(Man, I love Dawn’s poster). Remember, the Mod weekender starts tomorrow night with the Allez Cats’ reunion at Delilah’s. (complete schedule). We’re looking forward to seeing some old faces and hearing some great tunes (Grover is a god), even if we’ll be among the less-snappily-dressed. The rest of the weekend brings more parties, rides, and a visit to Chicago’s famous Chess Studios.
Category: Lifestyle
“Tuk to the Road” underway
Jo and Ants have officially hit the road, starting their international tuk-tuk adventure. Best of luck, girls! Don’t forget to write!
Galewood 2K6: Goodtimes
Another (the last, or is it?) Galewood has come and gone, but our high cholesterol levels live on. Congrats to Bacon Cookoff winners Mark (3rd), Kristina (2nd), and Quentin (1st, first two-time winner). No one got hurt on the three-wheeler OR the bouncy castle. We’re gonna call John Hodge the winner of the Chicco showdown not only because he was fast, but because it’s just too weird that a 8-month-old that can’t even stand up can ride a Chicco. There are lots of photos on scoot.net and here are more from Dawn (who took the photo above). If you missed it, or didn’t get enough bacon, Durso sent us this blog of daily bacon recipes.
New Haynes book for Twist-n-Gos
10-15 years ago, if you bought an old Vespa, the next thing you bought was the Haynes Manual. You had two choices: one covered P-series Vespas, and the other covered all other rotary-valve Vespas. They were limited in scope, contained a few errors, and the language was often confusing to American scooterists (“look inside the gas tank with a torch,” or “secure the new item via the Douglas spares replacement scheme”) but they usually got the job done. Since then dozens of scooter books have been published, but the Haynes books are still indespensible to vintage Vespa owners.
Since then, Haynes has added more scooter books, notably one for Vespa and Piaggio automatics and “The Scooter Book”, a general reference for scooterists. Their latest book, Twist and Go Scooters Service and Repair Manual contains specific specs for a wide range of scooters, as well as mainenance and repair info that applies to all automatic scooters in the 50-250cc range. Haynes’ US distributor does not appear to stock any of the more recent books, but some are available on Amazon, and the rest are available directly from Haynes.
Mod Chicago reunites ACSC, adds scooter rally
to June 1-3 Mod Weekender
MODchicago‘s annual “Our Way Of Thinking” festival of Modness is coming up next weekend. OWOT is always a good time, but this year they’ve stepped it up a few notches with more scooter-related events and a special scooter section on their website. Best of all, the event has spawned the new Mayday Scooter Club and the reunion (Thursday, June 1 at Delilahs) of the Allez Cats Scooter Club, one of Chicago’s big clubs of the 80s and early 90s. The site also features an archive of ACSC memorabilia including Mike Park’s photo (above) of the club in front of the old Vespa of Chicago on Clark Street (which closed just a month or two before I got my first scooter). OWOT also features a party at Design Within Reach’s Evanston store and a tour of the Chess Records studio. Whether you love or hate Mods (no comment!), next weekend should be a blast for everyone.
2sb mentioned on the Tribune’s Metromix
How about that!? Metromix mentioned us (And Tracy Butler’s crash) in their story about renting a scooter in Chicago! Thanks!
“The perfect scooter for a mandolin player,
or a coroner for small children”
(Photos showing the under-seat storage better explain the Ryan’s description.)
As we suspected the other day, the Yamaha VOX scooter is actually on the market in Japan, with a fun flash site to promote it (if you read Japanese). Now Japanese mods (don’t laugh, you wouldn’t believe how many Japanese mods there are) are surely torn between vintage scooters and a spiffy retro scooter bearing a brand name synonymous with the British Invasion. (I suspect they’ll stick with vintage).
The story of Japanese musical instruments roughly follows the development of their motorcycles: Japanese products that started life as cheap knockoffs (are you listening, China?) eventually surpassed many Western instruments in quality and features, at a much lower price, and eventually dominated the market and put the original makers out of business (are you listening, corporations?). So it’s a bit funny to learn Vox’s parent company, Korg, is owned in part by Yamaha, and they’re leveraging the brand name to sell scooters.
Testes, testes, 1-2-3: Morphous airbag?
Yamaha is testing an airbag on the Morphous. I’m not sure about that placement, as Guzman noted, it’s awfully close to your ‘nards.
Scooter races in Houston this Sunday
Via the Battalion via Scootersmith: Scooter racing comes to Houston this Sunday, May 28th. More info at Texas Mini GP. Good to hear, now someone get it going in the Midwest again!
Galewood 2K6 Update
We’ve updated the Saturday Galewood schedule. In short, meet at Rutherford-Sayre Park (Oak Park Ave @ Shakespeare Ave) for Kickball at 1pm Saturday, and Moe is having a scooter garage sale/impromptu swap meet at 1848 N. Nordica at 4:00, then the BBQ starts at 5:00 with judging at 6:00. Complete details can be found here. (Update to update: there will also be Chicco Scooter races at the BBQ, so if you have a toddler and a Chicco scooter, bring ’em.)
Ghost Rider
Does this look incredibly cool or incredibly stupid? I can’t tell anymore, especially when Nick Cage is involved.
Peter Moore’s US scooter shop tour
Girlbike reports that Vroom with a View author Peter Moore is on a booksigning tour for the next week, stopping at Scomo (VA), Scooters Originali (NJ), Vespa New Orleans, and Erico Motorsports (Denver) in the next few days.
Scooter Bunny T-shirt
If you, like Zach, want to recreate the famous photo of me mowing my lawn, and unlike Zach, you want to do it right, you’re gonna need Project Porkchop’s “Scooter Bunny” shirt. Lucky for you, it’s on sale for only $9.99.
“You can probably see that we’re pretty tough”
Another of Chicago’s greatest moments in televised scooter crashes: Wild Chicago’s segment on DeathScoot 2000 (Slaughterhouse VI), YouTubed for your pleasure, just this minute, by Chad. Ignoring the fact that every voiceover describes the exact opposite of what is being pictured, it’s still a classic. Goodtimes!
“Tracy! are you OK?”
I heard about this when it happened a couple years ago, and never thought I’d get the chance to see it, but thanks to the dual magic of Tivo and Youtube, here it is: With mere seconds of instruction and an unbuckled half-helmet, WLS Channel 7 meteorologist Tracy Butler crashes a Vespa, during a PR piece with Vespa of Chicago’s Sam Tomaino. God bless you, Vespaway. Now if only I could find Les Nessman’s Vespa crash on WKRP…