Category: Lifestyle

Slaughterhouse 28 registration open

As you probably know if you’re still occasionally visiting/RSSing/subscribing to 2strokebuzz, The annual Slaughterhouse Rally is Chicago’s biggest and best rally and it’s been around for 28 years now! After a couple scaled-back years we’re going back to full throttle this Labor Day weekend, and I wanted to let you know that you’ve only got a few days left to register if you want to get a PERSONALIZED SLAUGHTERHOUSE 28 ILLINOIS LICENSE PLATE!

You gotta register before SUNDAY (June 19) to personalize your plate (3 characters). We might have some random-number plates left after that, but if you want to be sure to get a plate, REGISTER NOW. If you’re an IL resident and submit your scooter info with your registration, you can get it before the rally and USE IT through Labor Day. If you don’t have a legal plate already, or if you’re from out of state, you’ll still get it, but the state won’t release it until after the rally, so we’ll mail it to you.

We’ve got a bunch of other good stuff lined up, too, including maybe the best patch ever. If you haven’t been to Slaughterhouse for a few years, now’s the time, this is going to be one of the biggest and best ever (nearly 100 registrations already and it’s only MID-JUNE!) Did I mention TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS includes the plate, patch, and a weekend of fun? You spent that much on drinks last night. See you there!

Inside a Carburetor

Smarter Every Day is a fantastic YouTube channel that really digs into explaining and simplifying how things work. The latest episode looks at carburetors, the device that mixes air and gas with the proper quantity and ratio to be compressed and detonated by the spark plug in the cylinder.

Even if you’ve been fiddling with scooter carburetors for years, you still might have no idea how they actually work. Like many people, you might understand the basic theory of a carburetor, but still feel like there’s a little bit of magic going on in there.

Destin explains the basic concept, then builds a clear model of a very basic carburetor, where you can actually watch the droplets of gasoline being sucked up from the float bowl, diffused in the venturi, and sucked past the throttle into the engine. Turns out it’s better than magic, it’s science magic!

Watch it now, the rest of this post is just my dumb comments…

As Destin’s dad points out, a real carburetor is much more complicated, with with different pathways and jets that can adjust the mixture and flow depending on how wide-open the throttle is. Removeable jets with larger or smaller holes allow further adjustment. And there are different shapes and sizes and designs of carburetors. But boy does this video make it clear how it all works. watching those tiny droplets of gas turned into mist by the suction nearly brought me to tears, especially knowing that a “real” carburetor would meter and disperse the droplets even more elegantly.

So why not just use a bigger jet (or a bigger carb) for more power? Early in the testing, Destin’s dad warns of backfire or damage to the engine if the throttle is too-wide-open. You can actually see backfire shooting out of the intake at the 18-minute mark, weird that they didn’t point it out! You can push the limits with tuning, but scooter engineers know what they’re doing, and your stock carb is designed for long, reliable engine life, maybe at the expense of a little power.

Every scooterist knows you can kill an engine by blocking the air intake. Towards the end, they’re having a harder and harder time killing the engine, because the holes where the choke lever was mounted are open. Enough air is coming through those tiny holes to keep the engine running. This is a reminder that the engine needs to be airtight and any tiny airleak in the carb, gaskets, manifolds, or seals will throw all this precise engineering out of whack. In some cases it can be fixed temporarily with more choke or a different jet, but ultimately airleaks need to be addressed properly for the scooter to really run properly.

Shouldn’t We All Be at Bandcamp?

Rarer than a rod-model airbox cover. (I don’t know if that’s even a thing, or how rare it is, but it sounds good.)

Never thought you’d see another issue of 2strokebuzz, did you? Well, I made a very modest kinda-shitty fifth issue back in 2015 to hand out at Bandcamp but I ran out of time to print it and I never got around to sharing it.

Now it’s 2020, a weird, scary, and depressing year. We’re all realizing that there are a lot of simple pleasures that we take for granted, but Bandcamp isn’t one of them. I’m certain we all drive home on Sunday realizing how special and important it is, with the promise of the next one keeping us going, as we count down the months and days until we see our friends again.

So here it is. This issue isn’t any great shakes, it’s only a few pages, some of it seems inappropriate even five years later, Milena’s pronouns are wrong, some of the inside jokes are already forgotten, and (thankfully!) I met “that guy” the next year. But hopefully it fills a little part of the big hole we’re all feeling this weekend.

This year sucks, but please use the downtime to do something creative and/or productive, and to be thankful for what you’ve got. If you’re reading this, you probably have a motorscooter and good friends, and that’s a lot to be thankful for. If you’ve got more than that, please use a chunk of your resources to make the world better.

Let me get you started… this isn’t the most pressing issue out there right now, but it’s the most relevant to this post: If you’re missing Bandcamp as much as I am, please donate a few bucks to the Toronto Band Fathers to keep that stupid magical football field and barn waiting for us next year.

2sb Quarantine Jukebox

I need a “winter project” to keep me sane through the long Chicago winters. Last year, it was my first Lambretta after 25 years of Vespas. This year, in January, I resolved to finally get our 1962 Seeburg LPC-1 jukebox running again. A month or so ago, with a lot of help and a level of obsession approaching my scooter projects, it came back to life, and we’ve really been enjoying blasting our scratchy old 7″s through the house at the press of two buttons.

On the last day of school before the COVID-19 quarantine here in Chicago, my son Calvin brought home an origami piano that his friend Kingston taught him to make, and I thought “That shape looks familiar!” During our first weekend of quarantine, I made a prototype, then a fancy papercraft model of our jukebox based on Kingston’s piano, and here’s a PDF file so you can print it and assemble it yourself! Hopefully this project entertains you for a brief period while you’re housebound.

If you’d like some background music while you assemble it, check out our Jukebox Playlist on Spotify:

Someday we really hope you can come by and see the real thing in person, it’s a beauty. If you enjoyed building this, maybe you’ll want to check out the 2strokebuzz Action Toy we made way back in 2001!

VVV: Your Wildest Dreams

Danny Brownpants, we found you a halloween costume!Back in “the day,” we used to post music videos featuring scooters on ”Vespa Video Vednesdays,” and just the other day Matty sent me one so good that I decided to revive it next time a Wednesday rolled around. But that one is in the hopper. In the meantime, i want to share a story that came to mind today, even though it’s Monday:
Continue reading “VVV: Your Wildest Dreams”

2018 Yacht Club

Remember back when our friend Matthew’s 2002 Bajaj Chetak was somehow titled as a “Yacht Club” by the Illinois DMV? Well guess what, itshappeningronpaul.gif because Vespa just commandeered (commodoredeered?) that very same name for a limited edition Primavera and GTS. Glad to see Vespa has backed off their elitist suburban leisure marketing and got back to making efficient, affordable scooters for the proletariat.

Slaughterhouse 24 Chicago Rally

Slaughterhouse 24 is, as always, Labor Day Weekend in Chicago. This year, there’s (finally) preregistration, register now if you want a shirt. (On-site registration is the same price, without a shirt.) As always, there will be various rides, food, drink, fun, music, and friends. This year we’ll also be bowling at Fireside Bowl, the legendary ’40s bowling alley-turned-’90s punk venue-turned-bowling alley again.

More details coming soon!

Yinzerdome Photos

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Is this still on? Thought you guys might like to see my PVSC 2017 Beyond Yinzerdome photos. As always it was an amazing, meticulously-planned rally without a dull moment, and this year the weather turned out to be pretty great. Saw a ton of old friends, didn’t even get a chance to talk to all of them, and made some new ones. Pudge snagged the last pierogi, but I drowned my sorrow in bourbon and pepperoni rolls. Thanks SO much PVSC, you’ve been setting the standard by which all other rallies are judged, for YEARS now.

Lambretta Jamboree 2016 Photos

28115849320_32c7174f77_kThe Lambretta Club USA is famously (and justifiably) snobbish about their national rally, only Lambrettas and their attendant Lambrettisti are welcome, so I was flattered to be invited (my scooter of choice be damned) to serve as official photographer of this years’ Lambretta Jamboree in Duluth, Minnesota.

It was an amazingly well-organized and fun event, and hopefully any lapses in the quality of my photography were balanced by the quantity, I took an awful lot of photos, and you can see them all here. Thanks to Matt, Peter, Patrick, and all the other Minnesotans and LCUSA brass for all the work you put into an event I’ll never forget.

1995

SH951995. I just got my first scooter. I’d met Alfredo on Usenet’s alt.scooter, we’d gone for a ride, he’d mentioned a scooter rally coming up in a few weeks, “We should go!” I got my scooter to get around town in style, I wasn’t so sure about diving into the “scene” of weirdo mods and skinheads, but it was worth checking out. All Alf had was a phone number. I called and talked to a girl named Kristen, she took down my address and said she’d mail me more info. A week later, I got a flyer in the mail.
Continue reading “1995”

State of the Buzz Address

Hey, 2SB readers! Bryan here…

As you know, 2strokeBuzz has been pretty dead for a while now, I got kinda disillusioned with scootering a few years ago and even with the addition of Matt and Brooke, we’ve only been posting sporadically. Ironically, in the meantime (with a lot of help from friends and mechanics) I’ve got two running vintage bikes and I’ve been riding more than ever. Turns out, for all I’ve spoken up on behalf of modern scooters and modern scooterists, I’ve realized over time that my true love is vintage scooters, and I miss talking about and riding vintage scooters just as much as I don’t miss arguing with clueless importers and feeling compelled to write about uninspiring new scooters.

So the point is, 2strokeBuzz is not dead, but we are taking it easy in our old age. The first issue of the ‘zine came out nearly TWENTY years ago, so you can be sure we’re going to celebrate that milestone in January 2016. In the meantime, I’m thinking about what we are, and where we want to be. This blog is maybe no longer the right format, not everyone’s on Facebook, I still don’t really ‘get’ Twitter, but I want to keep making 2SB happen. The focus will definitely be reverting to vintage scooters and silly fun, minus the pressure of keeping up with modern scooter/breaking industry news kinda stuff that was bringing me down. If you have suggestions or would like to contribute something, please let me know.

Your reward for reading so far into this blather? We’re going to PVSC next weekend and we’re going to have our first new print issue for sale there (only $2!). It’s going to be super-lame by the standards of the old days, but it’s our first step in getting things going again. If you’re coming to PVSC, track us down! We’re only printing 40 copies, it’ll include a special bonus item, and it’ll ONLY be available at the PVSC rally, so if nothing else, you can sell it on eBay and maybe make your two bucks back.

I’m setting aside 9 of the 40 copies to give away online to the first three commenters on this post here on the site (remember your login? me neither!), on our Facebook page, and on Twitter (if I remember to check Twitter). Remember to comment on this post, not just anywhere. If you win and you’re at PVSC I’ll give it to you there, otherwise I’ll track you down and mail it. Thanks for supporting 2strokebuzz for ALL. THESE. YEARS.

Karm Developed Your Film!

mysteryscooters 1

Here’s a fun story and mystery from our pal Karm Parker, a Torontonian who moved to Columbus, OH about a year ago: Karm, like many of us rally-going scooterists, visits a lot of thrift stores and lately he had the idea to steal the film from any cheap cameras he finds. He carries around a few batteries to (hopefully) safely rewind it, and sends it off to Dwane’s Photo to have prints made. In his very first batch, two came back ‘black’ (exposed to light at some point). One roll was too damaged to print. But the last roll had 10 pictures… of scooters!
Continue reading “Karm Developed Your Film!”

2strokebuzz Liebt Motorliebe

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It’s been more than a year since our last (non-CWC) post, and i’m sick of dumb April Fools’ pranks, so here’s something real, and awesome: Motorliebe, aka Lars, Dani, Blumi, and Mariuz, rode across the U.S.A. last summer on Vespa P200s, and I know a lot of 2SB readers had the pleasure of meeting them along the way, especially at PVSC Band Camp. They were self-sufficient, organized, and ridiculously fun to be around, and I think we were all a bit bummed out to see them go back to Germany. Meeting them was a highlight of my summer and reminded me why I love scootering, and it certainly made a certain Thomas Müller goal a little easier to swallow.

Be sure to check out their great video!

Anyway, point being (when did 2sb ever get to the point quickly?) Motorliebe’s photo book about their trip is coming out soon, and was previewed in a great photo gallery and interview with Dani in German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. It seems to be available for preorder from the publisher and amazon.de but I’m a lame monoglot and can’t figure out shipping. I’ve asked the guys if it will be available in the U.S., I’ll let you know when I hear back.