Category: Lifestyle

Goodbye, Vespaway

Blogger Crystal Waters retired from Vespaway today, pretty much bringing an end to the “official” Vespa blog project that started in May 2005. Waters left Vespaquest, her original official Vespa blog, to join Neil Barton at Vespaway in March, after their blogging partners lost interest. Barton has posted only seven entries since April, (vs. 500+ posts on 2strokebuzz, brag brag), so Waters’ departure — and her frank admission that Vespa and their marketing firm, CooperKatz have lost interest in the blogs — seems to spell the end of Vespaway. Like many Piaggio marketing initiatives, the blogs seemed woefully ignored by Piaggio after a bright start, and the bloggers’ frustration even snuck to the surface a few times. Luckily, Waters’ better personal blog will continue, and I would link it up, if she hadn’t snubbed the world’s first and best scooter blog (that would be us) in her list of other resources. OK, I won’t be petty, ha, it’s girlbike.com. Best of luck, Crystal, ride on.

Cold Weather Challenge 2007

Ryetronic’s Cold Weather Challenge is back! The full rules are here, but to summarize, it’s a contest for scooters (no motorcycles, sidecars, or three-wheelers) to determine who can ride 10 miles or more (distance is used only as a tiebreaker) in the coldest weather before February 28, 2007. Last years’ winner was Kent Messer of Ithaca, NY, who rode in -6.5° on December 14 2005. If you live in a sunnier climate, fear not, runners-up are grouped by state. The Cold Weather Challenge is sponsored by Crafty Planet, who reminds you to knit responsibly this holiday season.

Lloyd I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken

Here’s a moddy pop masterpiece from Camera Obscura with a great video to match. It’s the Smiths, Belle and Sebastian, Style Council, and Kirsty MacColl all wrapped into one and dropped into a world of IKEA lamps and Repro Depot fabrics (Not a terriblly manly song, no). “Don’t You Dare Cheer Up Tracyanne” (from the comments) should be their next single.

Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar

Canadian TV host Rick Mercer has driven a lot of different vehicles while interviewing celebrities and officials, but nothing could be better than riding a Vespa following Neil Peart of Rush to the band’s “Batcave” for a drum lesson. Peart, aside from being an amazing drummer, has written two books about motorcycle touring, and another about “road music.”

Viva la Vespa (the podcast)

Trevor from Southern California wants a Vespa, and has decided to document his journey into scooterdom in a podcast. He’s still trying to sell his car, and doesn’t have the bike yet, but he’s determined. It’s sort of the podcast version of the Scooter Snoop blog. Trevor will thus be happy to learn that Scott from Scooter Snoop finally passed his test last Wednesday and has his GT200 on the road! (Thanks for the link, Rye.)

Burgdog

Bill Meek and Sandy

Reader Bill Meek responded to our “Burgmania spreads” story:

It’s great that a 2-stroke site has information and links about the Suzuki Burgman. Here’s an interesting newspaper article about a Burgman rider (me) and his unusual passenger that I thought you might find amusing.

We certainly did. Bill and his dog Sandy have covered over 10,000 miles in the last year. Sandy even has her own website with photos, press appearances, and videos.

Piaggio’s EICMA site

I could have saved myself a lot of work if I’d seen this a few days ago: Piaggio Group’s site for Milan motorcycle show visitors. Don’t worry, I’ll still do the Piaggio writeup, but this might give you more detail than my stories, and won’t leave out the motorcycles, some of which are interesting. It’s strange that this site calls the Vespa S the “LXS” wheras the press release avoids making any connection between the LX and S models. (Thanks, Myttrr mA5ty.)

Pssst! Secret Sales

We’re not sure why both the Phils (McCaleb of Scooterworks USA, and Waters of Pride of Cleveland Scooters), would both choose to include the word “Secret” in sales that they seem to be promoting pretty vigorously, but both promise the best deals of the year (in-store only), and both insist you “bring a truck.” POC’s “Super Secret Sale” is this Friday (11am-7pm) and Saturday (10am-6pm) at 2078 W. 25th St., Cleveland, OH, and Scooterworks’s “Super Secret Santa Saturday” is December 9, starting at 11am, at 5410 N. Damen Ave., Chicago. As Phil (the POC one) says, “Santa can’t be trusted – shop for yourself.” (The full text of POC’s email is posted as a comment, below).

Cheer up, Peter Reid…

This one’s for M5, complaining about the recent lack of football news on 2sb: Sunderland’s 19-year-old goalkeeper, Ben Alnwick, hit a teenage girl on a Piaggio scooter with his Range Rover yesterday morning. Alnwick was questioned and released, the girl went to the hospital on a stretcher. Amazingly, among the witnesses was Graham Poll, who presented the scooterist with a yellow card for her blatant dive.

4th Annual MGPC Scooter Cup

This weekend, Macau (a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China) plays host to the 53rd annual Macau Grand Prix.  The Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix, run on the Guia Circuit made up of the streets of Macau, is part of a dieing breed of Real Road Racing.  The notoriously dangerous race is favored by racers who normally take part in the celebrated Isle of Mann TT.  Also being held is the 4th annual MGPC Scooter cup.  The race is open to Macau residents and follows the 40th annual Motorcycle Grand Prix on Saturday November 18th.  The race includes 50cc or 70cc two stroke scooters and 125cc 4 stroke scooters, each with their own class.  PGO entered a G-Max 125 (aka Genuine Blur) in 2004 and won the 125cc class by placing 14th overall. This years entry list does not show a PGO taking part but there are plenty of Yamahas and a smattering of SYM scooters making up the race grid. 2005 podium residents Kin Fei Lai, Mou Heng Tou and Kin Fai Chan (finishing in that order) return for this years challenge. The Scooter Cup, run on the same circuit, has got to be the coolest scooter race on earth. The Macau Grand Prix Committee website offers live audio of the race.