When scooter news breaks, we put it under a tarp in the garage.
If you’re like many American scooterists, you fell in love with BBC’s Top Gear after watching the “Vietnam Special” on the YouTubes. Since then, the series has started running on BBC America, getting sillier and more popular. Well, the show’s been a hit in the UK for ages, and Britain’s National Motor Museum features an impressive “World of Top Gear” exhibit, which happily now features Jeremy Clarkson’s Vespa Super (and that Red-White-and-Blue abomination)..
Via ScooterDiva
Once a week we will be giving away a prize to one follower or fan who posts a picture of themselves (or a friend) with their Genuine scooter!
Late last summer I attended the Los Vesparados art show in Minneapolis. I took some pictures and made some notes of my favorite works. I never posted about it on 2SB. This is a recurring theme in my service as a Bedell Media International correspondent.
I was walking through a local Barnes and Noble the other day, searching for what I came to learn was last weeks issue of The Economist, when I spied what looked to be a papercraft Vespa set upon an upturned polka dot Chinese takeout box on the cover of periodical. The cover art turned out to be a painting by artist Nate Ronniger. Mr. Ronniger’s work had been listed as shown at the aforementioned art show. So The Southern Review, a literary journal published out of LSU, helped my scooter art odyssey come full circle to remind me that I should finish writing a few posts that I’ve had in the works for months.
Check out Mr. Ronniger’s artwork. I can’t quite believe they are not photos. Also, if anyone knows about The Southern Review, feel free to chime in.
With the recent spate of scooter babies out there (Cheers Archer, Calvin, Lillian and a Bastianelli and a Spurck to be named later) and a multitude of alleged “new Lambrettas” on the market, let’s bring back the Lambretta baby-stroller sidecar. Awesome. I don’t check Scooterswag nearly enough. Be sure your child is facing backwards, you know, in case the airbag goes off.
Arvind Sahay, writing for Financial Express, agrees that Bajaj has made a poor decision in abandoning the scooter market.
Scooter racing efforts begin to churn for a second successive season in the land of Sasquatch, kind bud and perpetual rain. The organization formerly known as the Pacific North West Scooter Racing Association has begun anew as the Pacific Scooter Racing Association. The name change must be in deference to our Canadian brothers and sisters that are rightfully proud southerners. As a reminder to get going on preparing for post winter scootering, the PSRA has launched a new website to let the world know about their endeavors. So get that race bike prepped and find an old set of leathers. Visit the site and click on the photo in the ‘Forum’ tab (it may not be obvious) to get in touch with other racers in the area.
Sent in from former CWC Champion Matt DeVries is news about a possible great improvement in holding up the front end of your classic Vespa. Anyone who has stopped suddenly on a Sprint or steered a 150 Super over a curb, through a pot hole or any other abrupt change in road structure knows how really, really bad the front suspension is on an old Vespa. Solutions of stiffer spring and just new dampeners can help. But it seems as though aftermarket part manufacturer, BGM has come up with a nice solution for stompers of the single sided swingarm. Jet200.com has them at prices that make ordering in the USA much more sensible. Jet200 states that these new dampeners will fit “…Rally, Sprint, GT, GTR, TS, GS 150, Super, GL and so on.”. Lets hope they live up to the looks. Any testimonials please post below. (Note: hopefully I’ll get some more posts up here soon regarding the old Vespa parts available. This could be a long winter and folks should get their wrenches in gear for being ready to roll in the Spring rather than just dusting off the numbers to your favorite scooter parts vendor sometime in mid-May.)
UPDATE: Mark from Jet200.com mentioned on the ISBBS that these will not work with 8″ wheels.
More great holiday sales, this time from Scooterworks and Corazzo.
Philip McCaleb of Genuine/Scooterworks and Bradford Duval of Corazzo, both actually CALLED us (on the PHONE!) to ask us to hype these sales, and they both promise you’ll never see better deals…
Scooterworks Chicago’s Secret Santa Sale is this Friday and Saturday, McCaleb promises lots of bikes from Genuine, Kymco, and more at or below dealer cost, and vintage scooters sold for the best offer. They’ll also be offering big specials from scooterworks.com (only for orders placed at the store these two days) with free shipping.
Corazzo’s already in the midst of their big “6 Days of Christmas” sale, sorry for the late heads-up, with one special per day for the next few days.
Don’t forget Scootmoto is also a great place to stock up on holiday gifts for scooterists or yourself. We don’t have any big specials because our prices are always stupid-low (and include shipping!) but we do have new 2010 Scooter Calendars and the new issue of Bumpstart and we’ll be adding a few new items in the next couple days including Voodoo’s Buddy lighting adaptors and the new American Scooterist. And all your Scootmoto orders benefit 2strokebuzz and other small-time scooterist-owned businesses!
On the heels of the EICMA Pato Lambretta unveiling, Scootin’ Old Skool says Scoot About says Hammerhead’s “La Vita” faux-Vespa scooter will be available in the spring. Of course last spring, Scootin’ Old Skool said that Scoot About said it’d be out last summer, for what that’s worth. That said, Orin has a few good photos, and some more details about colors and seats. Like we said in our 2009 Dealer Expo Story, the Venti (as it was known then) really has the proportions and look of a vintage Vespa nailed down, if the engineering and quality are solid, it should be a popular bike.
How’s this look?
Sadly, I had to deactivate the other gallery software I was using, but I’ll get back in there and convert those galleries to this one. If it keeps working.
A reminder: Join 2strokebuzz tomorrow (Saturday 11/14) for the Cold Weather Challenge Kick-off. The ride (map) leaves from the Kat Klub at 5pm, we’ll stop for burgers and ice cream, and return to Kat Klub for Berryoke at 8pm.
Heather Parker came over last night to shoot some photos of Pudge. She’s so good.
Actual scooter content is resuming soon, promise! If you didn’t notice the ad on the site, we’re kicking off the Cold Weather Challenge next Saturday (11/14) with a ride and Berryoke party at the Kat Klub, be there!
The other day, I made a bunch of excuses why 2strokebuzz has been pretty bereft of life lately, but this one tops them all:
Continue reading “The Calvin Bedell Story”
No, we haven’t posted in a couple weeks, sorry. There’s been some big news, too, and we’ll catch up soon.
In the past month or so:
Slaughterhouse
House guests every weekend since before Slaughterhouse
Old friends/tenants bought a house and moved out
We painted and recarpeted our apartment
New friends/tenants moved in
Milena started kindergarten
Work (the job that pays me) has been nuts
Hockey season started
Playstation Fifa10 demo was released
So with all that, and a baby due in a couple weeks, it’s not been good news for 2strokebuzz, but it’s been a fun/busy/productive couple weeks in other ways. I’ve been helping with homework, getting involved in the PTA, sanding, painting, lifting boxes, and I still squeezed in a little time to ride the SYM 150cc “Classic” (Wolf) at Slaughterhouse and my virtual Fire lost to Chelsea, Barça, Bayern Munich, and Juventus a few times. So it’s all good, we’re glad you’re still paying attention, and any day now, Brooke will post something to shame me back into business, both here and at Scootmoto, where we’ve got several new products we haven’t even listed yet. And I’ve done a little groundwork on a new mostly-non-scooter related but hopefully-great web project. Thanks for your patience and support! We’ll be back.
I’m cutting off Feedburner, it used to be a great service, but since Google bought it, I haven’t even been able to see my stats, and the help forum was apparently abandoned months ago. I have no idea how many subscribers I have, or if my feeds are working correctly, So this is the last RSS feed you’ll see, and the last email you’ll get for a while.
Cutting this cord will force me to set up a better service, and I will post that info prominently on the site when it’s all working, hopefully over the weekend. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it just needed to be done. It sucks to have to start from scratch with RSS and newsletter subscribers, but I need to re-take control of my feeds.