0° is pretty darn cold for Lexington, KY, so Whit and Michael of Vespa Lexington decided to give the Cold Weather Challenge a shot. Despite exceptional video, photo, and text documentation, Michael only did 7 miles and Whit just rode around the block in shorts and a t-shirt like, in his own words, “an idiot.” Nice work anyway, guys, and I believe Michael’s still leading the CWC Kentucky division.
Category: Cold Weather
CWC madness
Lots of activity in the CWC over the past week, I’ll update later today, I promise, but you can scroll through the comments and do the math if you can’t wait.
CWC Update, and another quick contest
Entries in the Cold Weather Challenge have been slow thanks to schloads of snow in the northern U.S., but don’t forget runners-up will be recognized by state, so wherever you live, you have a chance at everlasting glory. One notable recent entry is Clayton from South Korea, who holds third place after a fried-chicken-inspired ride through Namhansansong. Chicagoans scooter through the snow for bibimbap, Koreans scooter through the snow for the Colonel. Who knew?
Anyway, here’s a new mini-contest until we have rideable conditions again: That there photo is CWC cosponsor Ryan’s Yamaha Razz, he did a few doughnuts in his back yard on Jan. 9th and then threw it into that snowbank with the centerstand up. Guess what day and time it falls over (in the comments) and the closest guess gets a $10 gift certificate from Scootmoto.com. Go!
Colin Doyle leads CWC at -10°
Colin’s got a 24° lead on his closest competitor, and he sent in this great video, thanks Colin! You’re looking good, will Minnesota’s 17-year CWC winning streak continue? We also love that Colin was riding a Honda Ruckus 50, you don’t need a Barcalounger to win this thing!
UPDATE: Rye set up a flickr pool here.
CWC starts today!
The Ryetronics 2strokebuzz Cold Weather Challenge is underway! Enter early and get your name up on the winner board before the damned Minnesotans run away with it again. Right now, the only place it’s under 10°F is Yellowstone Park, so if you’re near there, you’ve got a lock.
Cold Weather Challenge
WINNERS:
- Bob Hedstrom: -16°F, 10.1 mi
1/15/09, Minneapolis, MN, 2007 Vectrix
… I’d been riding a Vectrix a lot during the past summer and always trying to test its limits. I really wanted to see what extreme cold would do to battery performance.
After checking the temperature at 10:45 am and it was still hanging in at -19. Time to ride. The Vectrix has a lot of torque and even the bare looking portions of the streets had a bit of slip to them. I had to be very careful but kept it upright the whole time. I outriggered my boots in all turns… Map - Tom S.: -11°F, 11 mi
1/15/09, Omaha, NE, 2008 Yamaha Zuma
Commuting in my Jeep is not a whole lot different from being on my Zuma at these temps so I bundled up extra good and headed to work on the Zuma of Doom! 90mpg is always better than 12mpg!… It’s getting cold enuff to where I’m ALMOST ready to give it to the Minnesotans… NOT IN A MILLION YEARS!!! haha! - Colin Doyle: -10°F, 14.1 mi
12/15, Collegeville, MN, Honda Ruckus 50
Video! - Luigi G.: -7°F, 10.1 mi
1/16/09, Dover MA, 1970 Vespa GTr
I had to do the run early in the night instead of just before sunup as I needed to get finished packing for the long ride to the FYBO rally… (epic report in comments below) - Stefan: -6°F, 10.3 mi
1/16/09, Cleveland, OH, 1980 Vespa P200
Old lady was driving me into work…I see the temp at Walgreens was -12°, and i’m all like “it’s on!.” get to the shop, fire up the “mf’n juggernaut beotch p-deuce”, map out a nice 2.5 mile loop, and run it 4 times.…Is it true the runner up prize is a 3 second pull on a bottle of malort with an old style chaser?
CWC+2SB=AFU
Tonight I planned to post the Cold Weather Challenge sign-up page and unveil some new stuff for sale at Scootmoto. Tonight I ended up botching a WordPress upgrade, then locked myself out of the 2SB admin page, completely destroyed the site, and took three hours to fix it. I think it’s almost back to normal now, let me know if you see anything weird. For the last two hours I was pretty sure I’d killed the site for good, so just seeing it load is making me very happy. Maybe the Cold Weather Challenge will start tomorrow night. Sorry, Ryan. In the meantime, here’s the Cold Weather Challenge theme song (right click to download).
Cold Weather, Challenged
Well, the 2008-09 Cold Weather Challenge is officially underway. We came, we saw, we ate kimchi, we froze. It actually snowed a little. Above, a picture of Ron checking out computerized toilets at Super H-Mart. More photos in the 2sb Gallery. Eric posted some photos on Flickr and a video on his site, featuring crazy dancing asian man, which I thought was just a cold-induced hallucination. Thanks for coming, everyone, I’ll have the rules and entry form posted here on 2sb within a couple days, start watching the thermometer and your speedometer. I just made that up.
40° and breezy
Sunday in Chicago is looking like it’ll be an entirely appropriate day for the Cold Weather Challenge kickoff ride. See you at the Kat Klub at noon.
Cold Weather Challenge 08-09 kickoff ride
Ryetronics’ Cold Weather Challenge kicks off with a ride leaving the Kat Klub at noon on Sunday, November 16, 2008. Rules and more info will come soon when Ryan gets back from his mud bath in China. Here are three scoot.net galleries of CWC rides of years past: 2003 (Chad’s photos), 2004 (Chad’s photos), and 2005 (PJ’s photos). Ryan has promised that no live poultry will be abandoned over the course of this years’ kickoff ride.
Corazzo “Under-Hoody”
With colder weather on the way, Eazy wrote up a good review of the Corazzo Under-Hoody. On paper, it just sounds like an overpriced sweatshirt, but it’s a very good idea and very well-implemented, and Eazy does it justice. I know I’ve been promising a review of the Corazzo Shop Jacket for months now, and it will come, but in short, I love it.
Duluth: “Scooters, it’s just not working out.”
Duluth’s old mayor bought some scooters for the city. Duluth’s new mayor is selling them at auction. (Thanks, M5.)
UPDATE: Here’s a little more info.
Vespa ice racing
A Vespa PX out on the ice racing track. Sweet! (Thanks Chad.)
2007-08 Cold Weather Challenge
It was just brought to my attention I never posted the Cold Weather Challenge info, oops!
Ryan, who’s run the CWC for the past few years, just tied the knot and decided to take a break this year, so the Cold Weather Challenge is being run by his autonomous cyberspace doppelganger “The Real Rye”. Here are the rules in detail. In short, the CWC starts December 1 and runs through the end of February. If you ride more than ten miles in ridiculously cold weather, email the CWC or post your info at The Real Rye’s Myspace page. It’s all informal and on the honor system, so give it a go and we’ll see if someone outside Minnesota can win it this year.
Return of the Cold Weather Challenge
Ryetronics got hitched last week and abandoned the Cold Weather Challenge, so a couple other schlubs are taking it over. They promise some big rules changes and high-tech improvements, but while we wait for that, they’ve organized a CWC kickoff ride this Sunday, November 11, 2007. Meet at The Bagel (3107 N Broadway, Chicago) for breakfast, the ride leaves at 10:30 for the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 exhibit. Admission is allegedly free in honor of the MCA’s 40th anniversary. They promise to not kill any chickens this year unless it’s absolutely necessary.