When scooter news breaks, we put it under a tarp in the garage.
One of our favorite shops, Motorsport Scooters (aka Scooterwest) in San Diego, CA, has a spiffy new site and a big “NC-17” anniversary party scheduled for Saturday. If you’re not in town, take advantage of 30% off all items this weekend when you order from the new site.
And here in Chicago, don’t forget about Logan’s Run on Saturday and Scooterworks Chicago’s Sunday Ride.
Richmond, VA has been facing a bit of a scooter theft epidemic lately, so Chelsea from Scoot Richmond has hit the boards with some great anti-scooter-theft tips. Thanks, Chelsea!
Vectrix Corporation has notified dealers that they’ve been unsuccessful finding new investors and are preparing to file for bankruptcy:
Continue reading “Vectrix prepares for bankruptcy”
Just got an email from Rob Hodge. If you don’t know Rob, you’ve never really experienced scootering. Rob’s sort of a scootering mad scientist, with emphasis on the “mad,” and comically tactless, and we sort of miss having him around the Midwest, though we’re not necessarily asking him to come back. He’s worked at some of the best scooter shops around, and generally knows his stuff, but sometimes when he’s pouring half a gallon of Marvel Mystery Oil into your open cylinder, you start to wonder. Anyway, here’s what he’s got to say, translated from Hodgespeak:
I’ve created a new Yahoogroup to spread information regarding
Hodgespeed Tuning’s ongoing projects. […] If you only want to receive product updates and bulletin-style notices, these will be sent as “special notices.” if you
want all the info, sign up to “receive all e-mails.”in other news, it’s short notice but i’m having an “open house/garage night” tonight, (July 1, 2009) at 5:00 at my location at 2314 Thorndyke in Seattle. The main project for the night is a 4-speed upgrade and complete re-wire of a smallframe with one of the new Parmakit ignitions. Feel free to bring your project over for some wrench time or to get an opinion. My father in also in town and he’s extremly competent in electricals, as am I.
See, at least he’s modest. His dad is entertaining, too.
Yes, he’ll uprgade a transmission and rewire an entire bike in one night. And it will work. But it won’t be pretty. Worth checking out if you’re in Seattleland, but have an excuse ready (“I need to pick up my girlfriend at night school!”) or you’ll be there all night.
Note: no, he didn’t include the Yahoogroup address, and yes, I have been looking for an excuse to throw that art up for ages.
Best Buy is entering the electric scooter business. Testing has started in Portland, OR, and will spread along the west coast with the Brammo Enertia, with models from Currie Technologies and Ultra Motors to follow.
PiaggioUSA is targeting scooter-curious customers with a 12-month “test ride” on Piaggio and Vespa scooters. While the deal isn’t entirely unreasonable, the name and description of the promotion are a bit of a stretch, especially “your dealer will buy it back,” which implies that the dealer will refund the cost of the scooter.
Here’s how it works: You buy the scooter with 10% down and a three-year loan from Sheffield Financial. After 12 months, if you’re current on the loan and don’t like the bike, the dealer will take over your loan and take back the scooter. As 2SB reader Pete Selkowe points out, you’re paying 43% of the MSRP, and none of that is being refunded to you. So you pay almost half the MSRP of a scooter to ride it for a year, if you don’t like it, the dealer’s stuck making your payments until they can sell it used. If the dealer can sell it used for more than what you owe, they make some cash.
There’s nothing reprehensible about it, it’s basically the same thinking as any automobile lease. It’s just not a good deal for most consumers, or the dealer (but good for PiaggioUSA and their financing company). If you have the resources to buy a new Vespa with cash (instead of with an expensive loan), and decide not to keep it, you could almost surely sell it privately a year later and get a better deal. If you can’t buy with cash, you could certainly secure a better loan elsewhere. The line “Customer is responsible for excess wear and mileage over 4,000 miles at $0.10 /mile” is also troubling, and if comprehensive insurance isn’t required for loan approval, you’d certainly want it, as with any financing deal (lest you’re still making payments three years after your scooter is stolen).
I’m very interested what dealers think about this. When I saw it, my first thought was “PIaggioUSA finally realizes they’ve oversaturated a shrinking market, and they’re trying to unload as many bikes as possible before they bail out of the U.S. in 11 months.” If I’m not mistaken, dealers do not get a cut of financing, so they’re just making their regular dealer margin, with the added risk of having to take it back and sell it at enough of a profit to cover two years of loan payments (probably at a reduced rate, but still…). Hopefully there are some sort of incentives to make it worth the dealers’ trouble, or maybe dealers hope it will lure customers to their shops, whom they can then talk out of the “test ride” deal.
There’s been some confusion and angst lately on the Chicago lists about changes at Scooterworks and parts availability. Until recently, both the local dealership (and its service department) AND the catalog internet/mail-order business were located on Damen Avenue and called “Scooterworks USA.” Starting last month, the parts business, Scooterworks USA has moved to a new location on the West Side, and the dealership, still on Damen, has been separated from the parts business and christened Scooterworks Chicago (note the separate websites, as well).
Scooterworks Chicago will stock the general supply of parts, gear, and accessories typical to any good scooter shop, but will no longer sell the full lineup of items available from Scooterworks USA.
Sadly, Scooterworks USA is not accessible to retail customers, so local scooterists will not be able to order in person, or pick up orders placed by phone or online. This was very disappointing news to Chicago scooterists spoiled with 6-day-a-week access to just about any imaginable scooter part. To lessen the blow, ScooterworksUSA is temporarily offering free shipping for all Chicago orders over $35 until September 31, 2009:
Attention: Chicagoland Scooterworks customers
As many of you know, we have moved our warehouse across town from our dealership, Scooterworks Chicago. We are in the process of making Scooterworks Chicago one of the greatest scooter shops in the country.
We are unfortunately not able to stock all of our parts at our dealership. We know this is an inconvenience to our local customers, and for that we apologize. So to help everyone get through the 2009 riding season we are offering all Chicagoland customers FREE SHIPPING on all orders over $35 through September 31, 2009.
Thanks,
Scooterworks Staff
As always, orders placed before 2pm ship same day, and Scooterworks generally offers free shipping on orders over $100.
Piaggio’s latest Vespa Vintage catalog is available online. The PDF download doesn’t seem to work, but you can peruse it in Flash. The first “Vespa Vintage” catalog came out around the same time Piaggio returned to the U.S., and sent many Vespaphiles running to their local VVRS (remember those?) expecting to find some of the lovingly depicted reproductions of rare bits actually in stock. The new catalog (have there been any in between? Is this a once-a-decade thing?) seems a little less, well, imaginary, and VespaUSA’s parts department has improved (a bit) since 2000, so now’s your chance to score that Piaggio-approved GS spare tire gas tank.
You could argue that there’s no specific difference between a motorcycle jacket and a scooter jacket, and you’d be absolutely right. The demands of either are pretty similar, and any of the thousands of motorcycle jackets out there would certainly protect you equally on a scooter or motorycle. The difference is fashion. 10 years ago, your choice consisted of three varieties: The too-colorful leather “Power Ranger,” the leather classic “Biker,” and the hundred-zipper Scotchbrite-and-black-fabric “Tech.”
Continue reading “Prima Pullman Jacket review”
Vespa Lexington covers some upcoming Vespa promotions and advertising, including Pandora radio stations.
Win some Vespa promotional items from Vespa Lexington. That flag is quite sweet and we’ve had an empty flag bracket ever since the pirate flag was stolen from 2SB HQ. Thanks, Michael! Hopefully this post will create a trackback link and it’ll count as my entry.
POCphil and POCmerritt on Cleveland’s That’s Life with Robin Swoboda. Could two people be more charismatic ambassadors of scooterdom? Throw in POCrenee and you’ve got a hit reality show, one that I get to watch live, every time he’s around. People accuse me of being a Phil Waters groupie, but Phil’s met African-American preachers, racist skinheads, models, racing superstars, cops, soccer moms, hillbilly gun nuts, Tom Jones, and even my parents, and charmed the pants off of all of them, often literally. Who could blame me for loving the guy, his wife, and everything they stand for?
Note that even the best scooter dealers tend to bend the truth a little (Genuine Buddies start around $1999, but that’s a top-of-the-line Black Jack) but props to Phil for drilling home the safe-and-legal message right from the start.
We always hear about low-quality Chinese scooters, and how the Chinese scooter industry has little regard for intellectual property. POCphil sent us this email from Binqi, and we’d actually received the same email recently, but ignored it. Dealers and anyone with a scooter website get emails like this several times a week. This one deserves a good look, though, because it’s the perfect storm of absurdity:
Continue reading “Worse than Worst”
Genuine’s new line of 1:12-scale die-cast Buddies was just unveiled, and those ingrate MB’ers are already finding reasons to nitpick, heh. I saw the samples, and they look great. Not as great as a 1:12 Blur would, mind you, but great. Scooterworks lists them as “backordered” but it’s more like “preordered,” they’re due in very soon. Only a company with a well-organized, enthusiastic community of customers could order a containerload of toys and know damn well they’ll sell like hotcakes. (If Vespa did something like this, they’d be made by Lladro or Limoges, there’d be a huge PR blitz, they’d cost $1200 each, and never end up at dealers anyway… kind of like those Adidas tracksuits).
ScootRS’ long-promised Lambretta inline front disc brake is now available. I love to open their RSS feed and try to identify “Today’s Featured Item” without looking at the caption.