Author: Brooke

As Two-Stroke Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing descends on Indianapolis this weekend, major scooter events are on the horizon for those in Europe. First up, if you don’t have plans for this weekend and happen to be in Deutschland you should check out the big Scooter Weekend celebration at the Lausitzring (aka Eurospeedway). I recently returned from the German Grand Prix and can say visiting the region was a lot of fun. I hope to make this Scooter Weekend one of these years and giving a live report to 2SB readers. Check out the site and photos of past years events. Truly a remarkable event.

Also, JR from Retro Racing pointed out a more vintage scooter-oriented version of the Continental Circus taking place on September 19th. He directs us to the upcoming Fourth Annual Scootentole at Magny-cours. The vintage scooter racing looks to take place on the kart track at the famed race circuit in the heart of France. We will await a report on the competition at the end of September.

These events would be analogous to having North American scooter rallies at locations like Laguna Seca and Daytona. Congratulations to the participants and organizers!

The New Cafe Racer Society once again posted an interesting photo of some vintage scooter action. This time it was of some ancient GS150 racers and originated at the French vintage machine racing blog, Retro Racing. The site has a distinctive streamlined scooter slant and well worthy of a notation for future reading. A scan down the left side of the page reveals a treasure trove of links, some of which may seem familiar from your own list of bookmarked sites. I immediately felt like there was a long lost frere out there. If you start getting all misty-eyed with nostalgia of a bygone era, keep your grip on your MODern sensibilities with a visit to the other Franco-Scooter blog, Scooter Station. Vive la France.

Aprilia, an arm of the Piaggio group, has released a pair of two stroke race replicas to honor their re-entry into World Superbike competition and the rider that brought them glory in Grand Prix racing in the 1990s, Max Biaggi. The RS125 motorcycle and the SR50 scooter have been decked out in race replica bodywork. The Italian factory has produced replicas in the past to honor Tetsuya Harada, Valentino Rossi, Marco Melandri, Manuel Poggiali and Jorge Lorenzo. The best part is just that this shows they are continuing to make the two stroke one-two-five. Thanks, again, to Motoblog.it.

Yamaha officially announced their partnership with the National Basketball Association and the availability of a Yamaha BWS adorned with an NBA look. The scooter comes with some special paint and a fairly sharp looking seat as well as a sticker pack to customize the ride in line with one of a handful of NBA teams. The news was originally reported several months ago by Motoblog.it but I hadn’t gotten around to posting about it until today’s email from Yamaha Motor Europe. Don’t worry about this product catching you off guard, Americans. It is a new promotion of a U.S.-based sports league using a great scooter that is no longer available in the US. It just makes me feel a bit odd as well as wish they still sold the old-style Zuma in The States. Anyone interested in importing one I’ll promise I’ll post any photo of it that you’d like to send in.

Things are heating up in Padova. Andrea Pinasco announces another mouth watering item for the scooter racer in all of us. The word “items” would be more appropriate. Pinasco claims to be providing a line of radial slick tires for 10 and 12 inch wheels. It is not just the variety of sizes that is remarkable but that they come in soft and medium hardness as well as a rain tread. Now the average scooter racer has options near equal (in number) to Superbike or MotoGP racers.

These Made-In-Italy tires, along with other Pinasco offerings announced over the last year or so, would be fantastic news for aspiring Nori Hagas riding PX125s. But these amazing new products seem to never become available in the US or even from the large popular German outlets like SIP or Scooter-Center. Maybe someone in Italy can point out where someone may procure these tantalizing supplies.

I can’t say I’m completely enamored with everything to come from the Apennine Peninsula. I am not the kind of guy to throw out Italian phrases with the zest of someone passionate about the culture. I am much more likely to enjoy saying ‘auspuff’ than ‘marmitta’. But something seems consistently inspired about the people of boot-shaped strip of land extending south from the Alps into the Mediterranean Sea. The New Cafe Racer Society noted a small collection of historic images from the Gran Circuito Del Sestriere. The three men pictured in the example shown seem to be surrounded by great products of creativity, if not art for art’s sake. Are we, modern humans in Italy or elsewhere, surrounded in the same way? Do we take it for granted? Will generations to come recognize it where we cannot? At least click on the link and enjoy the old pictures of scooters and cafe racers. They are fun to look at and imagine what it was like to live there, and then.