The World's Fastest Scooter!

125 miles per hour. That's a speed record that A.D. Horrocks is trying to smash here today. Now, in a grand scheme of speed, that might not sound like a lot, but on 10-inch wheels, that's fast, very fast. We're here today at Elvington Airfield for the Straightliners Speed Week. Forget the world's fastest Indian, this is the world's fastest Vespa. In this video, we'll be meeting A.D., we'll be taking a look around the machine that he hopes will rocket him into the record books, and of course, we'll be joining him for the ride of a lifetime. So, a few weeks ago on the channel, we featured a crazy man and a crazy scooter. Today, we've got another crazy man and another crazy scooter. This is A.D. Horrocks, and he is a proud owner of this Vespa, what we're calling the world's fastest Vespa. A.D., tell us about the connection that we've got and how we've ended up here with you today via that first video we did with Jed a few weeks ago. A good friend of mine, Dan Ashman, from Dan Ashman Scooters, he's very good friends with Jed. I also know Jed just by a few Facebook messages and he follows me, what I'm doing and stuff like that. We've got a military connection because I was in the army and he was in the Royal Marines, so there's obviously a little bit of banter there as well. After we all seen Jed's video with you guys, Dan said, I know, why don't we contact you? And now we're here. Yeah, so we're here at Elvington for Straightliners Speed Week. Is that what this event is called? Yeah, they call it Straightliners Speed Week. It's a week of world records for the UK Time Association. And what is officially the record that you're trying to beat or get here? Okay, so I'm trying to beat my UK record of 121 miles an hour at the mile and 122 miles an hour at the mile and a quarter. So you're trying to beat your own record and you're trying to beat yourself? That's correct, yeah. Because the record I've set is, like they're running all week, is two run averages. So you do two runs within an hour in the same direction. So you've either got headwind or you've got a tailwind or a crosswind. And then the average of that is the speed that you'll get on your certificate if you break a record. The class, the discipline is 250cc? Yeah, 250cc geared scooter. I'm 244cc, but obviously it's close enough, so that's where I'm in. So it's time for the first run of the day then for Ady. He's heading up to the end of the runway here at Elvington and he's getting geared up and ready to go. So he's off. Ady has hit the runway for the first time today. It's a nice, steady start here on the Vespa, building up speed steadily and safely. It's just getting adjusted, everything right. As you can see, it's a big, long runway for such a little scooter. Just a tiny little dot there on screen from the drone. But as he hits the runway proper now, hits the tarmac, he'll start to build up speed and ramp things up. He's into a tuck position. Oh, it looks like we had a bit of a speed wobble there as we hit about 70 miles per hour. Oh, and another violent speed wobble there. That was obviously scary enough for Ady to actually make an adjustment, but he's back into a tuck position, back on the gas and starting to build up speed again. 80, 85, 88, 89, 90, over 90 miles an hour now, really starting to pick up the pace as we're well past the halfway mark of the run now. Ady's properly tucked in, heading towards the finish line. 100, 101 miles per hour across the line. Not a bad start to the day. Okay, so the first run was a bit of a sighting run. We haven't run the bike since September last year. So it was always going to be a testing run, but the front end started going a bit light and the steering damper was down low. So I realised that the weight we had on before probably needs to go back on. I adjusted the steering damper mid-run and then that seemed to like steady it down a little bit. So then we came back to the pits to do the rest of the adjustments for the second run. The power is really quite large for something that's so light. And the front end lifts in every gear unless I have some weight on. But if we don't try these things, then we don't know how far it'll go. It was lifting in fourth gear, so we came back to put the weights on. The weights on are nearly nine kilograms that I put on the front. So it's quite a hefty lot of weight for trying to keep that front end down. So just tell us about the bike then. What is it? What have you done to it? What are the modifications? How is this possible on a Vespa? How is it possible to go north 120 miles an hour on a 10-inch wheeled Vespa? Well, first of all, you need to decide that you want to do that. Then you have to find someone who could help you do that, a manufacturer, a certain tuning company or something like that. And do you know, I can't even remember how I got introduced to Eugenio from FRT, but I think he just seen a post of me saying like, I'm going to build the fastest Vespa. He just WhatsApped me and I said, can you do it? And he said, how fast do you want to go? I said, 120 miles an hour. He said, I'll get back to you. Spent three weeks getting back to me. He conversed with another Italian company called BFA. BFA said, yeah, I think we can do it. Pretty much we off the shelf parts. We just had to put them together in the right order, you know, with the right gear ratios and stuff like that. And then they came back saying, yeah, we can do it. Shall we do it? Because I asked the question. I just said, yes. So the bike, it's a standard Vespa frame and chassis. It started off a standard Vespa chassis. We've cut the back end off and put a fiberglass bubble on there. It was an X-Sprint bike. So it was all about saving weight then. We've repurposed it into a top speed. So we're just adding the weight back on. The Italians, Alessandro and Fabio from BFA had that bike. I was going to build a frame for just the engine. And then they sent me a picture of that bike. He said, well, this is already rigged up for liquid cool. It makes sense. So we talked about that and then that's what happened. And the motor, what is that? That's a BFA 244cc liquid cooled, case inducted, remade Vespa engine. Yeah. To give it as context then, what would a normal Vespa be putting out on the dyno and what does this put out on the dyno? That particular model, a 50 special, I think it's three brake horsepower. I think either 28 or 30 miles an hour is what they're kind of classed off. And mine is a 55 brake horsepower with 25 pounds torque. And the power, it comes in about like eight and a half thousand RPM and then just lights up until around 12 and a half, this one. Yeah, it just comes in very aggressively. So just tell us, A.D., how do you change gear on this bike? Obviously some scooters are different. How have you got it set up? Okay, so the left-hand hand grip is my gear selector. Yeah, so it's not down in... No, no foot controls. It's all on the hands. The clutch is on the left-hand side. You obviously pull clutch in, move it up for first gear. Then clutch in second gear, third gear, fourth gear, going down. We've adjusted mine slightly, putting them up a bit further up just so my elbow doesn't come out too far. Just trying to, again, learning from last time. It was really out like this. So first gear, what's my elbow, right? First gear's here. Elbow in. Second gear, third gear, fourth gear. Elbow out. You know, we've got all this, so you're this. So I've adjusted my first gear here. So it's one, two, three. So it's not as far out. That's what I learned from last time. And covering the clutch like that, trying to do that, you know, it doesn't bend. I was literally in pain. Tell us about the weight. We mentioned that earlier, but just tell us what happens when you don't have those on the front here, the weights. So last time we had the sort of nine kilograms weight rack there, if you like. We had that. This time I decided to take it off on the first run. It was lifted in third. It lifted in fourth. My steering damper was a little bit softer. You know, I had a little bit of twitch. So I just had to roll off, adjust the damper. Yeah, so how scary is that when you're in third gear and it's lifting and you're like, oh my God. It is scary, of course. Now, you know, at the time, it's just. Yeah, you're just in like fighter pilot mode. You just deal with it. It's like, okay, I need to deal with something like that. And like I said, it was only like a little twitch, but I want to deal with it before it gets bigger and it's harder to deal with. So just dealt with it. Just, you know, I think the worst thing anyone could do is probably just like massively frot off. All I did was like let off and then realise, tried to look at what was going on. And when it settled down, I tucked down a little bit and then put the power back on. And I think it was the headwind. Never ridden this in anger into a headwind before. All the wheelie guys are talking about their, oh my God, they're all over the place. So, you know, it's happening to them. It's happening to me. So it's still fun. This maybe doesn't count for most of the degenerates watching our channel, but generally the general population has an experience going north of 100 miles an hour on a bike. That might not be true for our audience, to be fair. But what does it feel like going north of 115, 120 miles an hour on a scooter with 10 inch wheels? What does that actually feel like? Well, I've done over 100 miles an hour on a motorbike. You know, I had an old Bandit 600 with a QCS 884 conversion on it. You know, and the wind was hitting me and stuff and it was exhilarating, but I did it and then backed off, you know, straight away. And all the street riders that I know said like, yeah, I've done 90 miles an hour on their scooter, which is great. You know, I'm sure they did it on private roads and stuff. I ask every single one of them, when you got to 90, what did you do? They said like, you know, then stopped, throttled off, calmed down, everything, you know, slowed everything down. And it takes like, I don't know, like 25 seconds from the half mile to the mile, maybe even longer. And when you're fully pinned for that long, that's the bit that I would say isn't natural. I literally, yeah, just keep it pinned. I was undergeared last time, got a bit more gearing this time and I just kept it pinned. And I was literally, you know, focus on where's that finish line because I only want to keep it pinned until I need to. There's no extra. Yeah, there's no showboating. No, it's just do the job. What happened? What do we need to do to either rectify some small issues or whatever? And that's it really. But yeah, I would say it's really exciting, a little bit scary, but the bike was really set up quite well. We had like no wind or a tiny back wind in September when I did the UK. Perfect conditions. I didn't have to deal with what we're dealing with today. That was a new experience for me. But again, I've learned quite a lot from it. We simply wouldn't be able to visit events like Straight Liners Speed Week and make videos just like this one without the continued support of our awesome sponsors, 24MX. You can use our discount code MAX15 for 15% off a whole load of products on the 24MX website, like custom seat covers, bike stands, fuel jugs, and race tents, just like the one that A.D. is using here today. As always, a massive thank you goes to 24MX for supporting what we do. So it's time for the second run of the day then. Can A.D. beat that 101 miles per hour that he set in the first run? And of course, we've got 125 as the main aim for the week. Let's see what he's made of. So it's a steady start again for A.D. But it looks like he's trying to adjust his body position early and get tucked a little bit sooner on this run. Starting to build up speed earlier as well. 70 miles per hour. Heading up to 80 miles per hour now on the Vespa 10-inch wheels. Remember, this is crazy stuff. You can see the focus in A.D.'s eyes. We're creeping up now, past 80, up to 90 miles per hour. 95 miles per hour. 100 miles per hour now on the Vespa 102. And a scary speed wobble for A.D. there. And that is terrifying. Is there a problem with the bike? Maybe. There's a little shake of the head from A.D. there. He's getting refocused, getting back into a tucked position, ramping up the speed. 103 miles an hour, what you saw on the clock. And he's across the line then. A fast run for A.D. there. But was there a problem with the bike? The second run, it was feeling quite good and it just started to wobble a bit. So I backed off the power just to get it back under control and then put it back on again. Then I adjusted my body position and that seemed to smooth things out. So I think the headwind was, you know, unsettling, was hitting me and unsettling the bike. You know, we have to try these things, maybe no records today, but it's all good for the days that we could get a record for. Yeah, we've got all week, right? We've got all week, yeah. And just tell us about a little problem that you found here that might have put an end to play today. Unfortunately, you know, these machines are kind of highly strung and the exhaust cracked like naturally after the, you know, next to another repair. So we're just looking into repairing that now. Everybody in this paddock would help if they could. There's some local firms that we know of. There's one guy that's got a shop in York. He can do it. Another guy just walked past and said like, hey, I can bring it back, but I can bring it back Wednesday. So we will be fixed and we will be running again. But it was still a good day. It was still a good day because we found some things out. We've tested some things. We wouldn't, you know, yeah. I enjoyed- Every day's a school day. Yeah, every day's a school day. Yeah, why not? Yeah, that's all, yeah. So that might be the end of play today for Ady, but they've got all week to get the bike fixed and get back on the runway. Whilst we had a moment here, I wanted to dive deep and ask Ady exactly why he's decided to ride these scooters. Reaching these speeds on bikes with 10 inch wheels is truly scary stuff. So I just wanted to know why he does it. And obviously you're chasing that feeling, I guess that unnaturalness that you said, but there are definitely easier ways to do that than on a scooter. Why have you chosen a Vespa or a scooter to chase these records? Why these bikes? I guess it's just like, you know, what avenues you go down as, you know, from a child, you know, motocross route or trials bike route. You know, I've ridden all those bikes, but it always came back to the scooters. I've only been into Vespas like, say, maybe five years now. Lambretta's always up to them. I like them both. But it's safe to say, like, you're fully addicted to the scooters. That's your jam. Yeah, 100%, yeah, yeah. At the moment, it's Vespas. Who knows for the future, you know, because I see the Lambretta boys also having fun. What's the ultimate goal for you this week and into the future? What's the goal? Yeah, goal's the 130. The figure of 130 was basically born by Fabio and Alessandro from BFA. I told them my 122. They were very happy for me, clearly. And before I could even check my phone, they're on their Instagram saying we're going to help them to get 130 over it. So it kind of was born by... It was like egging you on. But with the gearing that, you know, with the gearing being quite short and the length of track that we had, I was confident that, you know, with the similar conditions we had last time, that we could do it. And I'm just going to keep working towards that. But 130 is the aim? That's it, 130. Mega. So A.D. was able to get his exhaust fixed and back to him by the Monday. But it was Wednesday when the speeds were going down. There were no winds at all, which is favorable, but not optimal for speed records. Ideally, you want a tailwind. In 2022, with a tailwind, A.D. was able to log a two-run average speed of 121.6 miles per hour. And on Wednesday, with no tailwinds, A.D.'s fastest speed was 123 miles per hour at the mile. He was actually able to log four runs in under an hour at over 120 miles per hour, which shows the insane consistency of both A.D. and his machine. That gave A.D. an official two-run average of 122 miles per hour. That beats his record from last year and is an official UK ITA world record. A.D. and his small team were able to learn a lot from their time at Speed Week. And they'll be back in September to try and push this little Vespa over 130 miles per hour. Right, so there we have it. A.D.'s done it. He's broken his own record on this thing, the world's fastest Vespa. Let me know in the comments down below if you'd be brave enough to take this thing onto the strip there and just send it. Let me know if you'd be brave enough to do that in the comments down below. As always, guys, my name's Max. I wanna say a massive thank you to A.D. and everyone here at Straight Liners for making us feel welcome. Remember to like, share, and subscribe to the channel if you've enjoyed this video. Until next time, I'll see you at the track.