Goodbye, Little Nellie, and thank you for the memories
“Smoke and thunder hog F-4 is like your wife. She has her good points. She has her bad points. You love the good points, and you learn to live with the bad ones.” – Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham, the US Navy’s only ace in the Vietnam War, describing the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II.
Just nine days shy of three years, I said goodbye to Little Nellie, my 150cc Vespa Primavera ABS. The date was March 22, 2024, a Friday.
If anyone had told me three years ago that I’d be selling her off, I would have punched them in the mouth.
She was my first. You always have a soft spot for your first. Memories are more vivid, visceral, with the first. You tend to remember the minutest of details – the colours, the moods, the scents, the emotions. You never forget your first.
Blessed with the temperament of a capybara, Nellie never whined, whinged, or complained, even after I put her through the wringer, which was all the time. Long distance rides, some off-roading, and almost always full-throttle, fangs-out, balls to the wall runs. She never protested.
Nellie taught me that you didn’t really need much. A bottle of frozen water, a couple of sandwiches, some chips, sambal belacan from Xiang Ji Vegetarian Restaurant in Johor Bharu, a nice clearing with a tree next to a stream, a folding chair, and you’ve got it made.
My first solo ride with her was to Genting Highlands in Pahang. I remember how anxious I was, riding alone for the first time.
But the second I turned the ignition key and saw her instrument cluster come alive, bathed in a soft blue glow, I was comforted. I thumbed the engine start button and she roared to life, then settled into the reassuring purr that I had grown to love. In the three years with her, she never hesitated, not for a second. Her little motor would crank up all the time, every time, much like a Pratt and Whitney would, with the exception of the cranky TF-30 turbofan.
One of the most gruelling rides was the 2022 Aidilfitri dash to Penang – a 12-hour, non-stop backroad of a bruiser with Ahmad Razlan Alias and his wife Karlin Kayzee Khairudin, and Arman Ahmad – on three Vespas.
The other, was a 1,577km round trip to Hatyai and Songkhla in December of last year. Nellie acquitted herself like a true champ. She never once let me down.
The only time she acted up was in January, on our way back home from Negeri Sembilan, after a short hop. We were going at full chat when I suddenly lost thrust. One minute I was going at 109kph, the next, I was lurching forward as power suddenly disappeared. I saw the needle windmilling down and the engine warning light come on, unhesitating, and sure. Having carried my derriere all across the country with hardly a blip for almost three years, the sensation of suddenly losing power while going full bore on the highway was both alarming and disconcerting. But she always brought me home.
I loved her for her diminutive size, her agility, her robustness, and her willingness to do anything, go anywhere. She was my Little Engine That Could. On the flip side, Nellie was twitchy, especially around corners. In the wet, she was skittish, so you had to constantly work the stick and throttle, or she’d swap ends. She was forgiving, but only just.
The Vespa can be a snakepit. The brakes were next to useless. The suspension was virtually non-existent, which meant that the bump from every pothole, divot, and rut on the road would be sent from the wheels, directly to your long-suffering arms. If she were an airplane, she would be one of those ‘dynamically unstable’ jets that could bite you if you weren’t careful. You had to be hands-on with her, all the time. The Vespa did not afford the rider ‘carefree handling’.
The biggest problem was power. There was just not enough ‘juice’ on the Vespa. On city, or backroad runs, this is a non-issue. But on highways, it can get downright scary. Overtaking is painfully slow, the engine takes forever to spool up. And even with the throttles slammed past the detent and all the way to the stops, she’ll only do 109kph. Nothing more. It can be hairy if you find yourself sandwiched, or boxed in, in between an express bus and a lorry hauling a shipping container.
I needed a bike with a little bit more ‘grunt’, that could haul enough gear and provisions for a week’s stay on the road, and was nimble and easy to throw around. Above all, it had to be light. I needed a bike that I could quickly drop a gear and bang on the throttle to get me out of a tight spot.
Enter the Kawasaki Versys-X250.
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