He claims he’s “spent the last 20 years riding and restoring scooters,” and is “active in the vintage club scene.” So it’s possible it’s just a coincidence, though it seems weird we’d never heard of each other until now, in the smallish world of vintage scootering. Anyway, I’m not gonna hassle the guy, it’s not that big a deal, neither of us uses eBay much anyway, but I just figured since he didn’t seem interested in clearing things up, it was up to me to make it publicly clear that he’s not me, and vice versa.

If you’re looking for an Amerivespa wrapup, you’re in the wrong place, buddy. I’m still sobering up from Niagara two weeks ago. So it’s about time for a review and some photos, eh?

Amerivespa wasn’t in the cards this year, so I decided I’d hit an old favorite, Niagara. I’ve been to the Tundra Schmuck’s Niagara Falls Rally several times in the past, but it’d been six years since my last visit. After paying an exorbitant rush fee to the Passport Bureau and some last-minute changes-of-plans, I ended up in the backseat of Karrie and Casey’s Forester at four in the morning on Friday, dreading the generally-expected Niagara torrential mudstorm. Our plan was to meet up with POCphil and POCjames early Friday, shift our gear to Phil’s new ‘69 Mystery Machine van, and show up in Welland, Ontario, ready to drink, long before dinnertime. Well, the best laid plans, duty-free, and a leisurely fish n chips dinner dumped us at the motorcycle club campground at dusk. We found a quiet spot and rushed to set up our tents before dark. Moments later, I was introduced to my main source of entertainment for the weekend, Matthew and Danielle from Buffalo, who putted over on a VBB from their pikey village built from tarps and a late-model Volkswagen GTI. We finished setting up and spent the rest of the weekend trying to get away from Matthew and his detailed summaries of the War of 1812 and the French and Indian conflicts. It was nice to be at a old-school camping rally with the buzz of 2-strokes (See what I did there?) and the sort of drinking you can only do when you’re locked down at a campsite for the night. Turnout was a fraction of Niagara rallies past, but it was the right fraction, loads of old friends I hadn’t seen in years, like Ian and Rob, Rich, Sam and Larry, Bill, Christian, and Karm (I’m sure i’m forgetting lots, sorry!). We also made loads of new friends, like Stuart and Vanessa from Toronto (if you ever want to make friends at a rally, start kicking a soccer ball around), Matt and Sharon (who I’d somehow never met in all these years), and several others whose names are escaping me. News of the Blackhawks’ victory over the Sharks spread around the campfire and we all hoped for a Canadiens comeback the next day. We drank, arm-wrestled, and reminisced long into the night, not a drop of rain in sight, and at 4 AM I settled down to the most comfortable rally sleep ever.

Waking up Saturday, I was still comfortable and dry. Just as I sat up and thought “could it really be this temperate and dry?,” it started to rain. Luckily, while it rained on-and-off all day, it never really got going and the site stayed pretty mud-free. We spent the day wandering the tourist areas and seeing the Falls, then stopped at the legendary Mints, a gentlemen’s club that’s become a Niagara Rally tradition, that I’d somehow managed to avoid on my earlier visits.

I’m not a fan of strip clubs, but I’m willing to endure them occasionally in the name of camaraderie and sociology. I’d always been under the impression that Mints was located in semi-rural Welland in an old warehouse on the river, and was suitably lower-rent (and thus more fun/interesting) than most strip clubs. Turns out it’s in Niagara Falls proper, and it’s just a run-of-the-mill crappy-music-and-neon strip club. Strip clubs are creepy enough on weekend evenings, but at 2pm or so, we were just about the only people there, the ‘talent’ was severely lacking (never look at a stripper in the sunlight) and neither the girls nor the waitress seemed interested in taking our money (very odd) so while a few rallygoers took advantage of the club to its fullest potential, our posse (which was nearly half-female anyway) just watched the Flyers/Habs (sorry, Habs) and Champions League final highlights on big-screen TVs, endured a lot of Kid Rock, consumed a few beers, and left with our pockets fuller of loonies and toonies than expected.

Back at the campsite, we continued on in the same vein as Friday night, turning in much earlier to get an early start back home. Sunday began early with warm sunlight to dry and air out our gear. Aside from a couple van transmission scares (always in line at the border! And US immigration has no sense of humor!) we made it back to Cleveland uneventfully (so good to have you back, ATT iPhone service!) and then westward back to Chicago while the Blackhawks finished off the Sharks.

So, really, as I tried to explain to Matthew, rally reviews are painfully boring, but man did we have a good time. Niagara was my first out-of-town rally back in 1996, and while the oversaturation of rallies and threat of awful weather resulted in a fairly small turnout, it sure felt like old times. Longtime co-organizer Ian Whalley quit a few years ago, and this year was his partner Rob Stuhr’s turn to retire, leaving the fate of the rally in Rich Easton’s hands, I suppose. Compared to most rallies these days, Niagara sort of seems to run itself, but I’m sure Rich and Rob (and Siobhan and their kids and the Welland MC) surely put in loads of work to pull it off and it was worth it, we had a great time. Thanks guys, and thanks to Karrie and Casey and Phil for letting me sponge a ride up there. The photos attached are probably of no interest to anyone but the six people in them, but here you go…

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The one major complaint is that 50cc scooters are limited to 40mph speed, which is under the capability of many 50cc scooters. That’s a bit of a drag, but it makes sense. That’s an arguably-reasonable speed limit for someone without a motorcycle license, and it makes it easier to weed out people cheating the system. At Amerivespa in Denver a few years ago, I remember seeing more than one Vespa GT 250 with the “2″ snapped off, and many other bigger-displacement scooters with homemade “50cc” stickers. I can’t imagine police would issue citations to anyone with a motorcycle license on an insured 50cc scooter riding responsibly, unless they were REALLY speeding.

• Schwinn (bicycle) dealers have had it hard since Schwinn’s 1990s 2001-era (see comments) decision to sell inferior bikes under the Schwinn name in big-box stores. You can argue all day that even top-end Schwinns are made in Asia now, and/or nothing compared to their former glory, but the general issue is that there is a marked difference between what’s sold at Schwinn dealerships, and what’s sold at Wal-Mart. Schwinn corporate maybe has a lot to answer for, but their dealers always seem totally right-on to me. They love the brand, they love cycling, and they know their stuff. Incidentally, that’s everything a good scooter shop should be.

• So, it says a lot (and it’s probably a good thing) that very few Schwinn bicycle dealers sell Schwinn scooters. Maybe the scooters weren’t even offered to the bicycle dealerships, but it seems more likely that a Schwinn bicycle dealer is uniquely positioned to realize that Schwinn will slap their name on anything, AND that even in hard times, it’s best not to sell something you can’t support 100%. The two products have little in common, it’d be like a car dealership deciding to offer steam-powered tractors. They’re both vehicles, but the parts supply, technology, customers, and expertise do not overlap. At all.
• Schwinn’s making some tentative steps into e-bikes. They’re playing it pretty conservative, but that’s probably smart. It’s interesting that some bicycle dealers have jumped on the e-bike (UM, E-Go, etc) bandwagon, and others avoid them like the plague. I’m really curious how that market develops.
• Bicycles are, like scooters, a great example of “You get what you pay for.” Sure, certain brand names will artificially jack up a price, but when it comes down to nuts and bolts, you can see the differences in quality. Scooters or bicycles, the cheapest asian models are assembled and sold by unskilled retailers without any support or personal contact. They’re made of components that are often second-quality, and sometimes dangerous. They feature outdated technology, or superficial imitations of current technology.
• Short term savings matter little when you can’t source a replacement part or constant niggling problems keep it off the road. A good bike or scooter costs more, but comes with long-term support, a personal relationship, and quality. Parts and accessories will be available for years. Vina bought a 40-year-old Austrian three-speed at a garage sale for $10. I have a 15-year-old Schwinn cruiser, our local bike shop can get us any replacement part we need. But every time we’re in there, someone wheels in a three-month-old Wal-Mart bike with a cracked weld or some goofy mechanism that can’t be repaired or replaced. Sound like any scooter shops you’ve been in lately?
• The cries of elitism come into play in both markets, too. But looking at the bicycle world is a good way to distance yourself and see that in an underegulated market (oh, the laws are there, but not the enforcement!) you end up with bottom-of-the-barrel deathtraps competing with top-end luxury models, and you start to understand why insiders are frustrated with all the junk out there. Cheap bikes rob sales from knowledgeable dealers, threaten consumer safety, and turn potential fans away from the hobby before they even get started.
• On the other end of the spectrum, spend any time in a respectable bike shop, and you’ll see folks strut in with a credit card and buy a $4000 racing bike because “I was thinking about trying a triathalon” This, too, happens in scooter shops, and usually ends with Mr. “I don’t need a helmet, I’ve been riding dirt bikes since I was a kid” dropping his new Vespa 300 before he makes it out of the parking lot. And in both markets, there’s always the “audiophile-quality” “better” parts available for upgrades. Again, common sense prevails, but few people have it. I like to think that when you buy a well-designed product, the engineers that designed it knew what they were doing, and if you find yourself needing to upgrade, you shoulda bought a better one in the first place.
• Last note: You always see people asking “What’s a good scooter can I get for $500.” For $500 you’re just getting into the juicy part of the bicycle market. Who would want to be on the road on a motor vehicle that costs less than a bicycle? A lot of top-quality custom bicycles cost more than scooters! And you could use the exercise!

Taffspeed Limited is temporally stop trading due to my heart bypass surgery.

My former employes set up “Welsh Scooter Parts” & I had let them have use of my shop equipment & transfered the old Taffspeed phone number to them so that they would have the best start to their new venture.

It was agreed to trade out of my old Taffspeed premices for 12 months & pay a rental, however now after 2 months of using Taffspeed’s old premice they gave me a weeks notice of quiting & were out which left myself now having to pay the mortgage & other bills.

So now I am running TAFFSPEED via my Taffspeed web site.

If any persons purchases items other than from this web site there is no waranty or back up.
So Scooterists beware of what & where you purchase items as there are companies that are advertising & selling replicas of our exhausts which are made in the far east!

I’ve been thinking for a while, with the advent of print-on-demand sites like MagCloud and Hulu that it’d be so much easier to print/distribute a zine these days. I focused most of my magazine energy into American Scooterist for the last several years, but that required months of work per issue and as great as it is, it doesn’t have that 2SB vibe. I’d thought about ‘2SB Greatest Hits’ compilations, or compiling the old issues, but I’d rather try something new, and something fast and collaborative and less open-ended.

Today I heard about the 48 Hour Magazine Project, and that’s inspired me to try something similar. I’ll look into it and figure out some details, but if you’re interested in helping out, drop us an email or comment!

*Someday hopefully someone will find a USB SyQuest drive so I can finish issue 4… and send Nikki a copy of the great long-lost cover photo.

(Finally!) NEW 2strokebuzz T-shirts, a very limited-edition tribute to one of the greatest albums ever, and because our son Calvin (obviously) needed one, we did a few onesies. We only printed 36 shirts, so if you’re actually twee/old enough to get the reference, order fast!

Voodoo Scooter Parts Genuine Buddy lighting adapters. We’ve actually had these for ages and we were taking photos of them for Scootmoto when Calvin was born (he’s six months old now, we’ve been kinda busy).

Bumpstart 4 (with a 2strokebuzz-designed cover!)

The mighty GEN-U-BIN

Great scootergirl patches and pins from Dakotamouse.

SPAZ carabiners (2010 patches are in the works)

and more! Dig around, it’s not even all on the front page!
So we’ll leave that banner in a 1:4 rotation with the Motorsport ad. Alex was cool with it, heh.

I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about Alex or Motorsport. In fifteen years of scootering and frequenting webforums, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a complaint about the shop or Alex. And on the other hand, while some potential advertisers are close friends and may pose a conflict of interest, I’ve never even met Alex in person, we have what appears to be a professional mutual respect. He asked me what it’d take to get his ad on 2SB, so I picked a price higher than I thought he’d pay and told him he’d have to commit to a full year, and he wrote back. “Is that all? We’ll do it!”

So Alex gets his ads, 2SB gets some operating capital, and I can’t see this deal influencing the editorial content of 2SB one bit, aside from maybe guilting me into posting more frequently and adding some new features. I hope you’ll patronize Motorsport, recommend them to friends, and let them know that you appreciate his support of 2strokebuzz and everything else he does for scootering.

You can read more about the film in April’s post and links in the comment section of their blog. It sounds like a familiar tale. I’m fairly certain scooter fans will discuss the film on several levels from now until well after release. The question I’m most interested in is what 4-stroke engine recording will they use in the film to represent the running Lambretta?

You also may notice that the email updates are coming from illnoise(at)2strokebuzz(dot)com now rather than my work address, which I’d been trying to change for a few years. You might wanna add that address to your address book to prevent spam filtering (and also because it’s 2SB’s contact address!).

If you’re not following us via RSS OR getting email updates, you can set up either by clicking the appropriate links in the top-right corner of the site.

Via ScooterDiva