Author: Brooke

Epic Scooter Story Proposed By Kickstarter Project

badass

Canadian Gordon Bowman is proposing to publish a book detailing his fathers romantic mid-century journey across the Americas. The Kickstarter page details the project and levels of financial participation. The manuscript is complete and a publisher is sought; with this being the goal of the project. Head over and take a peak at some of the cool photos. The masked bandit photo is what caught my eye. Just about the coolest scooter snapshot I’ve seen in a while.

(Note: Facebook hasn’t killed 2SB yet, but you can also check out the facebook page on the Scooter Diaries effort)

2013 SIP Customshow Winners Announced.

header_011The results for awards at last weekend’s SIP Customshow in Landsberg, Germany are shown here. The show is one of the largest and never fails to have a few examples of custom scooter eye-candy. Some winners have been seen before but are worthy of praise nonetheless. My favorite winner is the Best Smallframe. But the best name for an award is Maximum Respect, and seeing the winner explains it. Very nice.

The Lions Roar; This Generation Not Like My Generation

Even though Bryan has his weekly VVV where he showcases a scooter centric videos each and every week, I had to share this new video from The Lions. The Lions feature members from Hepcat and a few other LA area bands and the video for their new single features some nice Vespa/Lambretta footage. Notice that only the Vespa riders receive credit at the end.

-Matt ‘With Fries’ DeVries.

The Vespa 946 Is A Step Closer To Reality

As promised earlier, the radically re-designed Vespa will be brought to market. The latest news from EICMA, as reported by Motoblog.it, shows a promotional photo where the new Quarantasei is decked out in commercialized trim. The controls, center stand, mirrors and turn signals are all aspects missing from the prototype that now appear on this pre-launch offering.

So it’s real, it’s arriving within the next year, and the question remains: Is it as interesting to throw a leg over as it is to look at? And will YOU be buying?

The (LML) Stars Aligns: EICMA Teases With Auto-Stella

Jeb, of Fido, passed along this teaser image from EICMA with Italian description. The photo depicts an LML star with an automatic engine. Last year we saw an even more compact PK with the same powerplant wedged inside. Now the Retro Vespa kits to convert a P-series into a VBB-appearing ride may have a new appeal. The holy grail of vintage modern is nearly at hand. It will certainly outdo the La Vita disaster, but will it still look a bit Tranny?

Check It Out: Mopeds Gone Social

1977 Mopeds is a shop at the epicenter of the modern American mopedlar world. They have a new feature on their site that is as much eye-candy as social aggregation for the 50cc bikes with vestigial pedals. It’s called Garage. The concept is a bit like facebook where you register, make a profile put up pictures of your ride and ‘like’ other people’s creations. But it takes it a step further and indexes all the trick bits people compile into their showcased moped builds. So if the member documents their build well enough, you can glean enough info to re-create the machine yourself. The parts are cross-referenced to other bikes which have the part and to the product page where you can buy the part in question. It’s not too pushy on the product placement as it’s the second choice when you click on a part and keeps the feel of a user focused site. Users can add multiple bikes and you can tell some of the better builders have a signature style. It’s not just for the tuners and 30 mph boy racer. Stock and restored builds are also welcome.

Plans for the future include awards for top bikes, manual libraries and tuning indexes to help users along. In the vintage scooter world some efforts like this have popped up in the past but with less homogenization and standard input formats. The great Scoot.net and Scooterhelp.com have been individually priceless assets to the scooter community. 1977 is trying to tie it all together in line with their own site and it looks pretty nicely done. It probably takes an entity with a material interest to pool it all as such.

Take it for a spin and feel free comment below and say how much it’s too much like pinterest and tumblr.

Athena Direct Injection 2-stroke Technology

I came across this video on Youtube showing the death of the 2 stroke engine is greatly exaggerated. Athena, an Italian powersports engine aftermarket parts company shows off their own direct injection system for aftermarket cylinders. The video makes some impressive claims. I think a 4-stroke versus 2-stroke smackdown needs to occur, pitting Hondas 50cc FI scooter engine against this Athena tech.

We’ve seen DI systems from Orbital and subsequently Aprilia, Piaggio and Evinrude in the past. But coming from Athena suggests this could be in place for retrofitting and maybe turning a 5% oil burning piston-ported 150 two stroke generating a mind blowing 5 HP into something clean, efficient and still not ‘stroke-wasting’.

Tiny Photos Showcase Electric Lambretta and Vespa

Saigon Scooter Center has thrown their hat into the electric scooter ring. It’s not another new Lambretta rumor, but a conversion of old to new. Vespa and Lambetta models appear, named VTronic and EBretta respectively. It’s a bit disappointing that they stuff a behemoth of a 13″ wheel in the back. And the custom cowl on the P-series conversion looks a bit off. But hey, they are making options for the people that want their transportation energy to not come from fossil fuels. At least not fossil fuels burned near them while riding.

Brits must have excellent eye sight. Most of their websites rely on the smallest photographs possible to differentiate products or events from smudges on the screen. Brit Ex-pat run SSC sustains the long tradition even overseas. Long live the Queen.

Check out the photos and description here!

Any readers riding electric scooters right this moment? Home brew, conversions or off the shelf?

New Tools Save Nuts, Destroy Lucrative Used Nut Market

I have been hoarding good condition used castellated nuts that retain the rear hub bearing on Vespas. I figured they won’t be made forever and every year many are destroyed forever with a hammer and a large screwdriver. This cache was part of my retirement strategy. Now Scooters Originali is offering a handsome tool that may dash my hopes of indoor plumbing throughout my golden years. At 59.99 it’s not cheap. But if you work on Vespa engines on a regular basis or know that you could be the star of your local club for having one to loan it’s not a bad price at all.

I now have two questions:

1) Are these nuts reverse threaded?
2) Will this increase or decrease the value of my stash of 6204 bearings?

A nod to Pistol Pete from Piston Ported for the nudge to spread the word.

Vintage Scooter Racing Photos Flickr On Blogs

Often blogs will just be a cyclical affair of reposting items and it seems a bit tired. But that’s really the nature of a weblog isn’t it? Sometimes there’s a real news scoop, an interesting editorial or just some eye candy. This is an example of the later to check out. Flickr user Panoramicpete has a very nice collection of scooter racing photos from days gone by. Da Nguyen from The Scooterist, a site that I’ll have to be sure to revisit, shared a few photos and one was in turn posted by the Ride The Machine blog. I expect that another page may now share the image set after seeing this. Or should we just stop wasting keystrokes and take up Tumblr?

Scooter Art From Britton

The main shop-keep of this blogeteria is a self-denied master of many media. Another good pal of mine, John Britton, is also an artist and craftsman and has made a few cool works he has available. The one that caught my eye was the spark plug and scooter print. In the past he has done several fantasttic pieces as rally artwork and branding support for Brookespeed Scooter Disposal Service.

You couldn’t throw a rock into gaggle of scooterists and not hit a few people who are professional artists, designers or generally crafty by trade. Some take it to the highest levels of commerce and others may rely on Etsy or booths at scooter rallies to turn their creative product into bread on the table or spare cables in the glovebox. So if you are a 2StrokeBuzz reader and want to share your scooter shaped potholders that you knit yourself and sell on Etsy or anything else you are proud of drop a line via email to me at brooke at 2strokebuzz (and you fill in the rest).

DO NOT POST A LINK TO YOUR STUFF IN THE COMMENTS SECTION. YOU WILL END UP WITH A LUMP OF COAL IN YOUR STOCKING! (But feel free to comment on anything else!)

You Gotta Have Your Dip-Tet, Honey.

It’s that time of year again. Time to figure out why your scooter doesn’t start. Time to start harassing scooter shops for being out of parts you knew you needed for the last six months. And it’s time to start cutting fingers, smashing knuckles and otherwise breaking the wonderful barrier between your insides and the outside world.

Modern or vintage, metal or plastic covered, your scooter probably has a rusty screw somewhere, ready to strike. There is a small risk of great consequence related to these sorts of events. Check with your personal physician to see if you are up to date on your Tetanus vaccination. (Who has a personal physician?!) If you are one of the millions of people in this wealthy land of ours without health care coverage, it may be a wise investment to pop on down to your local CVS and get protected.

Because you don’t want lock-jaw and night vision.

Art Imitates Life, In Portland, In The 1890s, And Today

The Pacific North West is an interesting place. I hated it when I lived in Seattle. Someone could have easily walked up to me and said, “You’re doing it wrong!”. Regardless of my misery I wouldn’t trade the experience, good friends and some good times. One weekend I visited Portland for Spring Scoot made me think that if I had maybe picked the smaller city to the south I would have enjoyed my time in the region more. They were living the dream. The unwashed and not-pumping-your-own-gas dream, but a dream nonetheless.

P-Town Scooters just posted on Facebook some sweet artwork for this years Spring Scoot rally, held March 30th through April 1st. A poster or shirt with this art would be worth the trip if my social calendar was clear, not to mention the likely destination for breakfast on Sunday morning. Good times…good times.