Moto Rapido, LLC provides repair and restoration
services for vintage two-stroke motorcycles and motorscooters. In addition to
general mechanical repair and restoration, our specialty services include crank
repair, crank rebuilding and crank truing, parts and custom tool fabrication in
our machine shop subsidiary, zinc and black oxide coating, metal polishing,
foundry casting, and powdercoating.
Our Mission
To approach repair and restoration services first with the mind and last with
the hammer. When other shops get out a bigger hammer or an acetylene torch to
free a stuck part, we get out the shop manual or consult a table in Machinery's
Handbook for the scientific solution, and complete the job the right way. If
doing the job right requires a factory tool, we find the factory tool and if
it's not available we make a copy in our machine shop.
Company Profile
Moto Rapido, LLC offers engine rebuilding services for vintage
two-stroke motorcycles and motorscooters.
You'll find several motorcycle shops in most towns, a few welding and
metalworking shops, and maybe a machine shop. You might find a custom shop
that offers all those services. So why work with Moto Rapido if you're
from out of town?
You've probably found that most shops aren't very interested in your bike
unless they sold it to you or think they have a chance of selling another
bike to you. In particular, if you ride an unusual two-stroke machine -- a
vintage lightweight European or Japanese bike, or a motorscooter -- you'll
be treated like a fool. They don't understand guys who don't ride the same cookie-cutter monster
cruisers or choppers that all the posers ride. You love your machine, and
you want the people who you hire to work on it to respect it and you.
Mechanics who don't respect your bike, or worse, who don't respect you,
won't give their best service. Corners get cut, because in their mind,
they're wasting time on a goofy little old toy for some oddball customer.
You and your bike deserve respect.
I'm not one to solve problems by applying a blowtorch or bashing with a
huge hammer. I use my mind, and the proper tools. If I don't have the
right factory tool to do the job properly, I make it on my lathe and
milling machine. It takes more time, but it means my jobs are done right,
without damaging people's precious vintage bikes.
Want convenience and fast turn-around? Maybe try your local shops if you
can talk them into working on your vintage bike. Want
somebody to respect you and your vintage two-stroke bike, and the security
of knowing the job will be done with precision? Then Moto Rapido is for
you.
We work on smaller two-stroke vintage bikes, mostly European, the types
of bikes that large production repair shops and dealer shops usually won't touch,
and the kind owned by passionate collectors and riders who don't want a knuckle-dragging
mechanic banging on their nimble machine. No American V-twins. No
cruisers. No modern sportbikes. We love two-stroke blue smoke from
beautiful vintage bikes.
About the owner
What do I ride? This 1968 Aermacchi Rapido.
What a marvellous lightweight 70mph two-stroke street racer. Fantastic power,
nimble handling. Beautiful design. If I took it to any of my town's shops,
they'd laugh at the idiot riding the little ring-ding two-stroke. My other
favorite bike is a 1964 Vespa motorscooter, tuned from its mild original 4
hp to 13hp -- a blast at just 165 pounds. It accelerates like lightning to
55mph, in case you feel like doing 55 on 10 inch tires. Next in line is an
Aermacchi m50 and a Leggero. Find me a Benelli Fireball and I'll be in
heaven (call me if you find one that's complete and worthy of restoring).
I work in a corporate office by day. I love that job, but at the end of
the day and on weekends, I need a break. My workshop is my therapy, like
the golf course is to some. I don't run Moto Rapido for the money. I do it
as a passion. I love the work. I love the opportunity to work on bikes
with character. I'm not running a fast-production shop, so I don't cut
corners. I take the time to do everything to perfection. This means when I
divide my fees by the hours I put in, it's a good thing I don't depend on
Moto Rapido money to put food on the table.
I'm a member of the international So1o Vespa Club, an owners club of vintage
Vespa motorscooters, of the smallframe variety, and a founder of the
VespaSmallframes e-group on Yahoo, the world's largest e-group dedicated to the
exchange of mechanical enhancement and race-tuning information for smallframe
Vespas. My favorite rides are my 1964 Vespa and 1968 Aermacchi Rapido
motorcycle.
State-licensed Limited Liability
Company, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, USA
Moto Rapido, LLC operates as an officially licensed Limited Liability
Company in the state of Pennsylvania, USA.
Contact Information
- Telephone
- (USA) 717-763-0866
(until 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time)
- Postal address
- 113 North 34 Street, Camp Hill, PA 17011, USA
- E-mail
- cjmark@panetwork.com
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