Month: May 2004

Teri Slugrocket tipped us off that the new Adidas ads are showing during Fox Sports World Premiership match broadcasts. Somebody PLEASE find some .mov files! I’m going to go out and buy six pairs of Gazelles tonight. Becks sounds awfully excited about his scooter, considering he never even rode it. I’m not generally excited about ads, but c’mon, soccer stars, scooters, AND “It’s Caper Time!”

Not work-safe. Nice!

Oh, the things you’ll find when you search for “vespa+bacon.”

I used to link up every scooter news story I could find, but these days you can search Google News and find a dozen rewritten Vespa-PR-hack stories from around the country. But this Louisville Courier-Journal story actually seems to have a little research in it. Matthew Wysocki will be surprised to learn that the area’s first club is getting started, since he started one at least a year ago, but otherwise, nicely done, with a sidebar about Vespa films that covers all the big ones except Encino Man.

Maurizio Cattelan’s Untitled (Cow) (1998) sold at auction on Thursday for $254,400. For more information on how you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars from the junk in your garage, see this and this.

Lil Romeo isn’t old enough to drive his car (was that really a Mercedes?), but his posse was riding his fleet of new Vespas around the driveway on MTV’s Cribs. Li’l spoiled fucker. And didja ever notice in The Muppet Movie that Mad Man Mooney’s Used Car Emporium is also an authorized Vespa dealer?

We’re back. Be sure to pay your domain name bill on time.

Someone in Austin (who could that be?) has no love for ScootRS.

“I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail.”
– H. L. Mencken

Here’s all the info on the 2004 Galewood Rally. If you’re thinking about coming, please drop us a line, so we can get an idea how many people to expect.

Galewood Rally Facts:

• Galewood/Montclare is a small neighborhood on the far west edge of the City of Chicago. It’s just north of Oak Park and just east of Elmwood Park.
• A heady mix of peer pressure and real estate value somehow resulted in at least a dozen scooterists moving to Galewood in the last few years. We reckon this square mile has the highest per capita scooterist population in the city, if not America.
• This is the fourth Galewood Rally.
• G2K3 is organized by 2strokeBuzz and the Black Windows MC and sponsored in part by Crafty Planet and Durso’s Speed Shed.
• Galewood is a birthday party for Grace Delcano, Bryan Bedell, Phil Waters, and 2strokeBuzz. Grace, Phil, and Bryan were born days apart, and will all be 35(!) this year.
• We’re not sure why bacon became the central element of the rally. Doesn’t everyone eat a pound of bacon a day?
• There is no rally fee. Bring some cash to cover eat-out meals and covers and bar tabs.
• Please do not poke the baby.
• All polite scooterists/motorcyclists are welcome, trendies, oldsters, and newbies, and even the scooterless if you can serve up some bacon, but you if you bring a Honda Ruckus, you gotta let us try it out. Someday, someone will bring a Ruckus and let us try it out. Please let it be this year.

ITINERARY: Live the life of a Galewoodian!

Friday, May 28:

6:30-8:00pm (Suggestion, not ‘official event’) Meet for dinner at the Summit VFW Fish Fry (7256 63rd Street in Summit IL).
9:00-1:08pm Drink (and bowl, if you must) at Circle Bowl (7244 Circle Ave. Forest Park).
1:08-2:00am Spill over to Circle Tap (across the street) after Donna kicks us out.
2:01am- T.J. kicks us out, we go get White Castle Jalepeno Cheeseburgers. Or maybe the River Forest Grill. Or maybe this is the year we’ll be brave enough to go to the “Gun Diner.”

Saturday, May 29:

Noon: Meet at Rutherford-Sayre Park
(South side of Park near Shakespeare and Newland) for the first-ever Galewood TT and the Mods vs. Rockers kickball game. (The TT rules have been established to make ALL bikes competitive) Eat first, or bring a picnic/take-out to the park. (May I suggest the WingStop, 1742 N Harlem Ave?)

5:00-ish: Break to prepare for the Cook-Off.

6:00: Black Windows MC Bacon Cook-Off/BBQ/party at Grace’s house. (1632 N. Rutherford, 773 637 0868)

Click here for a cookoff ‘tip sheet’ from the Black Windows MC.

The Cook-Off is a pot-luck buffet of dishes featuring bacon as a main ingredient. Limited oven/stove/microwave time is available, but if it’s served warm, please bring a crock pot or chafing dish to keep it warm. Anything you can do to prepare ahead of time would be appreciated. Please label your cookware so it doesn’t get lost. If you don’t want to participate, please bring some soda or chips or kick in for the keg or something. Fabulous prizes will be awarded to the best dishes. The celebrity judge this year is Rockford Chris Winters, whose Orange/Bacon lollipops won third place last year. Yes, it’s *that* competitive.

7:00: Bacon Cook-off Judging and rally prizes.

If you don’t dig on the swine, or can’t cook, please bring a vegetarian-friendly dish or a side dish to the potluck. Some vegetarian options may be available, but don’t count on it. It’s not called “The Good, the Bad, and the Piggly” for nothing.

8:30-ish: After dinner and the judging, we need to shuffle you the hell out of Grace’s basement before people start the fire-breathing and circle-drinking and what have you. There are two fantastic options:

• If you’re expecting some kind of fantastic night on the town, two awesome bands featuring chicago scooterists, Waxon Seven and The Shifties, will be playing at the Transmission Gallery in Greektown. It’s BYOB and there’s a $5 cover. There will be a group ride down there for whoever’s interested.
• If you’re already drunk and wanna stay in the ‘hood, help clean up Grace’s house and then walk over to the Kit Kat Club, pretty much Galewood’s only bar, where the elite meet to gawk at middle-aged Polish hookers.

Sunday, May 30:

Group ride sponsored by Durso’s Speed Shed. Meet at 9:30 am sharp at Bryan’s (6917 W Shakespeare, 773 637 4480). We’ll tour west suburban landmarks and meet the late risers at noon at Johnnie’s Beef (the best in the city, hands down) for lunch (7500 W. North Ave., Elmwood Park). This ride was fantastic last year, and most of you missed it, so we’ll do pretty much the same route again so you have another chance.
Continue reading “Galewood 2K4: The Good, The Bad, and the Piggly”

As is the case whenever an Italian motorcycle manufacturer is up against it, the Italian government, banks, and probably the Texas Pacific Group, are stepping in to save Aprilia. If you keep enabling them, Italian government, they’ll never learn. Thank Lu$ for trying to keep up with the story.

(From Rasputin:) Yesterday there was a “historic motorcycle race” on the Nuerburgring in Germany (near Cologne). For the first time they also had a class called “historic motor-scooters”, where 52 riders showed up on various machines: a lot of Vespas, quite a lot of Lambrettas, some Bellas, Heinkels, a Maicoletta, and a Z,ndapp.
Continue reading “Vintage Scooters on the Nuerburgring”

Jordan Cinco, a filipino currently living in Chicago, saw the recently-posted filipino racing pictures and sent us a link to his club’s photos: The Euroscoot SC, including his snaps from Slaughterhouse 9. Hope to meet you soon, Jordan!

Baron Von Nitro sent this cool photo, taken in Vietman by Burt Richmond from Lotus Tours. Here are two more:
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| 2.

June 10-12 is the Mod Chicago Smashing Time festival, 3 days of Mod music, and a scooter show at Delilah’s Saturday Afternoon. That’s three weekends in a row (Galewood-Suburban Cowboy-Smashing Time) with big-time scooter events HERE IN TOWN. And after all that, you still have the Screw City Rally (in Chicago, for some reason) and Slaughterhouse to look forward to. You lucky, lucky, Chicago scooterists.

No details yet, but Chad has announced the dates for the Suburban Cowboy Rally (June 4-6Oe the weekend after Galewood). It’ll be a combo city/camping rally. I didn’t get the artwork, until I was at Tractor Supply in South Bend and saw the Wrangler “Cowboy Cut” pocket tag.