When scooter news breaks, we put it under a tarp in the garage.
Cute Vespa P-series-laden video for The Cute Lepers’ “So Screwed Up.” Nice work. Dude’s clearly got a Sting/Quadrophenia fetish, and I heart the ‘stache and the mildly-attractive chicks that aren’t trying too hard, which is way better than hot chicks that are trying too hard. (Thanks for the link, Steve!)
The Scooter Scoop reports Vespa and Adidas have teamed up for some co-branded apparel and shoes.
The last time Adidas teamed up (unofficially) with Vespa, we got the greatest commercial of all time:
The gear looks pretty sweet, though not too “outside the box.” What we need now is for Piaggio and Adidas to sponsor a Serie-A team, anyone, THAT would be the greatest soccer jersey since PGO sponsored Akademisk Boldklub of Denmark. (And of course, these.)
Top Gear tours Vietnam on scooters, 1000 miles in 8 days, Before you watch it, read this. Thanks, Mike in TX!
Hi Gang. Long time, no post, and I’m sorry. I’ve got many, many posts and links bookmarked and they’re coming soon, but it’s been a crazy month (good and bad) and it got crazier (bad) the other night. A restaurant delivery van spun into our lane and destroyed our car and sent Vina and I to the hospital ’til the early hours of Christmas Eve. We’re both in a lot of pain, but we’re alive and not too seriously injured and we’re glad our daughter was already at her grandparents and wasn’t in the car with us. Thanks to our great friends Ken and Kim and Vina’s sister Jen, we made it to Indiana for Christmas, and it maybe wasn’t the Best Christmas Ever, but it was still a very special day and we got to spend it with our daughter and our family.
It’s seemed like a tough year for Vina and I, but an awful lot of people have it an awful lot worse. Scooter crashes and thefts, flooded basements, knee surgeries, and all the other dumb things that went wrong this year are hard to take, but we’re very happy to be loved, insured, and employed, and we’re going to be just fine. The future is looking bright, a lot of unbelievably great things happened this year, too, I co-directed a video for one of my favorite bands, against incredible odds we elected a president we really believe in, we watched our daughter grow bigger/smarter/more beautiful, we both lost some weight, and we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. Even the bad news had silver linings, our basement is really clean now, my stolen Blur was replaced, PSF gave us the Andretti to test, Tracie’s knee is stronger and better than ever before, and we figure insurance will come through for us on the auto accident. As long as we’ve got each other and our great families and friends, we’re going to be just fine.
We’re going to take another week or so to recover, celebrate Milena’s fifth birthday, finish American Scooterist, find a car, spend some more time with friends and family, and get our act together, and we promise we’ll come back stronger than ever on January 5. Happy Christmas, everybody, and thanks, thanks, thanks, again.
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.
Sorry for the lack of posts, we’ve had an eventful couple weeks, both good and bad, and we’ll catch up soon, but in the meantime, here’s a post from last year about great scooter book gifts. I’ll write a new post about books that came out this year, but this should give you a headstart on your Christmas shopping:
Continue reading “Scooter books for the holidays”
As possibly the first (unofficial) U.S. Chupa Chups evangelist and a well-known lollypop fan, allow me to be the first American to mock the NZI Chupa Chups Kiss Me Lollipop helmet. I hate to put down a helmet that’s stepping outside the Troy-Lee-90s-lame-tribal-graphics mold, but not even Jorge Lorenzo would wear that one.
Remember that cool MIT electric folding RoboScooter from a year ago? The one that was rumored to be headed for production last spring? Turns out MIT has partnered with SYM and another Taiwanese partner, and they unveiled working prototypes at EICMA this month. SYM plans to manufacture it by the second half of 2009, with a MSRP under US$2000.
(Thanks POCphil!)
Poor Black Lungs guy. First zombies, now this. If Quadrophenia filtered the ’60s through the ’70s, this video filters the ’60s through the ’70s through the ’80s through the ’90s on a Canadian indie-label budget. Can you believe there are people so young they think of Rancid as “old-school?” Nice (though repetitive) footage, though, and very sweet barn-fresh Vespas. And hey, it’s fun.
(Thanks, Zombie Bill, who sent it in a better player but I wanted to embed it, without ads.)
I’ve mentioned a few times that PowerSportsFactory has given us a Benelli/Andretti 150XT for a long-term test. I also bought a used Blur around the same time to replace the one stolen at the MotoGP race in Indianapolis, and thanks to a few minor snafus in both transactions, a busy schedule, and a little bad luck, I finally obtained plates and titles for both bikes yesterday. Yesterday it was 46°F and sunny, probably the last decent riding day we’ll see until Spring in Chicago, so it would have made sense to pick up the Andretti that’s been blocking a hallway inside my office for weeks now. But what fun is that? I decided to ride it home in the 34° sleet today instead.
Continue reading “Andretti test 1: 2sb crashes the Andretti”
Shoutout to 2strokebuzz’s friends in the PI! The 4th annual Vespa Attack rally started today, and we sent over some raffle prizes from 2strokebuzz and Scootmoto. Watch for more rally news and photos at Vespinoy! and Who rides a Vespa?. Have fun, I promise I’ll be there someday!
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.
Another likely winner from EICMA: The new Kymco Like 125 and 50. 12″ wheels, free matched topbox, spacious floorboards, front-and-rear discs, and it looks like a cross between a Vespa LX and a Yamaha C3. What’s not to “Like?” Some of Kymco’s recent Chinese-import bikes are a bit disappointing compared to the quality of their Taiwan-made product, hopefully the Like reminds us why we like Kymco. If you’re not counting, that was four “Like” puns. This bike is due out in mid-2009, no word on U.S. availability.
Genuine’s added official Black Jack photos and specs to their site. Looks great. Note: it’s two words. Black. Jack. No, I’m not going to go back and fix my old posts.
British company Armadillo Scooterwear is officially coming to America for 2009. Here’s a thorough review of their scooter parka by Lostmycage from Modern Buddy.