12 inch vs 14 inch tires/wheels

[VocalNeal]

If Vespa's are as bad as you say why do they keep making them and why are they so popular !

Because quality and safety of a product often has little to do with it's popularity and success.

It is true that the SH300 was the most sold scooter in Italy for about 2 years, but people have and still do ride Vespas on cobbled streets, on rough roads, near sand in beach communities etc.. .If there are more accidents on Vespas it is because there are more Vespas.

Most stuff in Bangkok is delivered by Vespa. If you see a traffic accident in Bangkok it is very rarely a Vespa involved.

People have been riding Vespas for almost 70 years, confidentially about the same time as the populist Harley Davidson also because quality and safety of a product often has little to do with it's popularity and success.

...and i don't even like Vespa I used to be a Lambretta man.

[TT2600]

Meanwhile, the twist and go has one gear. One lonely gear.

You could also say that the CVT transmission, between full stop and max speed, has an infinite number of 'gears'

Yes, thats true. But if one or two gears is so great, why did car manufacturers like Ford stop making 2 speed autos in the mid 60’s?

Ever driven a two speed car? Horrible. You can hear the torque converter endlessly slipping while the motor revs all over the place.

Then car makers went to 3, then 4, then 5, and more recently 6 and 7 speed autos. They did this to get more fuel economy, and

better acceleration without so much strain on the engine, by being able to have a tighter tolerance on torque converter slip.

The more gears an auto has, the more narrow the ratio the torque converter can work in. Thus less TC slip and wasted fuel.

Now twist and go scooters are much lighter than cars, but the CVT as Honda call it, (fancy name for a torque converter) still has to

work on a really wide range of ratios, thus the chronic slippage, and thats the where and how they waste fuel.

Any day or night in Thailand you can hear the young guys thrashing their twist and go’s with ferver. These bikes usually have loud

exhausts, and that means you can clearly hear the engines sometimes vague connection to the back wheel. Its kind of ahhhhhhh

orrrrrrrrrrr ahhhhhhhh, as it accelerates and decelerates, as the TC connects in incriments then disconnects in increments. That

the TC in action.

In simple terms...Just like a 2 speed ford falcon of the 60’s. You can hear the torque converter endlessly slipping, as the motor

revs all over the place. And like I say, thats where its wasting fuel. Ride one at a constant speed and they are quite economical.

Ride one hard in town or in the hills and they are not.

[seedy]

But CVT transmissions do not use a torque converter.

They work the same as a snowmobile transmission, the driven pulley can move apart, allowing a large diameter at takeoff, and as road speed increases, the two halves of the pulley seperate more, allowing the belt to move deeper into the two halves, which gives a lower overall ratio between the driven and the drive pulley.

The drive pulley being non-adjustable and located on the rear wheel, connected to the driven pulley by the belt, or in some cars, a chain.

Edited January 26, 2014 by seedy

[jackcorbett]

The reason Vespas are as popular as they are is due to nostalgia. Even so, they are not nearly as popular here as such Japanese imitators as Honda and Yamaha with their Scoopy's, Fino's, Filanos, etc.

Keep in mind that it wasn't long after the 2nd World War that Vesas were introduced to Europe. Most of Europe had been devastated during the war. Certainly Italy was which had found itself on the wrong side of the conflict. Most Italians pretty much became immobile in the wake of the war and it was the Vespa which reintroduced mobility to many Italians. The Vespa was stylish, cheap to buy, and cheap to operate. Moreover, with a floorboard to insulate one's feet and legs from the elements splashing up from the road, one was not subject to the oil flung from chains and the water and grime splashing up onto the feet and legs of the motorcyclist and his passenger. But it was the film, "Roman Holiday" that really got Vespas road to success into high gear. For its day, it was a great little machine. But when one measures it against today's competition it simply does not measure up--unless that is, one is willing to sacrifice performance for a classic vehicle that recalls the past.

As for Honda Waves, and their ilk, they have their place. For example....my girlfiend's entire family owns 110 c.c. Honda Waves. The main reason is they are cheap to buy and are very easy on gas, and so many of these upcountry Thai families really cannot afford anything better, but most of us certainly can. With their four speed so called semi auto transmissions with its strange shifting pattern they have a clunky transmission that is a real bear to manage for someone who is used to the traditional one down and four or five up gear pattern most motorcycle manual transmissions use. Yuck, I hate driving those suckers. As we all seem to agree here, they won't begin to accelerate with a good twist and go. They have minuscule under the seat storage. As most of them come from the dealer they are undertired...unless one wants to sacrifice ride, stablility and safety for the utmost in fuel economy. Unless you want to mount a sidecar for a portable restaurant such as so many of these street vendors are using, who really wants one of these who can afford a modern twist and go?

Edited January 26, 2014 by jackcorbett

[BirdsandBooze]

A lot of the Japanese auto manufacturers are replacing the conventional auto transmission with CVT. My wife has a Nissan Teana and a Nissan March, both with CVT, and compared to the Mercedes she had before with conventional auto transmission the CVT Nissans drive seamlessy and are more economical even though the Teana has a larger and more powerful engine. I'm guessing the manufacturers know what's best, and CVT has come a long way since the little Dutch DAFs

[guzzi850m2]

I agree with jackcorbett, I owned 3 or 4 Waves here over the years but after I tried a twist and go I was sold.

For city riding a twist a go is king, so much easier to live with.

We currently owns a Scoopy and a PCX 150. I hate the little Scoopy but love my "sofa" PCX.

In Pattaya more and more MC Taxi drivers uses auto bikes, hell I even see a PCX as taxi bike now and again.

The Wave/Dreams are sold in fewer and fewer numbers, I wonder if you can still buy them in 10 years from now?

The PCX is quite stable even at full thottle but I added YSS rear shocks which helped and the 14" wheels seems to be doing a fine job.

[VocalNeal]

Now twist and go scooters are much lighter than cars, but the CVT as Honda call it, (fancy name for a torque converter) still has to

work on a really wide range of ratios, thus the chronic slippage, and thats the where and how they waste fuel.

With the greatest respect. A CVT bike has no torque converter because it has a clutch. The Variator simply adjusts the gear ratios depending on engine/road speed. There is minimal slippage to the point of being irrelevant, if there were the bike would not move forward.

Any day or night in Thailand you can hear the young guys thrashing their twist and go’s with ferver. These bikes usually have loud

exhausts, and that means you can clearly hear the engines sometimes vague connection to the back wheel. Its kind of ahhhhhhh

orrrrrrrrrrr ahhhhhhhh, as it accelerates and decelerates, as the TC connects in incriments then disconnects in increments. That

the TC in action.

Very interesting. I have a passing interest in CVT and what you are hearing from the “young guys” is that they have installed weights in their variators which are too light. Their variator has been incorrectly “tuned” to use the power produced at higher RPM. Because the weights are too light it means that the engine has to reach almost its maximum RPM before the ratios start to change. In effect they have no throttle but an on/off switch, it is either all or nothing. What you are hearing is rev/coast, rev/coast, rev/coast.

You can hear the torque converter endlessly slipping, as the motor

revs all over the place. And like I say, thats where its wasting fuel. Ride one at a constant speed and they are quite economical.

Ride one hard in town or in the hills and they are not.

The extra fuel used is because the engine can produce power throughout the speed range of the scooter. It is the extra performance gained that is causing the extra use of fuel. Give two Grannies two scooters, one CVT and the other conventional and if all they do is ride to the farm or the 7/11 the consumption will be very similar.

A CVT scooter with an optimized CVT will always be quicker, even uphill than a similar capacity manual bike. Because the transmission will find continually search for and use the optimum ratio for a given slope. A bike with 4 gears might get lucky on a particular slope that suits one of the gears but overall the CVT will win out.

But performance is not free, which is why the variators on stock scooters have conservative settings to emulate the fuel consumption of their manual siblings.

Sent from my mobile using Anglo-EU translation

Edited January 26, 2014 by VocalNeal

[BSJ]

I don't like the feeling of falling

Please lie on the couch. This is in your hippocampus and is a throw back to when we all used to live and sleep in trees.

On a more serious note if you don't come back home with grass on your helmet you haven't been leaning far enough!

It's good to see your creative gene is still working!

[VocalNeal]

Well if we can't have a laugh?