Month: September 2007

Kymco MyRoad 700 press photos

Lots of official press photos of the Kymco MyRoad 700 on motoblog.it. Like I said the other day, it’s no Gilera GP 800 in the looks department, but way more likely to come to the U.S., and if the price is right, I could see it doing very well here. Scooterists know Kymco makes a great product, but this bike might finally get them some attention outside the scooter/ATV ghetto. In 20 years. when Kymco’s outselling Suzuki and Yamaha, historians may cite this bike as the catalyst for that growth. Which is why they really need a much better name for it, ha.

Gizmag rides the Vectrix Maxi

Starting up the Maxi is a disconcerting affair – switch the key on, hold the left brake lever in, touch the right brake to start the bike and… Well, nothing happens. It’s completely silent. Only a large “Go!� on the well-designed instrument display gives away the fact that the power’s on.

The Vectrix electric scooter has been on the market for a while now, but this is the most thorough review we’ve seen. It’s clearly leagues above other electric bikes on the market and it features some innovative technology beyond the electric motor, but it sounds like it just can’t quite compete with a gas-powered scooter on price and performance. Kudos to Vectrix for trying though, it’ll only get better and better.

ScootRSS

Say what you will about ScootRS (please don’t, actually, I’ve heard it all), Randall’s always been kind to me (though, to be honest, I wouldn’t buy a scooter from anyone without seeing it in person first). They’ve recently expanded their facility in Ho Chi Minh City (a funny story in that post, though “Where do some people get their hatred of Asia from?” is an easy question to answer). But the real point of this post is that ScootRS now has an “item of the day” RSS feed and whether you’re down with the eastern hemisphere or not, it’s a neat way to familiarize yourself with random vintage scooter parts, I look forward to playing “Identify that Part” every morning.

Pork Alert: Galewood Cookshack TV shoot

cookshack.jpg

If you know 2sb, and you know Galewood, you already know and love Grace Delcano, our scooterist friend/neighbor famous for her home-smoked BBQ pulled pork. And you probably know that her roving BBQ-mobile, the Galewood Cookshack, is gaining notoriety in Chicagoland by serving up fantastic pulled-pork sandwiches (and more recently, nachos) at local farmers’ markets and motorcycle shows, with recent writeups in the Reader, Time Out, and Chicago Magazine.

Well, Grace and Cooky will be at the Logan Square Farmer’s Market this Sunday (9/16/07) from 10am until the last BlueBEERy muffin and Mexican Coke are sold, filming a segment for the Food Network program Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, so whether you’re a Cookshack regular or a longtime vegan looking for an excuse to come to the pork side, this is the day to show up, preferably on your scooter for extra pizazzle, and maybe see yourself on national basic cable, and more importantly, help distract from Grace, Su, and Tracie’s Sparks Mouth.

“Scooters In the City”


Here’s Natalie Martinez’ full report from NBC5 Chicago last Tuesday. (Thanks to Lalo at the 2sb IT helpdesk.) Here are the links referred to in the story, thanks to Natalie for including 2strokebuzz in that list, and for including some legal and safety advice in her story.

2sb jerseys in!

10787.JPGWe got the Merciless Tigers/2strokebuzz soccer jerseys in, a little earlier than expected, and they’re much nicer than i expected, so preorder for sure, I’m definitely going to jack the price up on Thursday. They’re a little different than I illustrated them, but better, the silver trim on the neck also goes around the edge of the sleeves, and the mesh (the dark grey area in the drawing is mesh) actually crosses under the front and back of the shirt, “mesh” sounds dumb, I know, but trust me, it’s cool. The screenprinting is very nicely done, too, and they’re not cut as small/tight as I’d feared. I’ll post a photo ASAP. The bad news is the Merciless Tigers FC patches (left, click to enlarge) aren’t going to arrive until next Monday, and then we have to sew them on. So the finished shirts should ship on or around the 20th. Thanks for all your support.

UPDATE: I’m keeping them at the presale price until Friday, at which time I’ll post some photos and you’ll realize how cool they are and wish you’d ordered one earlier. And MTFC played their first match last week (naked, I suppose), a 3-nil win over Macedonians after a fight broke out in the second half and the game was forfeited. Oh, yeah.

Vespanomics Go Green videos

What VespaUSA is calling “your chance to show and tell the world what Vespanomics is through your creative lens” is what the advertising industry calls “spec work,” doing work for free in the hopes of accceptance or a prize. I’m not knocking the entrants, and there are some pretty decent entries, but contests like these always come off as the last gasp of a company with no ideas, and the inequal footing of entrants (some amateur, and some professional enough to know better) and the corporate overview that’s necessary usually strips out most of the fun. With video editing capabilities in the hands of more and more consumers, and the “rise” of “viral” video, it’s not surprising to see contests like this popping up all over, and they are. PiaggioUSA surely borrowed the idea from recent well-publicized Heinz or Doritos contests. While it’s tempting to think they’re doing it to save a few bucks (Heinz’ $57,000 prize was far less than the creative cost of a “real” national advertising campaign), it’s funny to think they also had to spend lots of money and time advertising the contest, which makes it seem even sillier. To be fair, Vespa’s contest isn’t really a “make us a commercial” deal, I think they’re just looking for some viral love (and more mailing list names to whom they’ll never send anything), and the prize (a $5000 scooter) reflects that, though also makes it that much less enticing. Again, the entries themselves are pretty decent and worth checking out, it’s the contest itself that pushes all my wrong buttons. Judging by the fact that no “end date” is posted anywhere, I’m guessing this will be yet another promotional media-bandwagon-jump that will succeed despite PiaggioUSA’s instant abandonment of the project, thanks to the devotion of scooterists and the scooter community. (See also: Vespa Blogs),

Kymco MyRoad 700

Kymco’s long-rumored 700cc maxiscooter is unveiled and given an appropriately Kymcoesque name. Is it almost EICMA again already? Where did this year go? Anyway, it’s not bad-looking for a maxiscooter, and Kymcos are generally awesome, so start saving your pennies, it’s hella more likely to come to the US than that Gilera GP 800 and it’s surely half the price, if only three-quarters as cool.

Honda 2008: Changes, finally?

There are a lot of ways to interpret The Scooter Scoop’s report on Honda’s 2008 U.S. lineup. While it’s sad to say goodbye to old friends, the Helix and Elite were both well past their sell-by date and it is certainly time for Honda to shake things up. (Besides, killing them off only paves the way for their triumphant ‘retro’ return, later). If losing the Big Ruckus (not a big seller anyway) makes way for the SH series, then I’m all for it. I’m betting the good news will eclipse the bad before the end of the year, and it’s about time.