"I might not go fast, but I can go anywhere — provided there's a strong espresso at the top."
After a year of recharging my batteries and enduring the grey reality of a desk job, the itch returned. I did not need a world record this time. I did not need 20,000 km across a desert. I needed the mountains, my friends, and a vehicle so fundamentally inadequate for the task that the journey would become a masterpiece of persistence.
Enter Cap10 America.
Cap10 is a Vespa PK XL2 I bought for €450. She was a winter rat with a Captain America paint job slapped over the scratches of a life poorly lived. Powered by an 85cc engine — I think, I never actually serviced her before we left — she was a rolling contradiction to every shiny BMW GS parked at the Alpine passes.
Adequate? No. Perfect? Absolutely.
Over two weeks Cap10 and I buzzed through Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Italy. A greatest hits tour of Alpine passes, Vespa events and roadside repairs.
Vespa Alp Days — Grossglockner, Zell am See The journey kicked off with the Grossglockner. Storming Austria's highest mountain on 85cc requires a specific kind of patience. The view from the top is always sweeter when you have earned it at a blistering 58 km/h.
Vespa World Days — Interlaken, Switzerland I rolled into Switzerland to join the international Vespa family. Amidst the sea of Vespisti, Cap10 received some much-needed attention — I re-adjusted the steering bearings, serviced the brakes and changed the oil right there in Interlaken. The PK XL2 was earning her keep.
The Swiss Passes — Furka, Grimsel, Susten, Gotthard From Interlaken we tackled the heavyweights. There is a unique magic in standing on top of a Swiss mountain pass with a €450 piece of engineering, breathing in freedom and two-stroke smoke while the plastic snobs look on in confusion.
Lake Maggiore & Lake Como We crossed into Italy, circling Lake Maggiore and tracing the elegant shores of Lake Como. Beautiful roads. Beautiful lakes. A scooter that was beginning to voice its opinions about the workload.
The real test was the Stelvio Pass. 2,758 metres. 48 hairpin bends on the north side alone.
Riding the Stelvio on a smallframe is a sensory overload. By the time we hit the hairpins, the clutch had started to complain — loudly, and with increasing creativity. After multiple passes over 2,000 metres it began to sound suspiciously like an automatic scooter, which a Vespa PK XL2 categorically is not.
I spent Monday somewhere between the lakes and the peaks searching for a clutch, eventually performing a roadside Smallframe-Tourette repair session on the side of an Italian mountain.
Then I kept going.
People ask why I do not just buy a modern adventure bike. Where is the adventure in that?
On a Vespa every kilometre counts double. The suspension is half as good. The wheels are a fraction of the size. You compensate for every mechanical deficit with your own endurance and grit. And when you reach the top of the Stelvio on an 85cc shopping cart with a freshly repaired clutch, the espresso at the summit tastes better than anything money can buy.
The 2023 Cap10 Tour was not a holiday. It was a reminder that you do not need a massive budget to see the soul of a continent. You need courage, the route less travelled, and the willingness to let a little chaos in.
What is Cap10 America? A Vespa PK XL2 with an 85cc engine, bought for €450 with a Captain America paint job covering the damage of previous ownership. She crossed the Grossglockner, the Stelvio, the Furka, the Grimsel, the Susten and the Gott