Category: Lifestyle

Moped Takeover

Hollywood Holt's

OK, I’ve been waiting for this day for years. between Hollywood Holt’s “Throw a Kit” video (featuring Chicago’s Peddy Ca$h club) and Andy Samberg’s Hot Rod movie, mopeds have officially taken over the hipster market and are finally positioned to become ubiquitous in television commercials and otherwise overexposed and boring, allowing scooters to fade back into obscurity so I can buy them for $800 again. Take note, hipsters, there soon will be folks showing up at moped rallies wearing fanny packs. And not Pac-Man fanny packs from Ragstock, either, I mean actual unironic fanny packs.

That said, “Throw a Kit” is awesome, and the first rap song to ever rhyme “Garelli” with “Minarelli”

Tire pressure: ignore the sidewall.

I just saw a post on a forum asking about proper tire pressure for a modern Vespa. Several people said “it’s on the tire, duh!” That seems like an obvious answer, but tires are usually designed for many applications, and that number is the MAXIMUM pressure the tire can handle, not the pressure for your vehicle. Filling to that pressure (on any vehicle, but especially on a scooter or motorcycle) can affect handling, traction, suspension, safety, and fuel efficiency. Modern vehicles always have a tire inflation sticker somewhere. On cars it’s almost always in the driver’s side door jamb. On motorcycles, it’s usually a sticker or metal plate on the swingarm or fork. On scooters, it’s usually a sticker in the glovebox or helmet bay. If you can’t find the sticker, consult the manual for proper pressures (If the sticker and manual contradict each other, go with the sticker, it’s more likely to be accurate for your specific bike/country). If you’re in a pinch and don’t have the data, it’s usually best to inflate it to several PSI below the “maximum” listed on the sidewall, then adjust to the proper PSI as soon as you can.

Lessons from Italy

Sure, Italy and the U.S. are two very different markets, but you’d think this data would mean something to American motorcycle marketers. 15 of the top 20 selling motorcycles in Italy (Jan-June 2007) are scooters. The top five are ALL scooters. The top-seller is a 150cc. The top three are all Honda SH-series scooters. (Why aren’t those here, come ON, Honda!) The best part? There’s not a single bike on there over 750cc. If Italy can sustain that kind of sales/growth with such restrictive displacement and emissions guidelines, U.S. sellers need to abandon the “But 1600cc cruisers are what people WANT!” mentality. Motorcycles are a niche market here, it’s time to focus on the other 99% of Americans who are so repulsed by overpowered and unpleasant-to-ride cruisers and sportbikes (and the people that ride them). Teach them that a responsible, polite motorcycle or scooter can change their lifes.

P.E.A.C.E. & Scootstars

Alix B. and her Genuine Buddy are a week and a half into their P.E.A.C.E. scooter tour, and blogging away with gusto rarely seen on epic scooter tours. We should probably interview her or something. In other scooter tour news, Josh and Peter the Scootstars have another dead 50cc Chinese scooter on their hands and are apparently stuck in Chicago weighing their options. We’ll hopefully hook up with them before they escape.

Stellaspeed ride, and a busy August for midwesterners.

Chicago Stellaspeed just announced a ride on Saturday (July 28, 2007), leaving from Kuma’s Corner (2900 W. Belmont) at noon. The ride will stay in the city and last a couple hours. All scooters and scooterists are invited, but expect some Stella tuning and maintenance talk.

Apologies for not posting Section 8’s Wisconsin Rally a couple weeks ago, I forgot to post it before I left for vacation. Both Motor City Shakedown and the Quad Cities rally are coming up next weekend, then Rockerbox in Milwaukee a week after that, followed by Rattle My Bones in Minneapolis, then the Hell’s Fairies ride to the Gay Rodeo, and then the mighty Slaughterhouse 13 rally in Chicago on Labor Day weekend. It’s been a busy summer for scooterists, and August seems to ramp it up yet another notch.

Vespashopping.com

Almost slipping past our notice at the bottom of the Vespa S press release, Piaggio has announced a new international online store, vespashopping.com. At a glance, items that are hard/impossible to find in the U.S., (their “Club” jacket, and most of their helmets, for instance) aren’t available online, either. The “accessories” listed are accessories for you, not your scooter, but there is a decent selection of gifts we’ve not seen anywhere else (the cute but expensive handlebar-grip LED flashlight?). Surely this endeavor was a tightrope walk to avoid cutting into boutique sales at dealers, but even dealers have a hard time procuring some items, it’d be nice to see more available online.

VespaUSA recalls 2,757 GTSes

A source has informed 2SB that VespaUSA did file a recall with the NHTSA (back on May 24) and it was due to be announced today. According to the source, the paperwork takes time when it’s not an emergency recall (no one has been injured). The recall is now listed on the NHTSA’s ODI – Office of Defects Investigation page. You can summon the report by typing in the Make/Model/Year (Vespa GTS 2007) or the NHTSA Campaign ID number (07V253000). The gist is that 2,757 2006 and 2007 Vespa GTS scooter owners will be notified by mail, and can have their header, pipe, clamp, and gasket replaced by the dealer at no cost. Note that not all GTSes are affected by the recall. All GTS owners, even those with the redesigned assembly, should note that the two parts of the pipe should never be separated, the pipe should always be removed in its entirety. At each dealer service, the clamp should be checked for alignment and the torque of the bolt checked (11-13 ft-lbs for the stainless steel clamp, 9-10 ft-lbs. for the plated steel clamp).

Canadian GTS 250 Exhaust Recall

Jana, a ModernVespa.com user from Calgary, reports she’s heard firsthand from Vespa Canada that a GTS 250 Exhaust Recall is about to be announced. Here’s some backstory on the situation, if you’re not familiar with the problem. While Piaggio HQ has issued a Technical Bulletin that outlines potential dangers, solutions, and maintenance (without acknowledging possible manufacturing or design flaws) to dealers worldwide, PiaggioUSA has never publicly acknowleged the issue, despite bad publicity, misinformation, and recalls in other countries.

POC is still POC, but bigger

Speaking of ScILFs who run scooter shops, POC Phil has opened a new Pride of Cleveland Scooters showroom and service facility in a neato (and huge) former ski shop in Lakewood, OH. The spacious first floor is already full of scooters, and the second floor will soon become a “scooter museum” featuring Phil’s collection of scooters and emphemera. POC’s Ohio City shop will remain open (for the time being, at least). Here are a few photos of the shop before the move, and a recent Lakewood Observer story (click to download PDF) about the new shop. Congrats, Phil and Merritt, you’ll be running a national chain of scooter shops before you’re finished.

SCOMO is Scoot Richmond

If something has been around the scooter scene as long as 2strokebuzz, it’s fair to call it a Venerable Institution, right? Well, Chelsea of the Venerable Institution formerly known as SCOMO has asked us to let the world know some re-jiggying has taken place, and her new-and-improved operation will heretofore be known as Scoot Richmond. Best wishes to Scoot Richmond and all who sail with them; in tribute, here’s a link to 2SB’s famous topless photo of Chelsea.

Amerivespa 2007 photos

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Finally, all of my Amerivespa 2007 photos are in the 2SB Gallery. They’re mostly from Vashon Island (Sunday), with a few from Saturday (including the Adly Lambretta and the Seattle Kwik-E-Mart.) Jordan has hundreds more, we’ll post those soon, and there are a million more on Scoot.net. A lot has already been said about the rally all over the web, but I’ll have another writeup about the rally (and my first-hand observations on the Adly Lambretta) soon.

Ants

Lesley, one of the “new chicks” over at Girlbike, had some ant problems with her Honda Metropolitan last week. This weekend she went to give the Metro a bath and realized the ant situation was far worse than she could have guessed. I have a giant yellowjacket nest in my garage, and I was thinking of writing some sort of Steve-Williams-esque blog entry about the Vespas and the Vespula Vulgari, but after reading that, I think those f**kers are getting hosed down with Black Flag as soon as I get home.