Category: Lifestyle

New Piaggio/Vespa accessories and clothing

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Rather than manufacturing replacement GTS exhaust manifold gaskets, or telling us more about the Vespa S they’ve teased us with, Piaggio and Vespa have put their combined energy into a new fall line of accessories and clothing. Since it’ll be months before PiaggioUSA posts this on their site — or tells Vespaway about it — I’ve translated it from Itanglish and posted it here, so you can call your dealers and pre-order stuff before they even know about it.

Vespa’s new showpiece is a Dainese-designed Vespa Club jacket and gilet (a fancy word for “really expensive quilted polyester liner that’s sold separately”). The jacket “can be personalised with armour protection,” which apparently means it has pockets for armor (sold separately). (The use of the word “Club” is cute, since the Vespa World Club is entering its seventh month of total inactivity.) On the accessories side, Vespa is releasing a line of leather bags designed to fit inside Vespa topcases, including one designed specifically for laptop computers. if that’s not enough leather, try a leather seat, now available in tobacco for the GTS, and tobacco or red for the LX. Why not throw in some matching grips? And a new Vespa Soft-Touch half-helmet? (why no full-face, guys? It’s 2006!) Rounding out the new line is a full complement of of chrome accessories, and a must-have Vespa-branded chain lock (with matching carrying bag!).

Piaggio further dissects your helmet fraction choices, with new three-eighths (Micro), five eighths (Copter) and seven-eighths (X-Jet) models. The “Micro” features snap-on goggles to cover another small fraction of your face. Continuing Vespa’s “personalizable jacket” theme, they’ve also unleased the “Technocomfort” line, with the unisex GT4 jacket, the Executive for the boys, and for the ladies, the, erm, Lady. The jackets can also be “customized” with armor, liners. or goofy leg covers they’re calling “Flapsâ„¢,” at additional cost, though the adjectives “Revolutionary,” “Elegant,” “Dynamic,” and “Innovative” are yours at no charge.

Photos of all this glorious crap (I kid, some of it is possibly worth looking into) are available for your perusal in the 2strokebuzz Gallery:
Vespa Fall 2006 Accessories
Piaggio Fall 2006 Accessories

SF law student beats parking ticket

Michael, a San Francisco law student, was ticketed for parking his Vino on the sidewalk. Here’s how he beat the ticket in court. Note that your city’s laws, the circumstances of your ticket, the judge, and your command of legal jargon may vary, and 2strokebuzz does not endorse contesting tickets that you damn well knew you deserved. Michael’s arguments would be very unlikley to hold water in Chicago, but we thank him for sharing his experience, maybe it will help others.

High Rollers 2007 hotel info

One of America’s greatest scooter rallies, The Las Vegas High Rollers Rally will be held February 22-26, 2007 (remember, it was moved to the weekend after its usual date, thanks to the NBA All-Star Game). Organizers expect The Gold Coast Casino to be nearly half-occupied by american and british (and new this year, french) scooterists, and most of the weekend’s events will be held there. They suggest booking your room before November 20th to guarantee the discounted rate (and availability.) To book, call 702-367-7111 or visit goldcoastcasino.com. The High Rollers Rally discount code is “HIG0222.”

Scooter Jacket Survey

David Wang and a group of students from the University of Washington in Seattle have prepared a Scooter Jacket Survey for a class, with the goal of using the collected data to design and prototype the ultimate scooter jacket, and to hopefully bring it to market. The survey takes about ten minutes, unless you spend another ten minutes adding your ridiculously specific demands in the comments section. 2sb wishes them the best of luck, hopefully they’ll come up with something close to the scooter jacket we’ve all dreamed of.

Get well soon, POC Renae

Renae from Pride of Cleveland Scooters lost two toes in a scooter crash last weekend. POC Phil was with her at the time of the accident, his vivid account is on the BBS. In short, a customer’s Genuine Buddy she was returning went wobbly at about 35mph, Phil suspects the bike’s large aftermarket windscreen was to blame. She lost control and slid along a Jersey barrier with the bike’s weight on her right foot. The friction of the pavement wore through her tennis shoes, skin, and bones so deeply that her two smallest toes needed to be amputated. Luckily she was out of the hospital in 48 hours and is doing fairly well, aside from being short two toes. Just another reminder to wear proper riding gear, and to make sure accessories don’t impede safety or handling. Get well soon, Renae! I’ll try to resist the temptation to call you Bunny Lebowski from now on.

Peg Perego Vespa: as overpriced as the original

We reported on the Peg Perego Vespa GT for kids a while ago, but Nitro has finally spotted it for sale at Hammacher Schlemmer. $329.95? Suck it Milena, I’ll be able to buy you a real one for $329.95 by the time you get your license.

Update: Vespaway reports Sears and Walmart are selling it for less than $250. Still not cheap, but somewhat more reasonable.

Sunday: Fox River Ride (redux)

Patrick has organized a ride along the Fox River for this Sunday (10/29/06). Meet at 9:00am at 3120 N Elston (Elston/California/Belmont) with a full tank of gas. The ride will be about 100 miles round-trip with a top speed of about 50mph. (if this post looks familiar, it’s because the weather was cruddy last Sunday, so Patrick’s trying it again this week. The current forecast promises clear skies and highs in the 50s.)

News briefs

Two new Asian bike blogs

Two great new-ish blogs about Asian motorcycles and scooters, for those of you that can’t get enough Hyosang, Hero Honda, and SYM news: The Bike Chornicles [sic] of India has been doing a great job documenting the Indian motorcycle industry for the past three months, and Two-Wheeled Asian Invasion offers a “view of the motorcycle industry in China, India, Taiwan and elsewhere,” mostly from a U.S. powersports-dealer perspective.

Check your paperwork!

Title fraud, or at least title negligence, seems to be growing as a problem in the scooter world. We’ve recently seen comments from a couple Xkeleton owners that they had serious issues getting paperwork for Xkeleton Tricksters bought on eBay. It appears likely that both bought from the same seller, so it’s probably not a widespread Trickster-specific problem, but be sure any scooter you buy is DOT/EPA/CARB certified and has proper paperwork, title, and documentation, and don’t take delivery without it. The problem isn’t limited to fly-by night eBay sellers, Vespa Philadelphia, which recently closed, allegedly lost their Piaggio/Vespa dealership rights and owner Vincenzo Mercuri is rumored to be under investigation for embezzling deposits, tax and title fees, and charging for service not performed. While there may be more to that story (and we’d appreciate any info), it’s proof that you should be extra-careful regarding paperwork.

Chicago scooter park-in: Sunday.

If you’re upset about the lack of legal scooter parking in Chicago, you’re not alone. The CHIscooterList Yahoo Group has planned a “Park In” this Sunday. The goal is to find a few consecutive parking spaces in the Loop and park one scooter in each, as per the law, for a photo shoot pointing out how ridiculous it is to not allow the sharing of parking spaces. The meeting and ride will start at The Players Club on Ashland, following the MotoGP race broadcast (the race ends around noon or 12:30). It’s a small first step in what will hopefully become an important city-wide scooter rights, advocacy, and education campaign.