Month: October 2007

Pork, Cheese, and a Nice Rack

Three great events this weekend, two in the outskirts of Chicago and another that’s definitely worth a road trip:

Saturday, check out the Hunnert Car Pileup at the Grundy County Fairgrounds near Morris, IL. It’s one of the greatest car shows in America, with strict rules allowing only pre-64 “traditional” hot-rods. Vintage scooters are also welcome, but even if you can’t exhibit, it’s always something to see with 1000 custom hot-rods, burnout contests, rockabilly bands, and great vendors including Grace and her Galewood Cookshack, serving up incredible pork chili (green or red.)

Also on a Saturday but last Saturday (I’m a moron), so you’ll need a time machine to go, was Pride of Cleveland Scooters’ legendary “Nice Rack” swap meet. To wit:

swapbikes2.jpg

Look at all that. You want(ed) that. And that'(wa)s just the beginning. Look at the other photos on the link above, and consider that many other collectors and vendors will be (were) there, and there will be (was) a ride through Cleveland’s awesome Metroparks, and… well, drooool. Too bad I didn’t tell you about it in time.

rustic-patch.jpgOn Sunday, the Magnificent Seven, Chicago’s newest club, is doing another epic ride, this time they’re riding 225 miles through rural Wisconsin to earn the Rustic Trails award. Their grammar and punctuation ain’t so good and they tend to run on, so I’ll just (click-click) link to the ride info. There. I think the departure time changed to 7:30am, so check the next few posts to see if there are any changes. They sent me something about it, but I have more email accounts and Yahoogroup memberships than I know what to do with, and they keep changing it, so they can let us know what’s going on in the comments.

News chunks 10/8/07

  • Like many economy-minded Americans, a rural-Illinois journalist buys a $2000 Honda Metropolitan to save (by my calculations) $50 a year on gas.
  • The Moped Army gets a story in their hometown paper, with a shout-out to the Jedi Knights SC.
  • As the entire Bajaj family continues to feud, merge, and demerge, Bajaj Auto is still closing their historic Akurdi plant. Or maybe not. But probably. Whatever happens, it will take eons to sort it out with the unions. Of course, motorcycle sales are down and scooter sales are up, even Suzuki Motors India, one of the smaller players, is hoping to sell 125,000 scooters this year (and a 500cc Hayabusa, which in India might as well be two million crore cubic lakh-o-meters). So as soon as the dust settles and the plant closes at the peak of the scooter boom, look for our long-predicted announcement of the retro “new” Chetak, and the reopening of Akurdi, just as the scooter market tanks again.
  • Did you know: They have scooters in Arkansas now. (For the uninitiated, Arkansas is a southern American unincorporated rural province where newspaper editors use “apostrophe-s” to pluralize word’s.) It is, however, always great to see a club doing charity work. In other Arkansas scooter news, 20 University of Arkansas football players are riding scooters, which seems to be a trend among college football players lately, though I can’t find any more info right now to back that up.
  • Speaking of charity, a bunch of pub regulars in Birmingham, England are raffling a Lambretta painted in Aston Villa colors to raise money for a local childrens’ home. Meanwhile, the childrens’ home is selling candy to raise money for football lessons for Gareth Barry. (That was a little soccer joke there.)
  • Scooters India, Ltd., the most recent manufacturers of the metal-bodied 4-speed 2-stroke Lambretta GP, is investing 186 million rupees ($US 8.79) to upgrade facilities. Don’t get excited, they’ve produced only three-wheelers since 1997.
  • This thing has been garnering schloads of press in the last week, even though it’s basically an enclosed mobility scooter that would fall over if it got hit by a tennis ball.
  • Scooter parking is getting harder in Taiwan, just like everywhere else.
  • Only the Cincinnati Enquirer would publish a photo of a scooter thief in retro prisonwear with a smashed up face, then offer to sell you the photo.

Header Artists

You’ve probably noticed our new random artwork behind our logo over there on the top left of the page. If not, you’re either reading RSS, your monitor is too dark, or you’re pretty flipping unobservant. Anyway, there’s finally a page where you can see all the art and find out more about the artists, and find out how you can submit art or photos for that space, we’d love to have more!

TGB Xmotion

TGB’s newly-announced Xmotion is a pretty handsome scooter, a cross between the very similar-looking Yamaha T-Max and the sportier Peugeot Jetforce (or PGO G-Max/Genuine Blur). Check out the trick front suspension. It’s due out in Europe next year. TGB has a reasonably good reputation here in the U.S., but their current lineup isn’t very exciting, could this be the bike to set them apart?

Merciless Tigers

Merciless Tigers FC

Back row (l-r) “Number Two,” Jim, Jeff, Pat and Steve M.
Front row (l-r): Bruce, Steve H, Andrew, Tim and Chris

At last, meet your amateur rec-league soccer team, The Merciless Tigers FC of Cincinnati, OH, pictured above in their “indoor” configuration. Snafus with two outdoor leagues have left them stuck indoors for the time being, though there’s still hope they might lace up their cleats this season. A co-ed indoor team is also in the works. In the meantime, they’re holding down third place (of 9 teams) in the Blue Division of the indoor league, after a 7-5 win Monday night (a double-brace for Pat and a hat trick for Steve H.). Allez les tigres sans pitié!

2SB/MT soccer jerseys: last chance

MTsew.jpg

As mentioned last week, pre-orders of the Merciless Tigers FC/ 2strokebuzz soccer jerseys were much higher than anticipated. All pre-orders have now shipped, and it turns out we have only four shirts left, size XL only (they run a bit small, but not ridiculously so). We created a numbered limited edition of 50, 22 of which went to the team, and these are the last four available, ever. They’re high-quality high-tech jerseys with a silkscreened 2sb logo on the front, silkscreened number on the back, and an embroidered MTFC patch lovingly sewn on by Vina’s mom (left). Does Arsenal’s grandma sew their patches on? We bet not! All orders include a certificate of authenticity and an extra patch for your shorts or rally jacket. Support 2sb and the Tigers, snatch one up while they last. (JERSEYS ARE NOW SOLD OUT, thanks for your support!) The team received them for this weekend’s match, photos and news coming soon. Thanks very much, Busia and everyone who pre-ordered. Keep an eye out for an all-new 2sb t-shirt, coming soon.

Car Show

carshow1.jpg

A month ago, I saw some flyers around the neighborhood about an Oktoberfest at the park next to my house. I noticed that it would include a “Car Show” and I figured that a) it wasn’t very well-publicized, b) it was being run by amateurs outside the car-show scene, and c) entrants were required to pre-register in person or by mail, all three factors that would probably pretty seriously limit entries. So I mailed in an application to show my “award-winning” (ha) Vespa Primavera, mostly just for fun, but also secretly in hope that no one would show up and I might win something. Once you get a taste of sweet, sweet trophy, you want more.

Plus, I broke my other trophy.

Continue reading “Car Show”

Chicago Pumpkin Run

If you ever question 2sb’s finger on the pulse of scootering, you might ask how Chicago’s largest club ever was organized without me hearing about it, but apparently it was, and they’re having a ride:

The 36 members of the Magnificent Seven SC would like you to invite you on our first public ride: The Less-Than-Honorable Jimmy Chamerblain Pumpkin Run, Oct 7th, 2007 (Rain date October 14th). An approximately 150 mile round trip, with pumpkin picking in the middle. The rider that returns to the rally-point with the largest intact pumpkin wins! Rules below:

Continue reading “Chicago Pumpkin Run”