The run was set to start Friday, July 27th and end on Sunday. Having been to many scooter runs, and being aware that the often appraised reliability of Vespas doesn't take into account 34mm PHB carbs or overbored Malossis, we thought taking off early Thursday morning would be a good plan if we wanted to arrive Friday night. It would be a 400 mile ride after all. So we all wanted to meet in front of Spachtel's huge garage and go from there on. Spirits were high as this day appeared to turn into one of the few very sunny and warm days of the rainy 1997 German summer.

As usual, everyone has some last things to fix on their machines. I (Arne, riding his most reliable T5 with Italian expansion chamber) was attaching a spare tire, hoping this would be the only obstacle that may be put in our way. Pissi duck taped what was left of his Kegra exhaust to his P200 (my God, did he really think that would bring him 400 miles up there and back?), Boz was in a good mood, his stock P200 would probably make it without trouble. Spachtel was test driving Biff's latest P200 conversion up there. How cool, pretty obvious that that wouldn't take him very far. But one infamous player was missing.
Yes, it is our one and only Everell, from the Crazy Bumblebees. Riding in from Augsburg, the German main importer of Vespas, Ulm was on the way to Aachen. He was pretty daring to take his T5 all the way, it had a water cooled cylinder head without a water pump (engineering masterpiece) and an exhaust that stuck out 2 feet to the left. He appears to be in his best mood on this picture though...