- A Korean student in England decided riding his scooter back to Korea would be less uncomfortable than a 13-hour flight.
- The Times of London is digging the new Vespa S. Current rumor is 50cc and 150cc versions to the U.S. in the spring.
- The Age of Melbourne, on the other hand, may be the first media outlet to see through the façade of Piaggio’s “green” marketing, after receiving a life-sized non-recyclable promotional piece featuring the MP3. Australia is hot for scooters this month. A University of Tasmania team has assembled the first Australian-made hybrid scooter, powered by Ethanol and batteries, and Sydney is apparently searching for its identity as a scooter city.
- The Sun rides Aprilia’s new Mana 850cc automatic motorcycle.
- Leonardo DiCaprio’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend sideswiped a photographer’s scooter in Israel. Oh, sorry, that’s not even interesting to E! Online readers.
- If you’ve always thought “Sure, Segways are great, but man, I hate standing up, and I wish they were uglier, lower-tech, and more expensive,” Toyota has a concept vehicle for you.
- In London suburb Croydon, citizens are teaming up to document “antisocial” scootering and report it to police in the wake of the death of a local police officer.
- D.C. police are on the other side of the fence, after a scooter cop was hit-and-run by a white van. (Fact: recklessly-driven white vans now outnumber all other vehicles on Chicago streets, 6-to-1.)
- For some reason there were at least… let’s see… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… five stories in the press last week about Piaggio’s new plant in Vietnam, without any new info beyond the announcement they made in February. Thanh Nien News had the decency to follow up their PR-wire story with a fairly interesting story on the vintage scooter scene in Vietnam.
- A New Jersey yoga instructor and mother of six becomes the first woman in America to eat thousands of dollars of depreciation and trade in her SUV, replacing it with a $11,000 Vectrix electric scooter. The expense is totally justified by her reduced carbon footprint and the dozens of dollars she’ll save on gas between now and the first day it snows and she has to make six separate trips to drop her kids off at soccer practice, girl scouts, and karate. Yes, that’s pretty cynical. As Smarthouse points out, the Vectrix has many merits, and it’s a positive step for ecology, but as I’ve said many times, it seems that consumers aren’t considering all the factors when looking at the economic benefits of scooters, like this Wisconsin couple who seem to be ignoring the fact that riding a pair of 60mpg scooters isn’t really any better than driving one 30mpg car.
- In that same story an Oshkosh, WI urgent-care clinic director estimates that scooter-related urgent-care visits will rise to 5,000 nationally this year, up from 1,300 in 2000. If the national urgent-care industry is actually keeping stats like that, we’d love to see them, but it seems a little unlikely that anyone would have been accurately tracking nationwide motorscooter injuries in 2000, or that any study of that sort would differentiate urgent-care visits from emergency-room visits.
- A new SYM dealer has opened shop on the Incriminators’ turf. “You see them all over Hollywood,” store manager Tonya Stewart says, “[Scooters are] in movies and music videos, and stars are riding them as well.” Well, sure, Tonya, but those aren’t really SYMs now are they? God, I’m bitchy tonight. This is like 2strokeTMZ.
Category: Lifestyle
Mag 7 Rustic retry
As well as a Photo Scavenger Hunt, to take place on Nov. 4 (more info coming soon), The Magnificent Seven SC are going to reattempt the conquering of ten of Wisconsin’s Rustic Roads this Sunday, Oct. 21st. The route is about 210 miles, including highway riding, so a reliable scooter/motorcycle capable of 50mph cruising isa must. Meet at Blue Angel, 5310 N Milwaukee, at 7:30am Sunday. Everyone is welcome!
Ringway to Wintec
Metzeler unveils their new Feelfree Wintec scooter tires for scooters with a press junket, including a test ride starting in Copenhagen, over the Malmo bridge, and through through the countryside to the Knutstorp race track. I’ve been writing about scooters for over ten years. Would it kill manufacturers to just once invite me to Copenhagen, or fly me to India or give me an Fuoco for a month, or something? Other than (an awful lot of) free booze from Corazzo, and some books from Veloce Publishing, I’m just not feeling the love here.
Packers Vespa
Green Bay Packers Vespa 90 smallframe on eBay. The murals are a little cheesy, but I love the faceguard on the fender, the stripes, and especially the seats. (Via Dave on the CHIscooterList.) In related news, I ate 573 Scotch Eggs at the Bears game yesterday.
P.E.A.C.E. comes to an end
Congratulations (and thanks) to Alix Bryan, who finished her epic P.E.A.C.E. Scooter ride this weekend. (CNN’s story.) Thanks to the Scoop who was in Crawford for the end of the ride.)
Porn for gearheads
A 2000-frame-per-second video of the inside of a 4-stroke cylinder. See the valves open and close, the plug spark, and the combustion spread around the piston head. Amazing! (Thanks to Kib on Modern Vespa for the link.)
Mini-mod Matt
A ten-year old that performs mod and soul favorites on guitar is ripping it up on the British rally and allnighter circuit.
Eau d’Exhaust
If Ipone Strawberry-scented 2-stroke oil is tempting, but you just don’t like strawberry, check these out. Frightening and awesome, but still, sadly, no bacon-scent.
Pork, Cheese, and a Nice Rack
Three great events this weekend, two in the outskirts of Chicago and another that’s definitely worth a road trip:
Saturday, check out the Hunnert Car Pileup at the Grundy County Fairgrounds near Morris, IL. It’s one of the greatest car shows in America, with strict rules allowing only pre-64 “traditional” hot-rods. Vintage scooters are also welcome, but even if you can’t exhibit, it’s always something to see with 1000 custom hot-rods, burnout contests, rockabilly bands, and great vendors including Grace and her Galewood Cookshack, serving up incredible pork chili (green or red.)
Also on a Saturday but last Saturday (I’m a moron), so you’ll need a time machine to go, was Pride of Cleveland Scooters’ legendary “Nice Rack” swap meet. To wit:
Look at all that. You want(ed) that. And that'(wa)s just the beginning. Look at the other photos on the link above, and consider that many other collectors and vendors will be (were) there, and there will be (was) a ride through Cleveland’s awesome Metroparks, and… well, drooool. Too bad I didn’t tell you about it in time.
On Sunday, the Magnificent Seven, Chicago’s newest club, is doing another epic ride, this time they’re riding 225 miles through rural Wisconsin to earn the Rustic Trails award. Their grammar and punctuation ain’t so good and they tend to run on, so I’ll just (click-click) link to the ride info. There. I think the departure time changed to 7:30am, so check the next few posts to see if there are any changes. They sent me something about it, but I have more email accounts and Yahoogroup memberships than I know what to do with, and they keep changing it, so they can let us know what’s going on in the comments.
1st A. L-T-H J. C. P. R.
Darren posted a story and some pictures of The First Annual Less-Than-Honorable Jimmy Chamberlain Pumpkin Run on his site. Nice! The Mag7 have something Wisconsonian lined up for next weekend too, but I’ll wait for official word and post it with all the other stuff going on (POC Swap Meet, Hunnert Car Pileup).
Who?
Lambretta Clothing has unveiled their line of The Who-inspired mod garb, which amounts to knockoffs of everything the Who ever wore (well, until Pete started wearing white fringy jumpsuits), including the Union Jack-et, and the parka on the cover of Quadrophenia with “THE WHO” pre-stenciled on the back. I don’t get it, really, but on the other hand, I really want one of these.
2sb Fun Corner #1
Q: How many Lambretta models can you find in this grid of random letters?
A: That many? Get a job.
Merciless Tigers
At last, meet your amateur rec-league soccer team, The Merciless Tigers FC of Cincinnati, OH, pictured above in their “indoor” configuration. Snafus with two outdoor leagues have left them stuck indoors for the time being, though there’s still hope they might lace up their cleats this season. A co-ed indoor team is also in the works. In the meantime, they’re holding down third place (of 9 teams) in the Blue Division of the indoor league, after a 7-5 win Monday night (a double-brace for Pat and a hat trick for Steve H.). Allez les tigres sans pitié!
2SB/MT soccer jerseys: last chance
As mentioned last week, pre-orders of the Merciless Tigers FC/ 2strokebuzz soccer jerseys were much higher than anticipated. All pre-orders have now shipped, and it turns out we have only four shirts left, size XL only (they run a bit small, but not ridiculously so). We created a numbered limited edition of 50, 22 of which went to the team, and these are the last four available, ever. They’re high-quality high-tech jerseys with a silkscreened 2sb logo on the front, silkscreened number on the back, and an embroidered MTFC patch lovingly sewn on by Vina’s mom (left). Does Arsenal’s grandma sew their patches on? We bet not! All orders include a certificate of authenticity and an extra patch for your shorts or rally jacket. Support 2sb and the Tigers, snatch one up while they last. (JERSEYS ARE NOW SOLD OUT, thanks for your support!) The team received them for this weekend’s match, photos and news coming soon. Thanks very much, Busia and everyone who pre-ordered. Keep an eye out for an all-new 2sb t-shirt, coming soon.
Car Show
A month ago, I saw some flyers around the neighborhood about an Oktoberfest at the park next to my house. I noticed that it would include a “Car Show” and I figured that a) it wasn’t very well-publicized, b) it was being run by amateurs outside the car-show scene, and c) entrants were required to pre-register in person or by mail, all three factors that would probably pretty seriously limit entries. So I mailed in an application to show my “award-winning” (ha) Vespa Primavera, mostly just for fun, but also secretly in hope that no one would show up and I might win something. Once you get a taste of sweet, sweet trophy, you want more.
Plus, I broke my other trophy.