When I tell women that I ride motorcycles, numbers flow, and my calendar fills with date nights. I’m afraid to park up, stop at the lights, or head to the gas station because I don’t have the patience to say, “Sorry, not today, I just want to ride in peace.” These were the dreams, along with racing in MotoGP, that I’ll let 9-year-old Robbie keep believing.
Imagine my surprise, then, when a Vespa GTS SuperTech 310 did more for my love life than any motorcycle I’ve ever ridden.
I wasn’t living a loveless Ted Mosby life, actually. I’d fallen madly for my girlfriend, and things were going great. So when she agreed to ride backpack with me from Mexico City to Guadalajara on a Vespa—nine hours, flat out on the highway—I thought she was either too good to be true or didn’t know any better. Two things can be true at the same time.
Unbeknownst to me, this trip kick-started a relationship where my obsession with riding was a good thing. But it wasn’t just the trip; the Vespa added its own sprinkle of magic. The bike made us look at life differently—everything became a date, an event.
Instead of begrudgingly taking Ubers to the supermarket or paying over the odds for delivery, we had supermarket dates on the Vespa. Whatever the underseat storage could hold—usually about three days' worth of food each—we bought, and we were saving money because the 310 GTS sips fuel like Ebenezer Scrooge spends money.
Vespa dates became addictive. With the money we were saving on transport, we had more to spend on actual dates, and more time in the evenings thanks to the bike’s manners through traffic. I started seeing every movie I wanted at the cinema, and on a completely unrelated note: did you know that two takeaway ramen easily fit in the 310 GTS’s underseat storage, and most helmets will easily conceal at least one?
From the moment we had the urge or need to do something and could get the Vespa involved, nicknamed ‘The Beast’, it became an event. Every new activity that we tried gave birth to an even greater adventure down the line, and, before long, weekend escapes were on the agenda, which was not the case for the two of us on my Triumph Street Triple.
The price of Ubers, the inconvenience of public transport, and the time spent in traffic meant leaving on a Friday and coming back on Sunday was a waste of time and money. But now, with ‘The Beast’, we could look up last-minute deals on Friday morning, burn through our work, stuff a go-bag under the seat, and arrive at some town in the mountains before the sun was down. Likewise, an early rise on Monday morning had us back in time for work.
I never spent more than $10 on gas for any of our trips, but forget the money I saved because time is the ultimate currency. One Friday afternoon, before setting off to go glamping, I saw it took 1 hour, 37 minutes to reach our destination on Google Maps, but 46 minutes later, we were there. Side note: I’d never been glamping in my life, but during my six weeks with The Beast, I went twice. These are the kinds of adventures the bike inspired.
Some of you might be envisioning Jason Segel on his Vespa in I Love You Man, but the ride was surprisingly comfortable, even two-up. The pillion seat could support the ass of a sumo wrestler, meaning my girlfriend felt like she was riding on an L-sofa, and that was probably the thing that sealed the deal because the pillion seat on the Street Triple was a no-no. The upright riding position and weather protection in the footwells meant these were some of the easiest sub-two-hour trips I’d ever ridden.
This mightn’t sound revolutionary. You might even think, “I can literally do that in my car.” It’s not the same. Between time in traffic and money spent on fuel, cars don’t inspire the same want of sporadic adventure. Even compared to a dedicated touring or adventure bike, it still feels like more effort and, more importantly, less of an adventure than on the Vespa.
For big two-up trips, I’ll still take the big bike, thanks. And for twisties, you’d have to tackle me off my Street Triple. But for everyday stuff, around the city or nearby towns with the person you love, I’d take the 310 GTS.
