SASHA STEINHORST: SKATEBOARDS, TRAVELS, AND VESPAS

Legendary pro skateboard icon, moto freak and worldly traveler Sasha Steinhorst grew up riding skateboards and Vespas. Some of his favorite places to skate include Bondi Pool in Sydney, Marseille skate park (Marseille, France) and Etnies Skate Park of Lake Forest, CA. This summer Sasha played ‘Spot the Vespa’ during his World Cup Skateboarding European tour stops. Read his story and check out his photo gallery.

Vespa’s have been a part of my life for as long as I know. I remember seeing photos of my grandfather riding a Vespa in Argentina with my grandmother riding side saddle on the back. I remember my Mom telling me about going on dates on a Vespa when she was a young girl in Buenos Aries. I grew up in San Francisco and went to school in the Italian neighborhood of North Beach. I remember the smell of roasting coffee and seeing the old men zipping around the neighborhood on Vespa’s. I was fortunate to have grown up in a cosmopolitan city like San Francisco.

At first, the Vespa thing started out as just transportation for me when I was 14 years old. I needed to get from one part of town to the other. I wasn’t allowed to have a proper motorcycle. So the Vespa 150 Special became my mode of transportation. It honestly became the LOVE of my life! It wasn’t until a few years later that I really came into the Vespa lifestyle. I used to work at a cafe called Simple Pleasures. It was one of the Scooter hot spots in San Francisco back in the mid 80′s. I guess the main reason I followed along the path of the Vespa was because it was tied to a certain kind of nostalgia, sophistication and freedom. There were many scooter clubs in the San Francisco scene like Secret Society and BBS, just to name a few. My friends and I defected from Secret Society and started BBS. I remember nights in North Beach at the Savoy Tivoli Café with 50+ Vespa’s out front!

By the time I went to college, I had a garage full of Vespa’s.
We worked on them day and night. We built Mod Vespa’s like Sting in Quadrophenia, and we built Vespa’s with Malossi race engines that did 160km’s … Vespa really became a way of life for me as a young lad.

I own a lot of two-wheeled toys now, but will always love that first Vespa! The way of the Vespa opened doors into life!

Viva Vespa…

‘Spot the Vespa’ Photo Gallery