Anyway the bike; here’s the good bit. The Vespa S 125 is a straight up fantastic scooter. Sometimes in life everything just comes together and creates something special. This is exactly what happened here. Either I’m losing it or the Vespa S really is significantly nicer to ride than the equivalent LX. On paper this shouldn’t be the case as both bikes are very similar, maybe it’s something like the placebo effect, call it the S effect. Just the simple fact that I simply enjoy the bikes new slimmer retro styling may have caused me to like the bike more for no other reason. Whatever it was is irrelevant, the Vespa S is a great bike to ride. It does share the slightly top heavy low speed wobbliness of most Vespa’s but it’s certainly not something that really matters. This I’ve come to the conclusion is the result of a slightly higher centre of gravity due to the metal bodywork compared to most all plastic scooters. Combine this with the Vespa’s quite steep front geometry and you get the slight feeling of wobbliness at low speeds. At normal riding speeds it has the benefit of giving the bike quick steering so it’s horses for courses.

The suspension on the Vespa S is so well sorted on that I almost didn’t notice it. Normally bumps and so forth quickly remind me to mention the need of improvement in my reviews; not so with the S. It’s seems Vespa have done a great job of tuning the suspension to the bike and creating a great compromise between plush comfort and sportyness (That’s probably not a word). The brakes are about average for this sort of bike with a 200mm disc up front and a drum brake on the back wheel. Why on earth Vespa continue to use a drum rear brake on premium scooters, I do not know. The Vespa S would have been the perfect time to swap to twin discs and considering its sporty image it’s a real shame they didn’t make the change. Hopefully sometime in the future Vespa will see the light like other manufactures and fit twin disc on any bike capable of doing 100kph (62mph).