Category: 2sb Archives

Stuff from the old site

Vintage 2strokebuzz!

gearN.gifIf you were reading 2strokebuzz online way back at the turn of the millenium, you’ll be happy to know that you can see our earliest online version (from before the word “blog” was invented). Relive the early days of the animated gearshift and read all the classics, including the first MASS race, Vina’s ride to the clown cemetery, Rally Soccer, Matt Howie’s Fashion Forecast and Ryan Bastianelli’s (now Silent Ron’s) $100,000 “Can of Corn” Lambretta, and more! Don’t forget, our print issues, dating back to 1995, are also available to download. Ten years goes by so fast.

2strokebuzz Archives

Once we got all the old posts imported, the sidebar archive lists were getting unwieldy, so we’ve moved them to their own page that can always be found under in the sidebar. We’ve also redirected some bad links, so other than a few cosmetic changes and finishing the links page, everything should be nailed-down now. Thanks again for your support as we wrangle 2sb back into a lean, mean, blogging machine.

RSS Feed is back

Along with the move to the new server, we’ve cleaned up the RSS feed and moved it to a new home. Read our feed in your newsreader, or add our news to your web page. We’ll be adding category-specific RSS feeds soon, once we get all the archives added and reorganize our categories. Sorry that the last ten posts have been self-referential, but things are moving and shaking.

Scott Smallwood 2SB interview (from 2003)

Scott Smallwood

In honor of Scott Smallwood’s retirement from SuperSonicScooters, we present an interview with Scott, written by David Lucash, that originally ran in 2strokeBuzz on September 19, 2003:

Three weeks or so ago I was killing layover time in the Duty Free shop of the Montreal-Dorval International Airport. While balancing two cartons of Export A’s and giant bars of Toblerone, I spotted a familiar face checking out the bottles of fine liquor. Sure enough, it was Scott Smallwood of Supersonic Scooters of Columbus, Ohio.

He had some time to kill as well, so we made our way to an airport bar for some coffee. Within an hour the coffee turned into vodka tonics and our conversation turned into a question and answer session regarding Scott’s endeavors.
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Bajaj family feuds as production grows

The Indian Express reported Saturday that Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj has not reached an agreement with his younger brother Shishir and Shishir’s son Kushagra, who filed an internal grievance “alleging oppression and mismanagement” by Rahul and his sons Rajiv and Sanjiv. The story is a bit unclear, but it appears that Shishir and Kushagra are looking for a cash settlement for giving up their stake in Bajaj Auto in order to pursue independent ownership of some smaller Bajaj subsidaries. The settlement is held up as the debate continues over the worth of their stake in the company as the company continues to expand production. Recent reports project production capacity to grow from the current 3 million units annually to over 4 million within the next three years.

Go-time

We’re back live, with little fanfare. There’s still a lot of work to do, but we decided it’s better to get the posts rolling, and finish up the sloppy bits as we go along. We’re still moving things around, and we might be down for a day or less in the near future as we move the domain name to the new host. Also note that you need to register to post comments now. Registering is painless and easy, it’s necessary to prevent the overwhelming comment spam that destroyed the old site.

Coming soon: new mersh, and category-specific RSS feeds. Thanks for nagging me and checking the site every day for the past year, please spread the word that we’re back in business.

Vespaway and Vespaquest

While 2sb was gone, many scooterblogs have sprung up, notably VespaUSA’s two officially-sanctioned blogs; Vespaway and Vespaquest. Both are lovely, and I look forward to stealing links from them in retribution for the pain of 2strokebuzz not being asked to the dance. Just keep in mind that even if other sites have stolen your hearts, you can always come here to bitch about Azzurro Grande behind its back.

Bike Show 06

Notes from the Chicago International Cycle Show:

I couldn’t get obsessed with anything because Truimph wasn’t there. Ryan wants a Husqvarna, and reminded us all of this fact pretty much every 30 seconds. Quinton wants a BMW Dakar. Ron wants a dirt bike. Deanna wants us all to shut up.

The new 250cc Yamaha Morphous scooter looks like a big dildo. (POC Phil, who saw the show in Cleveland last month, has christened it the “Morephallus.”

The Honda Metropolitan has new, uglier, patterns. The Helix and Elite rival the PX150 for the on display. Come on, Honda! I finally saw the “Big Ruckus” in person, and I still prefer the regular Ruckus.

Vespa of Chicago has a new sales manager who is friendlier and infinitely more knowledgable than his predecessor. He clarified for us that the Piaggio group now includes Piaggio, Vespa, Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Gilera, and Derbi. Vespa of Chicago (part of Suburban Auto Group) is working on changing their name to something less specific, and plan to sell Piaggios, Vespas, Guzzis, and Aprilias in their Maywood dealership and their downtown boutique. Derbi is sitting out until the U.S. standards change, and no word on Gilera. Our guess is that Piaggio’s not selling enough non-Vespas to warrant bringing in any more of their own brands, and that’s understandable, but we’d sure rather see Gilera Runners here, even Piaggio-branded Runners, than the Typhoon or the utterly boring Fly150 on display at the show. Aprilia had the same old overpriced SR50 on display, along with the Scarabeo line which continues to baffle me. Didn’t notice the Atlantic or Mojito on display, but I didn’t look for them either.

Ural Motorcycles are back, and way more expensive than before. Not sure why anyone would pay that much for a knockoff retro BMW sidecar rig of dubious construction, but to each his own. At least Royal Enfields and Stellas are reasonably priced compared to their competitors.

Valentino Rossi could have walked through the place and no one would have recognized him, but a hundred people were standing in line to meet Billy Lane.

Despite missing the show last year, there was very little sense of excitement, and not much that was truly new. The trend towards sportbikes and cruisers/choppers continues, and scooters seem to have topped off. The only interesting new trend is the increase in supermotard and enduro models, which seem to be gaining popularity as urban commuters.