Here are some pics of my Rat's.br/ The first is affectionately know as the ''Rat Black Vespa of Death''. It was bought as a write off after being rear ended by a car. It had less than 1500km on it, so it was mechanically sound, but rather dented. After a rough panelbeating job it was brush painted flat black with some paint that was lying around the garage. Well I couldn't leave it purple could I? I also added a whole lot of stickers to the glovebox lid. I chucked on some white walls and painted the wheels red. I found a cheap rack for the front which is perfect for taking a case of beer. It gets ridden most days for the short trip to work, but with me being well over 6 foot tall it was a little cramped. So I added some highway pegs. They were pillion pegs of my R1. Perfect for the Vespa! It needed a front guard though, so a trip to the bicycle shop found a short plastic guard for a couple of bucks and with a slight trim with a hacksaw it was on.

The TDM was bought cheap as a non runner with over 200,000km on it. It was a one owner bike that the owner no longer had time to ride, so it had sat outside for a year or so. A fresh battery and a new voltage regulator had it up and running and after a service and tune it was running sweet.

I took the lower fairing off to get to the radiator cap and decided it looked better with out it, so I removed the other side as well. I wanted to have another flat coloured bike, but already having the black Vespa I wanted to do something different with the TDM. A trip to the hardware store yielded green chalk board paint in a rattle can and some more flat black engine enamel. I gave the bike a quick wash (the first in the six months I'd owned it) and a quick sand before spraying the top half green and repainting the engine and frame flat black. It needed something extra though, so I added the black stripes to it. I'm quite happy with the results on both bikes so far, but I'm sure I'll do more to them as time goes on.blockquote Cheersbr/ Bucko from Central West NSW in Australia/blockquote