Category: Motorcycles

Swedish Army Huskies

We try to only talk about motorcycles when it’s absolutely necessary, but with Cold Weather Challenge fever heating up and a few threads going about the snowmobilification of scooters, Mad Man Maddox posits an alternate scheme based on Sweden’s late-seventies military Husqvarna. Even motorcycle-haters can love a 250 automatic, but it’s the ‘winter package’ that will send gonzo CWC would-bes on an errand to the welding supply shop. These Huskies feature spring-mounted outrigger skis! On roads, they pop up out of the way and you put your feet on the pegs. On snow, you rest your feet on the skis, which automatically adjust themselves for cornering and snow height. Brilliant! If that doesn’t sound like fun, check out this video:

Yesterday I demanded Brooke procure some video of Bob and Colin racing ski-scooters across Lake Minnetonka with “Take Me With U” playing in the background. But scratch that, now I demand footage of you psychotic Minnesotans tearing up Michele Bachmann’s front yard on dual-ski outriggers. Get on it!

Oh, if 2SB only had Top Gear’s budget.

’Tween Wolf

Phil Waters from POC Scooters had the chance to take a road trip on SYM’s Wolf 150, here’s his report:

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Ever since we first spotted the SYM Wolf 150 at DealerExpo in Indianapolis in February, we’ve been pretty well enamored with it. Some of us readily admit that our love of scooters goes hand in hand with our love of motorbikes so seeing the resurgence of the small displacement motorcycle is pretty important to us.
Continue reading “’Tween Wolf”

Soviet Scooters

Here’s a good brief rundown of the Soviet-era scooter industry, featuring some good photos of the Tula Turist and T-200, and a 1974 Vyatka “3,” which I’d never seen before. If that’s not enough Warsaw Pact-ion for you, Autosoviet has lots more info and photos of Tula scooters and Vyatka’s better-known Vespa knockoff plus more than you ever wanted to know about Vostok, Dnepr Minsk, Voskhod, CZ, and more.

It’s about TIME…

Chad Schaefer (months ago) passed along five great stories from TIME Magazine’s newly-available-online archives. They were decades-old to begin with, so you’ll forgive the delay. Here are some excerpts, click the title to see the full stories.

Speed

TIME, October 17, 1955
…Italian motor-scooter enthusiasts, often harshly criticized for their desire to dominate the road, were still glowing at [79-year-old Pius XII’s] understanding words to a group of Vespa riders: “Those who complain of your noise, do they ever think that your speed may take you to church in time for Mass, or that you may be rushing a sick person to the hospital? Be patient with those who abuse you.”…

Rocks Round the Clock

TIME, August 14, 1964
… Suddenly, the kids began ranging through town in packs, stopping traffic, banging on cars, chanting (“Up the Mods”), looking for trouble. They raided cafes for dishes and glasses to throw, knives and forks to brandish, chased each other up the beaches and down the streets under a hail of rocks and crockery. On the promenade, herds of noisy Rocker motorcycles roared incessantly; buzzing them in hand-to-handlebar combat were enough Mod motor scooters to hold mass Vespa services.…

Fuzz with a Buzz

TIME, January 13, 1967
…the New York police have found a way to let one man cover the ground of five: the motor scooter. Police Commissioner Howard R. Leary has already checked out 575 cops on 80 Vespas and Lambrettas. And he has just asked for funds to buy 300 more. Eventually, he wants all 2,000 patrolmen to mount up…

Drunk astronauts and cosmonauts on scooters in Paris

(no original title) TIME, June 13, 1969
…the next morning [U.S. Astronaut] McDivitt hustled out to the Air Show, where he and fellow Apollo 9 Crewmen David Scott and Russell Schweiclcart showed Cosmonauts Vladimir Shakalov and Alexei Yeliseyev around the American exhibit. The proceedings started somewhat stiffly; then a bottle of bonded bourbon was broken out and things began to loosen up. By the time the revelers reached the Russian exhibit with its plentiful stock of vodka, they were saluting everything from Snoopy to space medicine. Toasted to a light crisp, the space travelers finally piled onto their Vespas and scooted back to the American pavilion—two hours late for their ensuing engagement.…

Victim of Affluence

TIME, February 7, 1972
…In 1970. only 55,000 Lambrettas were sold compared with 180,000 a decade earlier. Faced with the realities of a stronger economy, the late Innocenti’s son and nephew, who now run his company, have stopped production of the Lambretta in Italy but will keep a parts depot. They are arranging a deal with the Indian government and a Bombay company to move Lambretta production to India beginning in 1974…

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.

Brains

No, this is not a S.P.A.Z. post. Japanese neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima, who designed “Brain Training” for the Nintendo DS, has determined that riding a motorcycle can improve memory, space recognition and other prefrontal brain functions. That’s a way better excuse to buy a bike than fuel efficiency, right?

You know, our Brooke is a neuroscientist too, and he would say anything Yamaha wanted, if they’ll fill up his garage with Asian-market Zumas, but since Yamaha didn’t come to him first, I imagine he’ll have an interesting opinion on Kawashima’s findings.

(Thanks for the story, Victor!)

Dealer Expo 2009, Part I: Overview

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Every February, powersports dealers from around the nation descend on grey, shivery, boring Indianapolis to see what’s new in the industry. It’s a chance for manufacturers, importers, and distributors to wine and dine their dealers and hopefully round up some orders for the upcoming riding season. This was our third year at DealerExpo, though it was our first with actual 2strokebuzz press passes. Continue reading “Dealer Expo 2009, Part I: Overview”

BMW 800 follow-up

Since the BMW 800 story got more attention than anything I’ve posted lately, and provoked some controversy in several ways, I thought it’d be smart to follow up. First, I apologize for my confusion regarding the drawing on Scooter-station and about the true status of the project. I blame Google language tools and myself for not being more careful, but on the other hand, I was never sure about the origin of the photo (which is why I didn’t post it again, without permission.) Charles from Scooter-station wrote me last week to help clear things up:

I’m Charles from www.scooter-station.com, one of the leading French
scooter online magazines, on which you recently found the Vectrix VX-2 picture.

We also have written a little news about the SCT800 as the CEO of BMW-Motorrad France confirmed us that the German company was looking closely at the scooter market in Europe. He also told us that BMW will not make its comeback with a 125cc. As they are [established as a] premium brand, it would be too difficult for them to compete in that category. So, of course,
it will be a large displacement one.

But, the pictures we both put online is a sketch of Oberdan Bezzi. It seems not to be the actual style of the next BMW as it’s not an official unveiling. Our source [for the image] was Oberdan’s own blog.

Best regards,
Charles Gaurier
Rédacteur / Junior Editor

Charles, like many, points out that Oberdan Bezzi’s sketch was done for fun (Bezzi is a professional illustrator and does work for motorcycle manufacturers, but also does many concept drawings just for fun). So the drawing with the story (which I mistook for a photo despite being a professional designer, Oberdan is good) is certainly not a real product, or even a concept drawing for BMW. I suppose I just took a few BMW-scooter-related stories (the French admission that a scooter was in the works, the Kymco deal, and the Rotax deal) and read a bit too much into them. In my defense, most other American scooter blogs made similar conclusions (aside from not being fooled by the drawing).

The second issue that came up is my personal opinion about maxi-scooters and a new market segment that could be described as “luxury sports scooters.” As I’ve said many times in the past, I feel these bikes have every reason to exist, there’s a growing market for them, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with an expensive high-performance scooter. They just don’t interest me much, and since 2strokebuzz is mostly a dictatorship run by me, I don’t talk about them much. I said I just posted the story out of obligation to my many readers that might care about such a bike, but it doesn’t really interest me, and I don’t see how maxiscooterists would take offense to that statement.

I was a bit rude and judgemental about BMW riders (though others were moreso in the comments, iirc,) and for that, I offer a tempered apology. BMW makes (generally) fantastic motorcycles and BMW riders are (generally) a model for all motorcyclists in their dedication to careful maintenance, training, and safety. That probably sounds sarcastic, but it’s not, I think many people (self-included) poke fun at BMW riders because they’re jealous of their dedication, riding skills, and machines. Of course positive stereotypes are just as fallible as negative ones, so take all that with a grain of salt. Also, it’s a fact that BMW motorcycles are usually among the more expensive bikes in their class, and let’s face it, money is not an object to many Rondel junkies. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that in itself, but again, it doesn’t correspond with what I (and maybe I alone) see as the attraction of scootering: economical, friendly transport for the masses. I’m clearly no fan of the no-name fly-by-night scooters on the market these days, but I’ve also made it clear many times that it hurts me to see the Vespa abandoning its humble origins. Some scooterists want scooters to be more like motorcycles, I say “We have motorcycles for that, let’s make scooters that anyone can afford, let’s support fun, economical, and reasonably safe transportation.” Again, that’s my opinion, but it’s the same opinion that’s fueled this site for 8+ years, and the ‘zine before that.

Hope that clears things up a bit on all fronts, I look forward to more comments.

Pre-1914?

Some folks get really worked up about “vintage-only” events. I’m not a fan of elitism in the rally scene, but looking at these fantastic photos of a ride from Epsom to Brighton on pre-1914 motorcycles, it’s easy to understand the desire to experience this group of vintage machines on the road or on display without a bunch of off-the-shelf metric cruisers mucking it up. Modern scooters have plenty of merits, but there’s nothing like vintage, and with all the rallies and rides going on these days, a few all-vintage events would be refreshing. (Thanks for the link, Andrew)