Jeb from Soundspeed Scooters in Seattle dropped a line to say their electric vintage Vespa conversion kit is now available to the general public. The price tag isn’t for the weak of heart but it has a few things going for it. First it’s the only way to get a good looking electric scooter. Second is that the price is over half made up of the new lighter Lithium battery pack. Hopefully advances in technology can drive this price down in the future. But most importantly it’s stated to come with directions. I’m sure people have run in to DIY projects about electric motorcycles with vague descriptions of the accumulation and assembly of parts. This kit is supposed to fit any largeframe Vespa. While Piaggio has made (and burried) the Zip and Zip in the past and has promised a hybrid vehicle to be coming soon, it’s not here yet. Any tree huggers up for taking the situation into their own hands?
Category: 2sb News
In Memory of Marshall Tito: A Scooter Contest
To celebrate the upcoming officially recognized birthday of Josip Broz Tito I would like to offer the opportunity for one lucky trainspotter to win a fantastic Scootmoto decal. The first person to identify the model scooter displayed at 1:07 of this BBC video will win this prize. Don’t put links in your response below just the make and model and I’ll ‘fact check’. (If the feed goes dead here’s the direct link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8032132.stm )
Disclaimer: Not an official contest. Subject to Bb pulling the post and replacing it with a helmet review. But I swear I’ll send one to the first lucky winner, as soon as I get around to it. -bgk
Merciless Tigers FTW!
After several seasons in multiple leagues (summer, winter, indoor, outdoor, mens, co-ed, over-40m etc.) and sometimes several games a week, our beloved Cincinnati Merciless Tigers have finally won the highest honor of the Soccer City Men’s Open Blue Division, top of the table after a 7-1-0 season. They’re also holding steady at .500 (1-1-3) in their current outdoor league. Congratulations to our men in black, Soccer City Men’s Open Blue Division Champions!
| TEAM | W | L | D | G | PF (AVG) | PA (AVG) | DIFF |
| Merciless Tigers | 7 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 3(6.63) | 27(3.38) | +26 |
The BWS Goes NBA
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.
Not Hacked
We were down for a few hours this morning, with some symptoms that led us to believe we might have been hacked. Once we fixed it, to our relief, it was clear that The People’s Republic of China had nothing to do with it, it was just an SQL glitch. Props to our beloved hosting co. Tilted for their help, and to Chandler for notifying me so quickly.
“Stop Slandering Scooters!”
More reaction to the “Straight Dope” story and U.S. News’ followup from TreeHugger. The arguments get more convincing that even 4-stroke scooters aren’t as “green” as we’d like to think, but there’s a lot of speculation and comparing apples to oranges in all these stories. Our fingers are crossed that someone (better-equipped and less biased than 2strokebuzz or PiaggioUSA) can find and crunch some real numbers, find a fair metric by which to compare a variety of scooters, cars, and SUVs, and settle this debate. (Thanks for the link, Kathy!)
More Vaporware From Pinasco
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.
Vintage Baubles From Viet Nam
Saigon Scooter Centre sent out an email to announce the availability of some new vintage scooter accessories. Mirrors, crashbars and other useless adornments may not be your style. But at least this is not a post about another Maxi-Scooter or clone scooter trend. Mods of the world rejoice. You can now have a nice chrome Pegasus or naked lady on your Series II Lambretta. I’m really just hoping that if I post enough news from SSC that they’ll send me an SS90 repro dummy tank converted to a real fuel tank, to review.
Who Cares About Old Italian Stuff?
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.
Smallpressapalooza
2SB pal and publisher of the Bumpstart zine, Karen Giezyng, will read tonight at Powell’s Books Smallpressapalooza in Portland, OR. The event starts at 5pm, she’s scheduled to read at 7:15pm. Issue 2 of Bumpstart will hopefully go on sale tonight at Scootmoto, if my internet at home is fixed (it’s been out for a week, sorry about the lack of posts and followup on the TGB story). Issue 1 is back in stock, too, both are great.
UPDATE Bumpstart #2 is now available at Scootmoto!
Avatars
You might have noticed comments have avatars now. If you’d like to customize yours, simply register (free and easily) with Gravatar. If your mail address in your 2sb account matches your Gravatar account, your avatar will apear. easy peasy. It’ll automatically add it to every post you’ve ever made here, *and* on other Gravatar-enabled sites.
How’s your Piaggio stock doing?
According to Reuters UK, Piaggio reported a 28% drop in net profit in 2008, which reminded us to check on our Piaggio stock: It’s at €0.95, an all-time low since Piaggio’s June, 2006 IPO at €2.30. Poor sales, a bad economy, and the weak Euro all hurt Piaggio last year, as did nearly €100 million in new debt from stock buybacks and a €.06-per share dividend last year, which will be offered again this year, which seems counterintuitive, but what do we know?
Continue reading “How’s your Piaggio stock doing?”
Melody Maker’s Mod revival revival revival.
Ah, 1994. Back then I was going out to see bands three nights a week and spending $50 at the record store every night. I didn’t have a scooter yet, but I noticed the mod revival revival revival going on in Engerland and that (among other things) probably had some effect on my scanning the classifieds for old Vespas a year later. As a musicophile and anglophile since high school, I’ve certainly read my fair share of NMEs and Melody Makers, so when I came across Archived Music Press, it was heaven. Continue reading “Melody Maker’s Mod revival revival revival.”
Dealer Expo 2009, Part 2.5: Sorry, Chuck D.
“Public Enemy” “welcome to the terrordome” rap song lyrics
Lots more to cover, but here’s a little ditty while you’re waiting:
I got so much scooter on my mind
Newcastle Sign
“Michelle Rodriguez” on my ticket
Hear Phil Waters get wicked
My crew is few, we hype the Black Jack
Attack then we drank
and yacked, Then slapped the iMac
Now Im ready to post it
(you know I made up most of it)
Hear my favoritism roll, oh
OMG, is that Mattheu Solo?
TGB Lasers, scooters like Razors
Hallways to blaze, with brain and foot pain
The way Im livin, forgiven
What Im givin up
Ron on the Nikon, shoot this now
Where’s the party at later?
As for now I’m grillin at the Chinese pavillion
Man Ive had it up to here
CF Moto logos appear
Kymco’s a no-show,
saw P-town just a bit ago
never-ending show,
Adjust the white balance.
Work to keep from gettin jerked
Changin’ some ways
To way back in the 2-stroke days
Chinese hockey mask molds,
never mind the highway codes
Still thousands sold.
Never question what I am, Who knows?
Cause I’m comin from the bar
What I got better get some
(soft pretzels) master of scooter culture
hard-ridden
Been splashed in the face
But the helmet keeps fittin’
Eating nothing healthy, ranting with Chelsea
Seth and Dave and everyone elsee
Check the spec sheets
ripped a hole in my jeans knees
rolling on the ground, looking for a VIN please
Walked the halls, took the falls
Broke the laws
my Sambas are fallin
more or less square
Getting up there in years
Still. I growl at the plastic cowls
Thanking Christ Indiana’s not my home
So welcome to the Hooiserdome.
Life imitates 2sb t-shirts
When we made our “DOT Flip-Flop” t-shirts, we never thought anyone would be dumb enough to sell riding sandals, let alone buy them. Save yourself the experience of having your toes grinded off and stick to the t-shirt instead, we still have some L, XL, and 3XL “Chocolate Brown” shirts and a few “‘Safety Orange” smalls and mediums. We’ve got a few new items over at Scootmoto, too. (Thanks for the tip on the real sandals, Professor.)