Month: April 2009

Not Hacked

We were down for a few hours this morning, with some symptoms that led us to believe we might have been hacked. Once we fixed it, to our relief, it was clear that The People’s Republic of China had nothing to do with it, it was just an SQL glitch. Props to our beloved hosting co. Tilted for their help, and to Chandler for notifying me so quickly.

“Stop Slandering Scooters!”

More reaction to the “Straight Dope” story and U.S. News’ followup from TreeHugger. The arguments get more convincing that even 4-stroke scooters aren’t as “green” as we’d like to think, but there’s a lot of speculation and comparing apples to oranges in all these stories. Our fingers are crossed that someone (better-equipped and less biased than 2strokebuzz or PiaggioUSA) can find and crunch some real numbers, find a fair metric by which to compare a variety of scooters, cars, and SUVs, and settle this debate. (Thanks for the link, Kathy!)

Tuk Tuk USA lineup features… Ape Calessino?

Ape Calessino or Tuk Tuk USA?

Jeremy Korzeniewski of Autoblog reported today that Tuk Tuk USA has “officially been granted both DOT and EPA approval for its line of Mitsubishi-powered three-wheelers.” Jeremy’s clearly a big tuk-tuk fan, he’s been following Tuk Tuk USA for about year, and he also posted an elegy for BajajUSA’s three-wheeer.
Continue reading “Tuk Tuk USA lineup features… Ape Calessino?”

POC’s morning-show charm

POCphil and POCmerritt on Cleveland’s That’s Life with Robin Swoboda. Could two people be more charismatic ambassadors of scooterdom? Throw in POCrenee and you’ve got a hit reality show, one that I get to watch live, every time he’s around. People accuse me of being a Phil Waters groupie, but Phil’s met African-American preachers, racist skinheads, models, racing superstars, cops, soccer moms, hillbilly gun nuts, Tom Jones, and even my parents, and charmed the pants off of all of them, often literally. Who could blame me for loving the guy, his wife, and everything they stand for?

Note that even the best scooter dealers tend to bend the truth a little (Genuine Buddies start around $1999, but that’s a top-of-the-line Black Jack) but props to Phil for drilling home the safe-and-legal message right from the start.

Vectrix cuts 60 staff, seeks funding, suspends trading

Charles from Scooter-Station pointed us to this Vectrix announcement via the London Stock Exchange, where their stock is traded:

Middletown, R.I.- April 14 – Vectrix Corporation (AIM: VRX) (www.vectrix.com), maker of the world’s first high performance, two-wheel zero emission vehicle (ZEV), announces that while its efforts continue to secure new equity funding and government based loan or grant support as well as temporary financing, the Directors will now begin to seek other strategic alternatives which could include a merger or sale of the business. The Company will continue to provide updates to the market as we progress through these activities. In order to conserve working capital for continuing operations during this period, the Company this week implemented cost savings measures including a significant reduction in workforce involving some 60 staff.

Trading in the common stock of the Company remains suspended until further notice.

Venti venditio veritas?

Orin reports that Hammerhead’s Venti (and a 50-cc verson, the “Paris,”) are expected to arrive at his local shop in June. Opinions vary, both about the scooter itself and its potential in the market, but Hammerhead seems to be walking the walk and following through (rather quickly) on a concept that could be very popular. If they handle dealer support as well as they’ve handled everything else so far, and if the bike is of halfway decent quality, we’ll probably be seeing a lot of Ventis on the road soon.

UPDATE: (4/16) Ryan at Scooter-News heard a different story from Hammerhead themselves, including a possible name change.

Scootcrash.com

Brad (aka “Orangeguy”) from the Quad Cities started a new grim but useful website a few weeks ago to catalog scooter injuries and fatalities found via Google News. I see these stories every day while I’m scouring for scooter news, and it’s disturbing how many you come across even after you filter out (as Brad does) duplicate reports and pushscooter/senior mobility scooter stories. It’s sad that many of the fatalities and critical injuries are suffered by unlicensed and untrained riders (often preteen children) and/or people riding on public roads on non DOT-EPA-appoved scooters, often with no helmet.

Depending on where you live, you are expected to comply with laws when you ride, and you’re also given choices about safety precautions beyond mere compliance with the law. How you decide to ride is up to you, and there are certainly enough stories on Scootcrash.com involving well-protected and experienced rider. But experience and education always lead to better decisions and reactions. There are a lot of more positive and proactive ways to collect experience and education, but anytime you’re feeling like you have all the experience and education you need, Scootcrash.com is a good place to prove that you’re wrong.

I can’t imagine Brad will continue to do this site for long, it’s a time-consuming and depressing (but worthwhile) task.

MotorcycleUSA’s “Vespanomics” conclusions

We mentioned last spring that MotorcycleUSA was planning on commuting on a Vespa for a few months to see if PiaggioUSA’s “Vespanomics” held up. We just noticed they posted their conclusions last December, which match what we’ve been saying all along: It’s hard to justify the cost of a new scooter (including maintenance, insurance, and) if you already own a car, but it’s a great substitute for a new car or second car, for a single person without kids. They didn’t really explore the ecological benefits, which are usually overstated, but worth mentioning, but they do mention that it’s a fun way to get around, which we think is the biggest selling point of a scooter.

TGB to USA

I’m not sure how long this notice has appeared on TGB’s Taiwan website, but it’s been up for the last few days at least:

[Cobra] Powersports is no longer the exclusive distributor for TGB products in the US. We will be manufacturing some of their scooters brand[ed] as Peirspeed. Please look for TGB to bring in new products under the TGB brand to the US in late March!

Over the past week or so, I’ve heard from several parties related to both TGB and Cobra, including George Lin, the President of TGB. I feel that especially considering what I’ve learned since my apology, it’s absolutely fair to say that my original interpretation of the facts was correct. What Cobra’s rep at the show told me was technically true, and Cobra maybe didn’t see it coming, but as of last week, TGB gave Cobra notice that they’ll be breaking their contract, and will be importing TGB bikes themselves. I’ve offered Cobra and TGB a chance to fully clarify the situation, more to come.

Scooter Jump Goes Wrong

Next time someone questions 2SB’s “journalism skillz,” refer them to “Website of the Year” Sky News, with important “news” stories like “GIANT CHOCOLATE BIG BEN” and “SCOOTER JUMP GOES WORNG” [sic]. With just a tiny fraction of Rupert Murdoch’s money behind 2SB, we could probably at least double our level of journalistic standards. Help us out, Rupe.

Polini Cup LIVE Saturday and Sunday

Probably the U.S.’s most exciting scooter race in years, the Polini Cup is happening tomorrow and Sunday in Tom Dash Speedway in Atwater,CA. This exciting event will feature vintage scooters, modern scooters, mopeds, mini-moto and go-peds and almost slipped past 2sb’s attention until Joshua Griffith from Seattle Mopeds let us know that MopedTV and the 1977 Mopeds Blog will feature live coverage all weekend (with emphasis on Mopeds, of course.) Sounds awesome, sorry to not publish this earlier but aaaaarrrrgggh DSL! and now we’re in Cincinnati for WKRP and I should be drinking right now goodbye. But definitely check it out.