Sophia down, not out

Driving home this evening Sophia decided to pack it in. She would not go any further. She had no power at takeoff and only once we got going did she purr. Luckily we were not too far from home with one slight hill which we walked up and then cruised slowly down towards home.

I went over to Paulo's home and here we discussed Sophia's symptoms over dinner and wine. We came to the conclusion that her clutch must have packed in. The clutch on the Vespa ET4 is quite a simple device and it should last a long time but Sophia is over 40,000 km already and she did Sani Pass which must has punished the clutch mechanism. Vespa South Africa being rather expensive in the servicing department has made a large number of Vespa fanatics look elsewhere for service. Paulo arranged that I drop off Sophia at his mechanic tomorrow morning so he can see if he can fix it. His mechanic services all Paulo's Vespas so hopefully he can diagnose Sophia's illness.