2004 Vento Triton 49cc 2 Stroke

I purchased this scooter brand new from Island Cycles in Ocean City, MD in mid 2006. I used to spend a lot of time working on and riding midbikes, but this was my first scooter. I planned to leave it stock and just enjoy riding an inexpensive, street legal, two-wheeler. The first pics are the closest I have of it to completely stock.

I rode the scooter in stock form, other than cosmetic mods, for around 1,000 miles... which was less than 2 months if I remember correctly. It would cruise at around 40MPH and top out at around 50MPH if I was WOT and tucked for a long straight stretch. I was satisfied with it's cruising and top speed but I wanted more low end power to get me moving faster. I'm a big fellow and I found myself pushing off with my feet at traffic lights to keep cars from running over me. I decided to add an MRP 70cc big bore kit, Wiseco 12mm wrist pin bearing, an MRP 1,000RPM main spring, MRP 2,000RPM clutch springs, an MRP clutch, an MRP variator, and an MRP exhaust.

The MRP clutch didn't last long, it destroyed itself. The MRP variator actually slowed me down. Otherwise, I was very pleased with the new parts. The scooter would now cruise around 50MPH and would push over that if I tucked. I was taking off much faster at that point and no longer needed to assist the scooter from stops when cars were behind me. My next mod was eliminating the rear mudgaurd. It serves a good purpose, but I hated the way it looked. I hat to relocate my rear tail lights along with removing the mudgaurd. You may alos notice other little things that I tinkered with from time to time in any images on this page. I have a bad habit of never leaving anything alone.

I had a wreck in late July of 2007 that put the scooter and I off the road for a little while. I took a turn in an intersection entirely too fast and the surface was a little slick. Everything seemed fine, and then I was picking my scooter up off of the ground and limping my way over to pick up one of my shoes that was about 20 feet from where I landed. I ended up with some road rash, a sprained foot, and a lot of other sore body parts. The scooter ended up with lots of cosmetic damage, a broken mirror, a broken control assembly and brake lever, and a bent steering stem.

I ended up waitng 6 months to get the steering stem because I just happened to crash at a time when they were backordered. Since nearly every panel onthe scooter needed some type of repair, I decided to paint the entire scooter black. I replaced the rear shock with a black and chrome heavy duty shock, tinted the tail light and turn signals, and did a few other tweaks while I was rebuilding the scoot.

I was very pleased with the way the rebuild turned out, and very glad to be on the road again. I ended up going over 3,000 miles since the 70cc and other upgrades with very few engine or transmission problems. The upgrades worked out great for me. I did finally end up tearing up the kick starter and then wearing out some parts of the electric starting system. The scooter sat for quite some time then because money was tight at the time thanks to a blown transmission in my car. Once I got a little scooter moeny together, I pulled the engine out and did some repairs and maintenance.

I got it all back togehter and rode it for a little while longer before having some engine issues. I decided I wanted to build and engine a little bigger than a 70cc. I wanted to see what a 2 stroke scooter could do with around 100cc. Building an engine to that displacement with the 49cc minarelli platform requires complete engine disassembly and machine work to fit a larger crankshaft and a cylinder larger than the standard 47-48mm big bore kits.

I got a crankshaft (shown in the picture above beside the stock crankshaft) and some other parts, and then another scooter came along and I turned my attention to it for a while. This scooter is sitting aside waiting for me to finish some other projects at the moment, but I will get back to it as soon as I can.