Sophia Reloaded

On the 21 June 2012, Sophia my trusty Vespa ET8 broke down leaving me stranded on the side of the highway. I was travelling at speed when suddenly she lost power with a large bang. At first I thought a wheel had burst but Sophia was stable as we coasted to a stop. I then suspected that she broke her drive belt. So I called for help.

On the 10 July 2012, the sad news came in that I had broken a valve which then had fallen into the piston and made a hole in the piston itself. I was devastated. Sophia was officially dead at just over 47,000km. Looking that the piston itself and the head, I notice a lot of potmarks and it seems that this damage has been occurring for some time and it finally snapped. Poor Sophia must have been suffering for a long time.

Soon afterwards news came in of a Vespa LX150 with only 2,487km on the clock that ran into the back of a vehicle. I went and looked at the bike which steering column was badly bent but the rest had only superficial damage. The owner wanted R10,000 for her but by the time I had made contact with him he had already informed his insurance company to write the bike off. So I then contacted the insurance who then offered the LX150 to me for only R5,800. So the LX150 became mine, now was the discussion of what to do with two broken Vespas.

In the end I decided to take the spanking new LX150 engine and gearbox and put it into ET8 body as it was a close match. I also took across the instrument panel, the larger front wheel mechanism and the seat to Sophia. But it wasn't Sophia so I called the new bike a Vespa LX8 with the name Anastasiya which means resurrection.

My first ride on Anastasiya was into a snow storm, as if hell had just frozen over with the hybrid LX8, Sophia reloaded. So as the phoenix arose from the ashes, the spirit of Sophia brought the snow to cool the fires as Anastasiya took flight from Hades into a new life.