Shocking Stuff For Vintage Vespa Pothole Pilots

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.

Scooterworks’ Secret Santa, 6 Days Of Corazzo, and Scootmoto

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!

Slaughterhouse XV

sh15poster
Slaughterhouse XV is this weekend in Chicago, a fact so obvious to me that I didn’t bother posting it until now, which is sort of irresponsible of me, sorry. Who’d have known back when we joked about never making it to “Slaughterhouse 5” that the rally would endure and grow for 15 years. It’s changed hands a few times, but it’s always fantastic, and there’s always something for everyone. This year shuffles up the usual schedule a bit with Roller Derby on Saturday night and a bigger-than-ever party on Thursday, and still features a few great rides, one of the best gymkhanas around, and more. If you’re into the whole social networking thing, there’s a ning site.
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Adidas/Vespa parties in 5 cities

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After teasing America with mostly unobtainable European tidbits, the Adidas Originals/Vespa clothing and shoe line is hitting the U.S. in full force with five launch parties at U.S. Adidas Original stores over the next week:
Berkeley, CA July 23 6-8 PM
Chicago, IL July 23 6-8 PM
Georgetown, DC July 23 6-8 PM
Miami, FL July 23 6-8 PM
Portland, OR July 24 6-8 PM
(Click on the city for the specific invitation)
These “Private Shopping Events” include a 20% discount and a gift with an $80+ purchase (I’m told anything that’s sold out or unavailable in-store can be ordered online at the event with the discount). Visitors can enter to win a customized Adidas Originals Vespa S-50.

Polini Cup continues Saturday

Late notice again (sorry!) but check out Polini Cup Moped, Scooter, Pocketbike, Goped and Gokart racing live this Saturday and Sunday on MopedTV. The live coverage from Tom Dash Memorial Speedway, Atwater CA, starts at 1pm local time and features interviews, race coverage, and giveaways from Corazzo. Corazzo’s also offering a free t-shirt with all jacket orders placed on June 6th and 7th, just mention Polini Cup when you order.

ScooterworksUSA and Scooterworks Chicago

There’s been some confusion and angst lately on the Chicago lists about changes at Scooterworks and parts availability. Until recently, both the local dealership (and its service department) AND the catalog internet/mail-order business were located on Damen Avenue and called “Scooterworks USA.” Starting last month, the parts business, Scooterworks USA has moved to a new location on the West Side, and the dealership, still on Damen, has been separated from the parts business and christened Scooterworks Chicago (note the separate websites, as well).

Scooterworks Chicago will stock the general supply of parts, gear, and accessories typical to any good scooter shop, but will no longer sell the full lineup of items available from Scooterworks USA.

Sadly, Scooterworks USA is not accessible to retail customers, so local scooterists will not be able to order in person, or pick up orders placed by phone or online. This was very disappointing news to Chicago scooterists spoiled with 6-day-a-week access to just about any imaginable scooter part. To lessen the blow, ScooterworksUSA is temporarily offering free shipping for all Chicago orders over $35 until September 31, 2009:

Attention: Chicagoland Scooterworks customers
As many of you know, we have moved our warehouse across town from our dealership, Scooterworks Chicago. We are in the process of making Scooterworks Chicago one of the greatest scooter shops in the country.
We are unfortunately not able to stock all of our parts at our dealership. We know this is an inconvenience to our local customers, and for that we apologize. So to help everyone get through the 2009 riding season we are offering all Chicagoland customers FREE SHIPPING on all orders over $35 through September 31, 2009.
Thanks,
Scooterworks Staff

As always, orders placed before 2pm ship same day, and Scooterworks generally offers free shipping on orders over $100.

Vespa Vintage 2009 catalog

Piaggio’s latest Vespa Vintage catalog is available online. The PDF download doesn’t seem to work, but you can peruse it in Flash. The first “Vespa Vintage” catalog came out around the same time Piaggio returned to the U.S., and sent many Vespaphiles running to their local VVRS (remember those?) expecting to find some of the lovingly depicted reproductions of rare bits actually in stock. The new catalog (have there been any in between? Is this a once-a-decade thing?) seems a little less, well, imaginary, and VespaUSA’s parts department has improved (a bit) since 2000, so now’s your chance to score that Piaggio-approved GS spare tire gas tank.

Prima Pullman Jacket review

8738Over the past few years it’s been great to see scooterists finally getting more concerned about safety and wearing protective gear, and it’s hard to say which is the cause and which is the effect, but at the same time we’ve seen more scooter-specific gear becoming available.

You could argue that there’s no specific difference between a motorcycle jacket and a scooter jacket, and you’d be absolutely right. The demands of either are pretty similar, and any of the thousands of motorcycle jackets out there would certainly protect you equally on a scooter or motorycle. The difference is fashion. 10 years ago, your choice consisted of three varieties: The too-colorful leather “Power Ranger,” the leather classic “Biker,” and the hundred-zipper Scotchbrite-and-black-fabric “Tech.”
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Tuka Tukanji

Three “Wacky Races”-style ads for Tucano Urbano scooter accessories featuring TU mascot Tuka Tukanji. They’re at least a couple years old, but we’d never seen ’em before. Too bad Tucano Urbano isn’t available in the U.S., they make some great stuff, but it’s expensive, and even moreso when you have to pay shipping from Italy. (Thanks for digging these up, Ryan!)

Vintage Baubles From Viet Nam

chromeladySaigon 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.

Buddy 1:12

buddy1121
Genuine’s new line of 1:12-scale die-cast Buddies was just unveiled, and those ingrate MB’ers are already finding reasons to nitpick, heh. I saw the samples, and they look great. Not as great as a 1:12 Blur would, mind you, but great. Scooterworks lists them as “backordered” but it’s more like “preordered,” they’re due in very soon. Only a company with a well-organized, enthusiastic community of customers could order a containerload of toys and know damn well they’ll sell like hotcakes. (If Vespa did something like this, they’d be made by Lladro or Limoges, there’d be a huge PR blitz, they’d cost $1200 each, and never end up at dealers anyway… kind of like those Adidas tracksuits).