The first bike I ever owned was a red 1979 Vespa 150. I crashed it the second day I owned it. That model featured a strange manual transmission: what looked like the left brake lever was actually the clutch, and you changed gears by twisting the left grip. On that fateful Monday morning, I was waiting to enter Observatory’s busy Station Road. I engaged first gear, which meant that my wrist was cocked all the way back, and my fingers were just barely managing to depress the clutch lever. I tried to gently ease my way across the intersection, but instead, the clutch lever sprung free from my awkwardly cocked hand and launched me into an uncontrolled wheelie into the centre island. I landed in an ungainly sprawl, at which point — inevitably — several beautiful girls who had witnessed my dramatic self-destruction jumped out of their VW Beetle behind me to ask after my well-being. As the ground had unfortunately failed to open and swallow me up, I tried not to make eye-contact and hurriedly made my getaway. I always pulled off in second gear from that time on.

This was the first and most embarrassing day of my motorcycling career, and not Vespa’s best ever first-impression. I have maintained a quiet dislike of scooters ever since.

Yet recently, an advertisement for the 150cc Vespa Primavera prompted me to reconsider, in particular the impressive claim that this Vespa got stunning fuel economy of 55 km/l. The very big-hearted people at Vespa took me on a breakfast run with a Primavera and a 300cc Super Sport, and my first impressions of these two bikes could not have been more different to that awkward Monday several years ago. They are easy, responsive, fun bikes that you can read more about here.

The Primavera won me over. There are plenty of things to love about it, and in our morning run around the city it was clear that it was the ideal bike for anyone having to mix it with the traffic. However, before I could unreservedly recommend the Primavera as the perfect commuter bike, I needed to put it through a proper road test. Vespa again generously agreed to help, and let me take one away for a week to see what it can do.
Besides the severe test that any bike undergoes accompanying me on my commute, I subjected the Primavera to four performance tests — acceleration, speed, power and economy — to see how it copes with the biggest commuting challenges.

The Drag-Strip Test (Acceleration)

The first thing that any commuter needs to know is whether the bike is any good in traffic — specifically in getting away from the traffic. The Vespa is agile, light and maneuverable enough that I felt comfortable in most circumstances winding my way to the front of traffic queues — something several riders of heavy touring bikes sitting in the queues clearly did not.
But having got to the front, how does the little 150 do off the line?

Acceleration is perhaps the Vespa’s best attribute. After a couple of drag races, I measured a best 0–60km/h time of 6.2 seconds. Granted, it’s not going to streak ahead of any Bugatti Veyrons, but because its initialacceleration is so quick, every real-life four-wheeler at the traffic lights became a fast-shrinking spot in my rear-view mirrors.

I had so much fun doing this that I must confess that I raced full throttle off every standing start that I was presented for the whole week.

The Freeway Test (Speed)

If a bike is to be named the perfect commuter, it needs to have no weaknesses, and small bikes are always mortally hindered by their inability to cope at speed. The Primavera dominates at speeds sub-80km/h, but can it cope on the freeway?

The short answer, disappointingly, is ‘not really’. The Vespa can reach speeds of 110km/h (I managed to hit 106km/h), and so it is far better than many bikes of similar engine capacity, and this is passably fast enough for many highways — at least around Cape Town. Realistically, during rush hour most freeway traffic is going considerably slower than this anyway, so it’s not a fatal deficiency.

However, the Primavera does not reach top speed quickly, and it does not reach top speed at all if there is much wind interference or any climbing to do. So you are unfortunately not able to rely on being able to keep up with a 100km/h speed limit.

As the Vespa guys told me, if your commute includes much freeway driving, you’ll want to stump a little more cash for the 300cc.

The Ou Kaapse Test (Power)

Ou Kaapse Weg in the south of Cape Town is a winding mountain pass that climbs nearly 300m in the space of 3km, with a speed limit (in sections) of 80km/h. To make matters worse, you must usually make this ascent into the face of the Cape Sou’easter. If you can make it up the pass with power to spare, you are unlikely to be troubled by much.

While the Primavera was untroubled by most slopes, Ou Kaapse Weg proved a little too tough. Admittedly fighting a fairly brisk headwind, at full throttle I couldn’t get it beyond 60km/h up the pass, and was subjected to the humiliation of being overtaken by various four-wheelers in the process.

The Fuel Test (Economy)

The final test was to see how far the Vespa would go on 5 litres of fuel. The Vespa guys volunteered that the quoted figure of 55km/l was achieved under ideal conditions — namely a steady cruise at 70km/h around a flat track — and that 40–45 km/l in ordinary riding conditions would be more like it.

Unfortunately, I had too much fun racing the Vespa around in the traffic to worry about my fuel-economy score. Let’s face it, this is a ‘normal commuting conditions’ test, and there is no way I wouldn’t be sprinting off the line on every commute if the bike were mine. Under these almost-ordinary conditions, the Primavera achieved a respectable 173 kms on 5 litres of fuel, or 34.6 km/l.

I was hoping that the Primavera would get closer to the Bajaj’s fuel-economy benchmark, but then again the Bajaj doesn’t get close to it in any other way.

Overview

So what is the overall impression of the bike after a week of riding?

It didn’t quite match the aspirations I had for it after my first test drive, but I was still sad to have to give it back. There are plenty of things to be excited about. The bike has loads of zip. It is happiest cruising at about 80km/h, and at speeds south of that it does everything a commuter could want. It is light and easy to get between the traffic jams, it bolts off a standing start, it is convenient to use and easy to ride, and it is pleasingly light on fuel even under abuse.

Nevertheless, I wanted Vespa to have found a way to make a small-engined bike with enough power to do just as well on the highway as in the city — I had hoped that this was the perfect commuter — but it isn’t quite. Make no mistake, it is very, very good, but it still suffers from the lack of puff shared by its fellow lightweights. Vespa have not quite achieved the miraculous.

One intriguing thought, though — the Primavera has that 300cc big brother. There may yet be a perfect commuter in the Vespa stables.

Verdict:

Cons:
• It is not ideally suited to lengthy commutes above 80km/h, and its performance dropped off a fair bit in the wind.
• The Primavera does not sit down in the corners as easily as it might, which took some getting used to, and the seating position was too far forward for me (I found myself sitting on the seam between the two seats).
• Its fuel and running costs are low, and it is just about good value for its premium ticket price, but at upwards of R75,000 it is in direct competition with a host of bigger bikes by top manufacturers.

Pros:
• Its acceleration and ease of use are wonderful; it is a fun, hassle-free bike that performs as well as or better than anything I’ve ridden in city conditions.
• It is a well-built and attractive vehicle that retains its panache in spite of being relentlessly imitated by lesser manufacturers.
• It may not have the answer to all the questions a commute may pose, but I will be surprised if there are too many contenders in this engine class that are able to better it. If your commute doesn’t take you on too many highways or up mountain passes, the Primavera is ideal.

(Previously published on RockingCars)