Motor Mouth: How to Vespa your way to Costa Rica

This is not a love story. Absolutely not. No way. That would be so inappropriate. For one thing, this is Driving.ca. For another, I am an engineer, lapsed though my B.Eng may be, but an engineer nonetheless, which means I am most certainly not some Anne Landers — or Dan Savage, for that matter — advice columnist. This a motorcycle story, plain and simple. Got it?

So, no talk of love at first sight. Nor any mention that Sébastien Ferland, he a life-long heavy equipment mechanic, was hardly a hopeless romantic, not after “batching” it for nearly five years after retiring from the Armed Forces. Nor that Lorraine Franco had likewise grown despondent of her romantic quests, the pickings slim, it seems, in the exotic burg of Brampton-near-Toronto. Nor that their Cupid, a scruffy ne’er-do-well known only as Matt, had been trying for ages, “positively ages,” to set them up. And we’re not even going to touch on the fact that, barely six months after they finally did meet, the two are moving to Costa Rica to start a brand-new life together. No, what matters most, what is truly the crux of this (after all, Driving) story, is that—

They’re riding to Costa Rica on a scooter.

A Vespa, no less. A 2018 Vespa 300 GPS, to be exact. Now, as far as long-distance touring motorcycles go, especially long-distance touring motorcycles meant to brave the wilds of Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras — not to mention the high speeds of American turnpikes and the icy back-roads of Canada — there are worse picks.

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A photo from Sebastien and Lorraine’s Vespa trip, from Quebec to Costa Rica Photo by Sébastien Ferland and Lorraine Franco

But only just. One could, of course, decide to make the 6,296-kilometre trip on a chopper, some sort of Easy Rider-meets-Where’s Waldo? adventure in trying to force a round peg into a square hole. Or one could also choose an even smaller scooter. Make it, say, a 50-cc two-stroke ring-ding to absolutely guarantee a breakdown, not to mention make it the slowest long-distance motorcycle adventure of all time. But that’s about it. As prime long-distance tourer, the Vespa — especially equipped with only a single piece of luggage and a home-made rack — is almost as inappropriate a mount for a month-long sojourn through Latin America as a Lamborghini for navigating the Rubicon.

And yet, as proof that the joy of motorcycling transcends all — because this is, again, not a love story — Lorraine and Sébastien are thriving. As you read this, they’re probably somewhere in Honduras, having just stopped in Poza Rica, Mexico for a few cold ones and sopping up the local culture. They’re travelling a little lighter now because, while the trip started with them wearing all manner of warm jackets and heated vests to head off a late Canadian October, they’re now dumping the cold-weather gear — as in giving it away to folks on the street — because well, they have nowhere to store it. Essentially, they wore all their winter gear 24/7 — except when sleeping, of course — for the first week and then just started shedding it layer by layer as they travelled further south because, uhm, where would they put it? Did I mention they’re on a scooter?

Nor do the Vespa’s small 12-inch wheels offer much succour. Indeed, those little wheels, the very embodiment of the Vespa’s scooter-ness — i.e. its ability to dodge through traffic like Maradona slicing through defenders — are a major problem on Latin American roads. Mexico’s are especially bad, it seems, with moon craters that make even Quebec potholes feel like freshly paved tabletop.

This Lorraine finds particularly unsettling because, at a soon-to-be-50-years-old, she’d never been on a powered two-wheeler — scooter or motorcycle — in her life. So boom! crash! banging! an under-suspended, tiny-wheeled scooter designed for the mean streets of, well, Milan — while fighting off the fabled Guatemalan tour buses, no less — might be a little frightening to someone on their first motorcycle ride. Did I mention that this is absolutely, categorically not a love story?

About this time, you should be asking yourself why — oh, why! — did Sébastien choose a scooter for a two-up journey through such hostility? Does he not have a full motorcycle license? Is he too poor to own a full-sized motorcycle? Or is this some kind of two-wheeled self-flagellation, old age pitting fading machismo against common sense, poor Lorraine just an innocent bystander? You know, like Quadrophenia, only with herbal tea instead of amphetamines.

Actually, it’s none of the above. For one, Sébastien is a die-hard biker. He started riding at the age of six, has been riding big-boy bikes since he was 16, and has competed in both motocross and flat track. He’s owned several tricked-out Guzzis, no fewer than three Norton Commandos, and even had what he says was the only Ducati 400 in Canada outfitted for the track. Like I said, a serious biker. Serious enough that he can’t remember the last time he rode less than 25,000 kilometres in a year and — cue some sort of Guinness Book of Records citation — claims to have once ridden 128,000 kilometres in less than 12 months. On a 2001 KTM 640 LC4 Adventure, no less.

A photo from Sebastien and Lorraine’s Vespa trip, from Quebec to Costa Rica Photo by Sébastien Ferland and Lorraine Franco

But the Vespa is a bit of a middle-fingered salute to the norms of North American biking, Seb vehemently rejecting the traditional bigger-is-better mantra that monster-motored adventure bikes are absolutely essential for long trips. So strong, in fact, is his despisal of said status quo that, as a young man, he took up scootering specifically to show his big bike-riding buddies that he could keep up with them on, well, a scooter. So, yes, Sébastien is more Jimmy (Quadrophenia’s focal anti-hero, played by Phil Daniels) than corporate sell-out Ace Face (played by Sting, no less). Call him a Rebel with a little bit of a Reason, if you want.

Besides, there is some method to his madness. You see, back home — Sébastien is from Beauce, Quebec — at this time of year, he says he’d be lucky to get $1,500 for the now six-year-old Vespa. But in Costa Rica he expects to net at least $7,500 for what will be a prized, pristine scooter at the peak of the tourist season. According to his arithmetic — and I’m guessing this is the justification he gave Lorraine before they left — the profit he’ll make on the sale of said scooter will more than pay for their entire trip.

A photo from Sebastien and Lorraine’s Vespa trip, from Quebec to Costa Rica Photo by Sébastien Ferland and Lorraine Franco

A photo of a Latin American pothole from Sebastien and Lorraine’s Vespa trip, from Quebec to Costa Rica Photo by Sébastien Ferland and Lorraine Franco

A photo from Sebastien and Lorraine’s Vespa trip, from Quebec to Costa Rica Photo by Sébastien Ferland and Lorraine Franco

So, the Vespa will likely hit Autotrader — or whatever the Costa Rican equivalent might be — once they get there. But don’t worry, Seb has another one, identical, he says, save for it being white and a 2013 model. He also has a KTM adventure bike, so he’s got all his motorcycling bases covered.

And Lorraine has been busy “organizing” as well. In fact, in the six months since they’ve met, she has become something of a Costa Rican land baron, having sold her Brampton homestead right before our recent interest-rate-driven downturn and used the money to buy some condos in Costa Rica that she’s going to Airbnb to a comfortable retirement in perpetually sunny Playas Del Coco. Yes, smart cookie that she is, she’s traded in one over-priced detached three-bedroom and the GTA rat race for a fully-paid-for beachside apartment and the good life.

But this isn’t a Financial Post personal finance column any more than it’s a love story. The important thing here is that they rode a Vespa from freezing Ontario to deepest Costa Rica and they’re still, hard to believe, talking to one another.

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