The Serrania de Ronda is one of the prettiest parts of Spain, filled with Pueblos Blancos, Natural Parques, and any number of endemic species, some of them only found within a very small area of the Serrania. But this weird looking scooter is the rarest. It is in fact the first one of its kind I've ever seen anywhere on my travels around the world.
I'm sure we've all seen bicycles with small 2-stroke engines attached, and of course we all know what a motorbike is supposed to look like, heck even scooters have a definite shape, but this thing is a cross between all three. It's the shape of a small motorbike, has the ease of use that comes in a scooter, and the pedals of a bicycle.
With the number of cyclists in Spain, many of whom could easily ride between the major cities in a single day, I guess I should have expected to see something like this, but let me tell you how we came across this little beast.
We were driving into Ronda up a steep hill and away in the distance we could see what looked like an old man cycling ahead of us, "Poor bastard", I said, "imagine cycling up this hill". She of course agreed, and we proceeded to discuss the lack of good public transport on this road until we got closer and realized the old chap was pedaling a motorbike, which struck as really odd.
I had to overtake him just so could get a look, and this machine is what we saw, I wish I'd had the camera ready while he was still on it going up that hill. I think the engine is tiny, only a few horsepower, and on flat ground they go well but uphills the rider has to pedal otherwise they'd start going backwards. Bizarre!
We never expected to see it parked on the side of the road after our shopping but there it was, the self same machine we'd passed on that hill. I had to whip out the camera and take a couple of snapshots, but I didn't want to be too obvious about in case someone thought I was stealing it, and there were a bunch of tourists coming up the road behind us.
Anyway, I've trawled the 'net trying to find out anything at all about this machine and the only thing I could find was a photo from Madrid of a similar model but at least it confirmed the label on the back of it, which said MotoVespa, was actually correct.
jorge said,
Friday, April 25. 2008 at 16:37 (Reply)
Bill said,
Sunday, April 27. 2008 at 15:00 (Reply)
Javier said,
Monday, May 12. 2008 at 06:57 (Reply)
That motorbike is made in italy, the name of the company who make it is Piagio, is a tipical motorbike here in spain and another countries of the mediterranean coast, but is only used in small cities or villages... en big cityes is very very dificult to see one of these.
That model is a vespino sc i think, my grandparents have one in the village, the pedals working if u dont have gasoline =)))
Saludos.