The plan really was simple. The moment it was announced that this year’s Vespa World Days was to be held in Piaggio’s hometown of Pontedera, both Brad and I knew it was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. With accommodation booked on the night that the date was confirmed, all we had to do was plan how to get there. The event’s April date meant that there was no more than a 50/50 chance of passes over the Alps being open, and with work commitments for both of us making time tight, we took the reluctant choice to be ‘van wankers’ for part of the journey. Fortunately, Brad has a family connection near Montpellier, meaning we could van the scoots through France in one hit, take a day to recover and then ride the Mediterranean coast down to Pontedera. On the way we’d take in one of our favourite roads, the Passo del Bracco and tick another off our bucket list, the Gorges du Verdon.
The route also had the advantage of putting our newly completed Polini engines to work. As regular readers may recall, we’ve been running this test for some time now; my PX has adopted a ‘keep it simple’ approach, with components simply bolted on while Brad has been more refined, matching the casings in an effort to extract a little more power. Over the winter we’d decided to take the kits a little further by stroking
