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#34
Christmas 2013
After another long hiatus Scoot NZ is back for Christmas 2013. Mille fever is well under way as the third event gears up for April 2014 - plenty of riders are back for more, although some of the
teams have changed members. Since Scoot NZ last published the new lambretta LN125 and LN151 range has started selling - and the geared, four stroke Indian LML Star 200.
Contents Editor’s Note Mille Miglia Scooter Challenge
1 2-4
Taupo Scooter Rally
5
Obituaries
8
John Patterson Graeme Sherburd
8-10 9 11
Canscoot Show Weekend ride Luit Bieringa - LI125’s
12-13 15-18
Scoot NZ PO Box 5392 Lambton Quay Wellington 6145 By appointment: Mibar House, L3 85 Victoria Street Te Aro Wellington 6011 Jess Corbett 021 10 595 10 jess@scootnz.co.nz facebook.com/scootnz Twitter @scootnz ISSN 1178-7643
Back page - Jacoba Dijkman Front cover: Luit Bieringa and Jan on Luit’s lambretta. Photographer unknown.
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In the last two years an exciting new event has been created in New Zealand scootering. The Mille Miglia Scooter Challenge first occurred in 2012, successfully repeated in 2013, and the 2014 event is gearing up now, with a large jump in participants and rumours of overseas entrants. Entry priority
for 2014 goes to previous participants, with any remaining places opening to others in November 2013.
Winners: 2012
Winners: 2013
Team Fester
Team Schnauzer
Matt Brookes
Matt Gerrard
Yuri Erakovich
Yuri Erakovich
Nick Gill
Fran Linehan
Further details at: www.millemiglia.co.nz
Photos supplied by the organiser of the MM - collated from contributions by participants and spectators.
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Taupo Scooter Rally Clunk SC - Oct 2012
Another good rally held in October 2012, organised by Clunk SC. Highlights included a demonstration ride at the racetrack. Photos: Jess Corbett
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Thursday 5th December saw the Wellington unveiling by Motorad of the new Vespa 946 at Caffe L’Affare. Scootwell turned out in force. Doug Coutts even won a new helmet in the raffle.
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Obituaries BROWNE, Neville died 7 August 2013. Otago Vespa Club member (see OVC photo next page).
SHERBURD, Graeme. Otago Vespa Club. died 10 April 2013 age 69. Stalwart of the Otago Vespa Club.
PATTERSON, John Athol Leslie (Pat). 25 December 1929 - 24 May 2012. [See reprint of a 2008 interview with JP in this issue]
WALKER, Les. Died 13 November 2013. Initially reluctant to join a club after buying his vespa in 1969, Les took part in the 1970 Picton rally, and stayed with the club from then on.
When he retired at age 55, John Patterson (known as JP to a generation of scooterists in the 1990's), decided to keep out of mischief by getting a few vespas. His association with scooters dates back to the 1950's, when he lived in Paekakariki, and commuted from there to Wellington on a vespa 125 on the Paekakariki Hill Road. The motorways were still being constructed at this time.
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At that time there was a scooter shop in Auckland called Scooter House. John, needing parts for his vespas, recalls making phone calls to the shop requesting parts – only to call again a week later after nothing arrived. This went on for what seemed like an age. Eventually John visited the shop himself. “How far would so many thousand dollars go?”
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He got the parts he wanted and took them back to Rotorua. Next he received a call from the owner of the shop: “If you're prepared to pay that much, you can have the lot”. So he bought the lot – hired a truck, took his daughter and son with him, and
brought everything back to Rotorua to his workshop.
Graeme Sherburd can be seen in the photo above dressed as a clown, part of the Otago
Vespa Club contingent to the 1964 Auckland Easter Show.
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The vespa agency at that time was W. Whites of New Plymouth. John had started importing Bajaj scooters, and also vespas from India, which sold quite well. The prices were lower than
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the Italian vespas sold by W. Whites, and this led to some disagreements between John Patterson and W. Whites. Eventually they offered the agency to John anyway, even though he'd had no plans to take it on. At this stage, John had people arriving, phoning, writing to him seemingly every day, requesting parts. John would send the parts off the next day – this kind of service hadn't been offered before. “There was a group of people in the Waikato, and they were real scooter enthusiasts. They'd come down, wanting parts. I had to call my daughter to help me when we were really busy. We had very good servicing down here (Rotorua), and I had a good workshop.” John then found suitable premises to lease in Auckland, and Scooterworld began. “It didn't really go as well as I thought it would go. We started bringing in scooters from Italy. I always felt that they were quite highly priced”. “I'd had a couple of heart bypasses, and it got to the point when neither my son nor myself wanted to live in Auckland, and it needed someone to be in Auckland to work the place. He'd go up for one week, and the next week I'd go up. We had a van, and when I came back I'd bring the load of scooters back down to Rotorua for servicing. That was alright, but then my heart packed up again, and nobody
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expected me to live. While I was in intensive care in Auckland Hospital, they [my family] advertised the business and sold it.”. The buyers of Scooterworld didn't purchase all John's stock and equipment – he continued to supply the shop with parts, especially older parts. He later advertised the parts for sale – and despite interest from several people in New Zealand, no one was prepared to pay the money. Then one day, a couple of Australians turned up on his doorstep, had a look around, and agreed to take the lot. John was on the receiving end of abuse from scooterists calling for parts, when they heard it had all gone to Australia. He subsequently suffered several more heart attacks. John still has a couple of scooters, a 1998 Skipper, and 1998 Hexagon, and he can still get around, although he needs to be careful. He is also restoring a 1953 vespa 125 (not his own), and still gets calls from people wanting information about scooters. “Vespas are a disease. I can't leave them alone. And a lot of people I know, they can't leave them alone either.” From an interview by phone in early 2008.
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Canscoot 2013 Show Weekend ride
Photo: Mark Powney
Photo: Mark Powney
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Photo: Mark Powney
Photo: Steve Wall
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Photo: Steve Wall
Mobile vespa service. ● Repairs
● Brakes pads/shoes
● Broken clutch/gear/brake cables
● Tyres
● Punctures
● Engine rebuilds
● Electrical failure
● Front end assembly
● Servicing
● Disassembly and
● Drive belts ● Oil change What scooters do I service? ● Bajaj (Chetak, Super, Viking)
● Rebuilds
reassembly for repaint by automotive spraypainters. What scooters don’t I service? ● “Asian resto”
● LML (NV, Belladonna, Star)
● Chinese scooters.
● Innocenti (Lambretta)
● Japanese scooters.
● Piaggio / Vespa ● TVC (PK, PX) Advanced Services:
Upholstery
Rebores
Other services available, please enquire.
Brake shoe relining
04 977 5630 / 021 025 08104
Mr Skoot
Luit Bieringa - the three LI125’s 1. Lambretta LI125 S2 1961 2. Lambretta LI125 S1 1959 3. Lambretta LI125 S3 1964 After seeing the new LI125 in brochures, Luit ordered one from Coutt's Brothers in Hamilton (Jaguar importers). He paid off his first lambretta
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using money from school holiday jobs - a total of 80 pounds. Using it at high school and university, he upgraded it from 125 to 150cc in the 1970's, and later sold it. His second LI125 he bought in Perugia, Tuscany - and then rode it all the way to Holland (where his mother lived), through France.
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Riding with an Australian companion sidesaddle part of the way (which was fine in Italy) they were stopped by police at a roundabout in France, and asked for money - when it wasn't forthcoming they were told 'no sidesaddle' in France. In exclusive Monaco they were told outright 'no scooters'. In Belgium he rode through the snow - two days ride, with no helmet (just a jersey wrapped
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around his head). On arriving in Holland, just as he pulled up and stopped, the throttle cable snapped. He had it imported to New Zealand, costing 8 pounds import duty. Throughout the sixties and early seventies Jan and Luit used the scooter on numerous trips and the "workhorse " wasn’t retired till early in the eighties
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when it was stored and is now awaiting either a rustoration or restoration. His third LI125 came from the Kapiti Coast area. where his son bought it and apart from a couple of minor alterations it is now in good working order even though only ridden once or twice a year.
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Luit Bieringa
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Photo taken in Dunedin 1971 or 1972. Jacoba Dijkman, in her late 20’s (now Jacoba Bickerton), was a Dutch immigrant to New Zealand. Jacoba married a New Zealander in 1973, moved to Wellington, and was still riding up to when the doctor told her she was too pregnant to continue doing so safely. She still has her motorcycle license today. Daughter Sarah is riding a Piaggio Zip and saving for a lambretta. Back cover image: supplied by Sarah Bickerton
ISSN 1178-7643 Made in New Zealand
