was to ride the new scoot home to Dublin from London. This was to run it in but also for me to see family and friends before I left to go travelling. Then once I’d come back from Dublin I’d ride back to London, service the bike and head off.

I left Retrospective at about 3 pm that day. My bike was fully loaded as I had stuff I needed to take home to leave there. The bike felt great, really comfortable and I got into a groove at about 35/40 mph, cruising along the A roads to Holyhead. It didn’t feel like hard work, just a lovely ride.

It got dark fairly soon after I left and I continued on to Wales, heading for the ferry. Stopping multiple times along the way for petrol, a hot drink or toilet break. I stopped at about six o’clock and then again at eleven. Whilst stopped for a while I texted Niall to say ‘The bike is running great, I’m 90 miles from the ferry’.

Crash testing

I continued on into the night and it was about twelve now. My sat nav was acting up and it took me off the A road and through some little town in Wales but I soon found my way back to the correct road. The roads were completely pitch black and I was riding slowly, only doing about 30mph as the rain was bad too. There were no lights at all on most of the roads. I was getting tired but continued on. Then suddenly at about 1 am my eyes closed for a split second. When they opened I had veered off the side of the road and into the grass. By the time my eyes opened, it was too late and the bike had slid and tumbled along the grass. Luckily there were no cars around. I couldn’t believe what I let happen. I jumped up grabbed the bike and put it on the stand. I hadn’t hurt myself, to my amazement, but the bike had taken a beating.

At first glance, my luggage was hanging off as were the side panels. The screen was smashed and the fibreglass front mudguard was broken. The bars weren’t in line with the front wheel either. I quickly got my head torch out so I could see and tried to get the bars back in line, I wasn’t worried about the other stuff. After a few minutes, I realised it was no use, the headset had cracked right at the pinch bolt. Even though the bike was still running I was going nowhere.

I was now stuck 70 miles from Holyhead in the dark at about two in the morning. Just as I was calling the AA to try and get recovered, to my amazement a traffic police car went past me on the other side of the road. He turned around and came back to see if I was alright. We got a local 24-hour recovery garage to collect me and by this stage, it was 3 am. The recovery man was very helpful and left me at the local station as nothing was open.

Sleeping rough

I tried ringing every hotel in the area to get a room but everywhere was full or closed. So I ended up just sleeping in a doorway of the station till it opened at seven. I bought a sail and rail ticket to Dublin and hopped on the first train to Holyhead that morning and got the first ferry.

By the time I’d gotten on the ferry, I was shattered. It had been a long and eventful night. I got a cabin and slept for the whole crossing. I was really upset with myself for what happened but still managed to make a joke about it. I was coming back to Dublin the way I’d left three years ago, as a foot passenger on the ferry.

I called Niall the next day and told him the bad news. I couldn’t tell him and Gotch how sorry I was. They were just happy I was alright and glad it happened now rather than in the Middle East where they wouldn’t be able to help as much.

Family Christmas

I said to Niall that maybe it was best I stayed at home till the new year and enjoy Christmas, which would also give him and Gotch time to fix the mess I’d made.

The following day after getting home. I was riding to work on a cutdown T5. Within a day I’d gotten a lend of a scooter and was working for my uncle’s construction company. I felt like I was 18 again. It did make me laugh at how funny life is. Part of me thinks I wasn’t meant to leave to travel then and that it happened for a reason…

To be continued…

Ross Dicker

The scooter

The choice of scooter is important when planning a long-distance adventure, you don’t always need lots of power. Reliability, ease of maintenance and availability of spare parts in remote parts of the world are the most important considerations.

Naiomi, (pictured sitting on her red PX) a customer of Retrospective had a PX that she was no longer using, she’d christened it ‘Nancy’ and was happy to sell it back to the shop so it could have an amazing adventure.

The 150cc two-stroke PX engine is a good solid workhorse. It’s relatively easy to repair, the parts are pretty interchangeable and it’s easier to get 150cc spares than it is 200 in many parts of the world. So that was to be the weapon of choice.

Modifications

Last autumn I was down at Retrospective and Niall showed me the frame which was being prepared for paint. At that time the plan was to fit an aluminium central brace which would strengthen the frame and give somewhere for a jerry can to be secured. That idea was scrapped though so that Ross could use a central tunnel bag for his main luggage.

Keeping the luggage between your legs is good for weight distribution but makes reaching the rear brake on a PX a bit trickier and can be cumbersome. It also traps in the air, making you feel hotter in extreme temperatures. On a trip like this though some compromises have to be made.

How and why

Niall talks us through the scooter build and subtle but important modifications in the video above. The scooter has been built to be practical, rather than to look good, although it was looking prettier before Ross had his Welsh accident. On a trip like this, it will be getting bashed about a bit so the paintwork isn’t overly important. Although the colour was chosen to make it easier to see.

Setting off

On the morning of his departure, Ross was looking fairly relaxed. In fact, I’d say I’ll be feeling more stressed when I set off to Scarborough at Easter! In the video above he talks us through his trip and tells us a bit about his scootering history.

In typical last-minute scooter fashion, the scooter was still being messed about with not long before it was time to load it up. The carburation was checked, racks tie wrapped down, bits hacksawed off the humungous flyscreen to allow clearance for luggage. The usual kind of stuff.

Weight saving

Tools and spares were being thrown into the top box and mechanic, Gotch handed Ross a torque wrench and a printout of torque setting to take on the trip. Meanwhile, Niall was worrying about the weight of the load and telling Ross to bin anything he doesn’t need to carry. Again, my scooter is usually loaded up way more than this for a weekend away.

Emotional farewell?

There were no tears, stress or drama. Ross bungeed the Roller bag in between the seat and legshields, stuck a petrol can on the rear, got his kit on and was ready to go. All the lads from the shop came out to offer words of encouragement, like ‘Try and stay awake…’ and ‘Take it easy, stop if you need to’ before the scooter was kicked into life and he was off towards Southampton for an overnight ferry to Spain.

Spain

Ross is currently riding through Spain, pictured here today he’s now staying with his twin brother in Corûna.