Yesterday was a little lesson for me in positivity. My scooter is running again thanks to the ace mechanic Pavlov from Intermoto Bacau and super speedy parts delivery from Scooter Centre Koln. Their parcel of parts was shipped from Germany to Romania in a little over 24 hours. The crazy thing is that they offer this service across the EU for 5 euros fixed price.  
Rimini Lambretta Centre previously managed a delivery to Bulgaria in less than 24 hours. At times like this, when you are in the mire, you need good shops to rely on.

As soon as my Lambretta ran and I could see more of Bacau it seemed a much nicer place. My troubles soon paled in insignificance once a group of German bikers arrived at Pavlov's, one of whom had knackered the forks on his BMW in a collision with a scooter.

Hopefully next stop Iasi, almost 9 days behind schedule...

Credit where credit's due part 2.

Having never previously seen a dead person in person, since entering Romania I've seen two; one of which was at the scene of a nasty road accident. That sort of thing gives any day a different perspective.

My first day in Romania went smoothly enough. After meeting my cousin Michael in Bucharest I pushed north.

Things went wrong on day 2. A connection problem in my wiring burned out my stator and CDI coil. No problem, I had spares. After 2 hours rebuilding my ignition at the side of the road the engine restarted. The only guy to stop for me was Sorin of North Gang Riders MC who came back to see if I was OK. The other members of his club from Suceava could not believe what I was doing on an old scooter.

Sadly after another 20 miles my ignition died again but this time I was stranded with no spare parts and no back-up 20km from the nearest town. Shit!

This time I was rescued by a Adrian and Anna from Bucharest on a Kawasaki who turned around and hunted down a motorcycle shop who might come and get me on a Sunday afternoon.

Luckily, Pavlov from Intermoto, 35km away in   Bacau, drove up with his friend and a trailer to come and collect me.

I'm presently cooped up in the extremely humble Pensiunea Elis awaiting an urgent delivery of spares from Scooter Centre, who like Rimini Lambretta Centre and MB Scooters have been supporting my daft mission from the start, along with Putoline and Continental Tyres. Thanks folks, particularly Mark, Dean and Philipp

Once back on the road my next stop was Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria. I'd tried a few ways of contacting folk there but the way that came up trumps was using the Facebook group Veliko Tarnovo Ex-pats.

Through the group I was met by Steve, an old friend of Clive from CJ Scooters who used to sell spares on the UK National Rallies.

Anyway we got on well, and through Steve's Bulgarian girlfriend Kalina we got to meet council. Mission accomplished. I also got my son Sam a new pen-friend in Kalina's daughter Pinkie.

VT is jaw-droppingly beautiful. No wonder so many Brits have moved there.

Not everything going to plan. My scooter started to feel rough in the mountains of Montenegro and I crept slowly into Serbia where I was greeted by Vespa Club Naissus.

An exploratory surgery of the engine revealed that the top ring peg on my piston had failed, the ring had turned and trashed my MB-tuned RT225 cylinder. I gave the bad news to Mark who was gutted as he had pulled out all the stops to reed-valve the kit for me in a day before I left. Credit where it's due, the reed conversion performed ace so I was well upset too. The bumpy mountain roads also cracked my Franspeed Super Tourer exhaust when I grounded it out.

Dejan and Sharon gave over their garden to strip the lammy, son Nikolas helped me strip the scooter.

Fair play, Scooter Centre offered to sort me a new standard RT kit and the folks at Rimini Lambretta Centre went into overdrive to post everything I needed to rebuild the engine in less than 24 hours. Mega service.

The delay gave me time to learn more about the fascinating history of Nis and enjoy more of Sharon's officially the best carrot cake in Serbia at the excellent Vespa Bar. Poor me...

Long story short,  the scooter is now fitted with a stock kit, a Gori exhaust to improve clearance on potholed roads and Dejans friend Dragan welded my Franspeed to keep in Serbia as a spare. Failed ring pegs are a classic result of having a twisted crank but I had no time or facilities to check if that was the cause so fingers crossed for this new kit!

As I write I'm just leaving Bulgaria after a wicked time in Veliko Tarnovo, but that's another story for another post.

I'm a blog or two behind so far due to some unexpected developments.

Before Serbia I was in Montenegro where my plan didn't exactly go to plan, but in the end everything was sorted by a Montenegrin Chelsea fan from my target city of Cetinje.

Gaga, the owner of Gaeta bar and my accommodation of the excellent Irina Apartment sorted the paperwork.

While my entrance to Montenegro was supremely fortuitous, my exit was less so. It's a long story, but after all, that's the point of this adventure anyway...

Well Serbia has been a complete eye-opener in so many ways, but by far the best is the way I've been welcomed by Dejan and Sharon Tonic who run the exquisite Vespa Bar in Nis as one of their family. Their scooter mad son Nikolas has been a huge help today, working on my Lambretta with me .

All this took place after today's "press conference" which included two TV interviews with both local and national stations. See this link.

The Croatian link in my chain of Twin Towns was Rijeka but I'd not had time to make any contacts in advance.

Instead Igor from VC Ljubljana rang ahead to Daniel of the Vespa Club in Rijeka to try and find someone who could help me.
Ive (Ivan) - a young tattoo artist from the club -  volunteered to guide me. Cool and calm, we had everything sorted with the local newspaper and the council within a few hours without any stress at all. In fact it was the best official reception yet with a slide show about the city's twinning relationships and gifts that included a CD complation of Rijekas punk bands from the 70s.

I was so buoyed by this success that I even got inked!

It's a long way to my next stop in Cetinje, Montenegro which required a stop off near Split, a chance meeting with their Vespa Club and a night with a hearty and hilarious sea captain...

Mad day leaving Italy on Saturday. After lunch on Friday with the Rlc crew and a visit to my friend Paolo in Savagnano it was up early on Saturday for a ride in the rain towards Slovenia.

Marco pointed out that there was a Lambretta club of Triveneto on near Venice so I planned to drop in. What l didn't expect was to meet a load of Vespas immediately and to end up following them to the rally of the San Mauro Pascoli Vespa Club. Quick meet with some friends and the president of the Vespa Club of Belgium and on the road again.

Arrived at the Lambretta rally but they still weren't back from their scheduled ride out so rolling once more.  I decided to skip a couple of Lambretta shops in Treviso and Pordenone but still could do with a new set of rear  brake shoes.

Long story short, Lady luck smiled and I got sorted and found an article for Scootering before arriving at a wonderful seafront hostel outside Trieste.

Bosh bosh!

I made a tentative connection with the Vespa Club of Ljubljana prior to my arrival and Igor - the clubs PR - pulled out all of the stops to show me around and get the job done with the council.

We were hosted for a delicious but unpronounceable meal by Renato and Petra and shown around a hugely impressive motorcycle and scooter museum.

The following day the club arranged a meeting with Marko Morel from the council and afterwards Igor and Andrej even escorted me off Slovenian territory :)

Thanks to everyone from Vespa Club Ljubljana for all their help and those of you riding out to Vespa World Days in Croatia please make sure to look them up. They all speak better English than Brummies...

OK, so I arrived in Rimini area and guess what - Dean and most of the crew have pissed-off to Mirecourt in France for the first race meeting of the ESC Championship with their Casa Lambretta/RLC Race scooter.

Never mind, Joe, Alex and mad-head Marco helped me change a dodgy flywheel bearing and I'll be ready for Eastern Europe next...