Upgraded from E-Bike to 50cc to 400cc back to 150cc

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JMLacroix
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Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2018 2:29 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada.

Upgraded from E-Bike to 50cc to 400cc back to 150cc

Post by JMLacroix »

Hello, new member here! I just wanted to share my experience so far with Scooters. I just recently picked up a Stella 4 stroke 2012 in decent shape, still needs a bit of work but I have been driving it! Sadly scooters aren't that popular in Canada so learning how to fix my own bikes is the best way to go ha.

I started out on an e-bike scooter, a Daymak Gatto. Bought it brand *new, lucky on a boxing day sale of 40% off because my experience with it was kind of a nightmare haha. Broke down 3 times in one year. My roommate had a brand new Emmo e-bike which broke down twice. After just a year I decided to get my motorcycle licence. I bought this 2009 Honda Jazz (Metropolitan) off a teenager in Toronto. He was nice enough to drive it to my place and the next day I wrote my M1 test (Ontario's motorcycle licence is 3 stages). This bike I got for cheap but had horrible body damage. Scratches on every single piece of plastic. It's hard to tell in the photos but in person it looked bad. But the milage was low on the bike, 3 or 4 thousand KM's. The insurance for this bike was dirt dirt dirt cheap. Only $15 a month, if only I knew it was this cheap I would have skipped the E-bike all together.

Two months later I took a motorcycle course and got my M2. Then a week later I bought a beat up 84 Yamaha Maxim XS400. I had a few problems with this bike just because it was in a little rough shape, high milage and very old. I just recently sold the bike as a parts bike. I didn't do much work myself on the bike because I was afraid of breaking something and not being able to find the parts I need.

I ended up fixing the little Honda over time and did basically all the work myself. Sanded and repainted all the body parts. Added performance parts, changed regular parts, etc. Got a Honda keychain logo and glued it on the front. Screwed in a cup holder on the front, sitting on the floor board. Added this headlight visor from a Harley bike. Replaced the fuel pump, rollers, belt, performance variator, clutch spring, spark coil, wired a CDI unlimitor box. Always changed the oil (cleaned the filter), air filter and spark plugs. Went to the dealership once to get the carbs professionally cleaned. This bike was soooo easy to work on and finding information online (even videos!). I'm pretty proud of the work I did on it :) But the only issue I had with this bike is that it's a 50cc. So it's slow. I didn't want to change the engine out for one of those GY6 Chinese motors and now that I'm not living in Toronto but in a small town, it's a little hard to keep up with traffic since everyone goes more than the speed limit. :? So I wanted to upgrade.

So recently I decided to get a powerful scooter. I love the old school vespas and wanted one with a manual transmission. Also you can probably tell by the E-bike and Honda I really like the Vespa styling. But almost every scooter now is automatic and made out of plastic which is a bummer. Most old Vespas I saw for sale were just way out of my price range (And not in Red!) which is why I kept an eye on the Stella's. I do love the styling of the P series and I know LML manufactured those bikes and the Stellas. I'm hoping to get a similar experience with my Honda where I can fix this bike myself. I'll be looking through forums, searching for videos, etc. I do need to fix some things already haha. This Stella was already in accident from the previous owner but the milage is low, about 7000KM. Most of the problems I'm having with this bike is electrical stuff, mechanical it seems to be running good. Gas gauge doesn't work, electric and kill switch don't work but I love the kick start hehe. Horn kept going off when turning the handle bars turn to the left. So it's unhooked for now until I replace the wire. The chrome siding/trim on top is mangled and needs to be cut off and replaced. The front fender has a dent in the corner and a few scratches on the left side of the bike. I'm not sure if I'm going to be repainting this scooter but if I did, might be like the Honda or just all red. Oh now that I have my full M license, the little Honda is now $10 a month. :lol: The Stella is only $35/month which is also awesome.
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Point37
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Posts: 402
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:34 pm
Location: Southcoast, MA

Post by Point37 »

welcome and congrats...you'll find a lot of helpful people here as well as a lot of useful information...do site specific google searches cause the search function on the site doesn't work all that well...

i was contemplating getting a 50cc scooter but after talking to some people i decided it would be better to be able to flow with local traffic than to be a road hazard on the side of the street to everyone in a car passing me so i decided on a 125cc...after riding it i don't think i would go lower than a 125cc...too slow...coming from larger cc motorcycles i don't miss having the ability to go stupid fast but i wouldn't mind being able to go highway speeds but i also don't really want to ride a couch on wheels scooter around town either so for now i'll stick to having fun on local roads until i find a good deal on something that can handle the highway speeds but is still small enough to be fun like a bv350 or bv500
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