If you’ve got a $900 tax refund coming and hate getting lost, the TomTom Rider motorcycle/scooter navigation system looks pretty fantastic. Alwaysblog seemed to really like it, from what i can make out (“Rider” in italian is “to laugh,” ha.) It’d be especially fun to use on a old Vespa, where you need four hands as it is for throttling, braking, shifting, signalling, and holding your 30-pack of Old Style in place.
Category: Stuff to Buy
Mod*mom
Motorcyclist Airbags
I’m not quite sure how much motorcycle airbags would help the chap in the video who is riding a sports bike in a t-shirt, but you can’t help the low levels of common sense in some people. Still, great to see this idea/technology put into practice. Personally, I would forget I’m wearing it, and end up looking much like the Michelin man after I forgot to unhook myself.
Do you Ikoo?
I found this on a British forum today, it seems like something you’d maybe keep in the trunk of your car for a dire emergency rather than the urban assualt vehicle they are hyping it up to be. Either way, it’s an interesting and fun looking little electric scooter: Do you Ikoo?
Townsend Kids’ Vespa shirt
If you’re into scooters, skateboarding, rock and roll, and heavily-branded sportswear, and have kids, check out Townsend kid’s clothing; their mod Vespa shirt is on sale right now. That reminds me, they sell Hurley kid’s shirts at Costco:
Vina: “We should get this for Liam“
Bryan: “He doesn’t even know what Hurley is.”
Vina: “Just tell him it’s a skateboard shirt”
Bryan: “I don’t think Hurley even makes skateboards, they just make shirts.”
Thanks for the link, M5.
Modette Rod
Milena at Culvers modeling her sweet new shirt from The Scooter Scoop. I shoulda got a 4T, she’s growing fast. The monster sort of looks like Dave McCabe.
Lambretta Watches
Lambretta Clothing’s line of watches. If they weren’t presumably among the people preventing CMSI from using the Lambretta name, I’d presumably want one of these.
Scooter Scoop Mod Rod
Steve Guzman’s Scooter Scoop is one of my favorite scooter blogs, so in the absence of me having anything to sell you, check out his cool “Mod Rod” T-shirts. I just ordered one for Milena.
The Annoying Thing
Imagine hearing a song you’ve never heard before, and falling in love with it, then finding out it’s the very song that you’d been reading hateful internet posts about for more than a year. Oh, how it hurts to be tricked into digging Kelly Clarkson…
In the toy department in the BHV department store in Paris, I came across a goofy little plush gremlin wearing an old-school motorcycle helmet. I picked him up and squeezed him, and was rewarded with a Sean-Stevens-style onomatopædic two-stroke engine sound. I almost died laughing, and listened another dozen times, but I was too cheap to pay €30 for the thing. When I got home, I looked it up on the internet and found it was the “Annoying Thing”, the basis of the “Crazy Frog” Axel-F-ringtone CD that topped the British charts last year. Cy will never let me live this down, but if you remove it from it’s pop-culture context, it’s pretty damn funny.
CMSI & PM Tuning Team up
PM Tuning Racing Products, Ltd. of Lancashire, U.K. and CMSI, Inc. of Preston, Washington, USA, announced they have signed a formal contract to bring PM Tuning’s renowned racing products to the Americas. CMSI will be the exclusive distributor for all of PM Tuning Racing Products in North, South and Central America.
Good news for PM Tuning pipes in the USA.
More bike bubbles
After the scooterball posting, I have been exposed to another type of inflatable bike enclosure. This one, however, seems to be a lot more practical. It’s ideal for parking your pride and joy up over the cold months, where riding isn’t an option.
You can find out more about them on their website
Protect your crotch
Here are some ways to keep your thighs dry in the coming months. (Yup, it’s a slow news day.)
- Metroscoot Lap Aprons by Corazzo.
- Scooter Skirts can be custom-made and custom-embroidered.
- Tucano Urbano’s Termoscud Aprons (pictured above, available from Wheelup’s slow-ass site or Ryan has a few for sale).
- Deiffe Aprons from ScooterworksUSA.
- The “City” series from 365UK.
- Baglux aprons and muffs.
- Vespa’s Magno heated apron.
- Rainlegs, if you just want to keep part of your legs dry.
- Or make your own scooter apron, courtesy Girlbike.
If this wide range of available scooter aprons is not proof that scooters are as popular as they’ve ever been, I don’t know what is. In other cruddy weather news, the Cold Weather Challenge ended yesterday, we’ll post the results when Ryan makes it official.
Alarm system for Vespa GT/GTS
Piaggio is selling an alarm system custom-made for the Vespa GT and GTS. It plugs directly into the wiring loom without soldering, though if you’re a GT or GTS owner, I just lost your attention at “wiring loom” and you already blackberried the boutique to come pick up your bike to have one installed.
Peg Perego Vespa GT
Peg Perego unveiled a new rechargeable-battery-powered Vespa Granturismo at the American International Toy Fair in NYC this week. We’ll keep an eye out and let you know when we see them for sale. Last night Milena backed her Chicco Vespa into a door and busted out the rear right turn signal, so she’s going to have to learn to ride more responsibly if she wants a GT. Thanks for the link, Vespaquest (See, I’m stealing links already!)
