Vespa & TDM

Here are some pics of my Rat's.
The first is affectionately know as the ''Rat Black Vespa of Death''. It was bought as a write off after being rear ended by a car. It had less than 1500km on it, so it was mechanically sound, but rather dented. After a rough panelbeating job it was brush painted flat black with some paint that was lying around the garage. Well I couldn't leave it purple could I? I also added a whole lot of stickers to the glovebox lid. I chucked on some white walls and painted the wheels red. I found a cheap rack for the front which is perfect for taking a case of beer. It gets ridden most days for the short trip to work, but with me being well over 6 foot tall it was a little cramped. So I added some highway pegs. They were pillion pegs of my R1. Perfect for the Vespa! It needed a front guard though, so a trip to the bicycle shop found a short plastic guard for a couple of bucks and with a slight trim with a hacksaw it was on.

The TDM was bought cheap as a non runner with over 200,000km on it. It was a one owner bike that the owner no longer had time to ride, so it had sat outside for a year or so. A fresh battery and a new voltage regulator had it up and running and after a service and tune it was running sweet.

I took the lower fairing off to get to the radiator cap and decided it looked better with out it, so I removed the other side as well. I wanted to have another flat coloured bike, but already having the black Vespa I wanted to do something different with the TDM. A trip to the hardware store yielded green chalk board paint in a rattle can and some more flat black engine enamel. I gave the bike a quick wash (the first in the six months I'd owned it) and a quick sand before spraying the top half green and repainting the engine and frame flat black. It needed something extra though, so I added the black stripes to it. I'm quite happy with the results on both bikes so far, but I'm sure I'll do more to them as time goes on.

Cheers
Bucko from Central West NSW in Australia