Category: Rallies and Rides

I’m still standing

Scrambler17 asks “We had a bit of a warm spell over the weekend. Is the Razz still hanging in there?” It sure is. I went over last night and took this photo. I would have never believed on January 9 that the same snow would still be covering the floorboards of Ryan’s Razz, with a few new layers on top of it, all frozen as hard as a rock. But there it is. This weekend is supposed to be rainy and above freezing, but I bet that just adds a thick ice bridge that holds it up for another couple weeks. This winter will never end.

Out of respect for the pessimists that guessed (a month ago) that it’d fall over this week, we’re only accepting new bets for dates after Valentines’ Day.

When you fail the CWC, at least document it thoroughly

0° is pretty darn cold for Lexington, KY, so Whit and Michael of Vespa Lexington decided to give the Cold Weather Challenge a shot. Despite exceptional video, photo, and text documentation, Michael only did 7 miles and Whit just rode around the block in shorts and a t-shirt like, in his own words, “an idiot.” Nice work anyway, guys, and I believe Michael’s still leading the CWC Kentucky division.

Scooterworks’ “Cabin Fever”

Scooterworks here in Chicago’s having a big “Cabin Fever Sale” on (Saturday January 24, 2009). They’ve got free t-shirts for the first 50 people there, closeouts on helmets and apparel, and new and used scooters at “The best prices of the year,” including 1.9% financing on new Genuine scooters. (click on flyer to enlarge) Guess they’ve got to make room for all the Blur 225 Turbos and Stella 300 Eco-maticas.

CWC Update, and another quick contest

Entries in the Cold Weather Challenge have been slow thanks to schloads of snow in the northern U.S., but don’t forget runners-up will be recognized by state, so wherever you live, you have a chance at everlasting glory. One notable recent entry is Clayton from South Korea, who holds third place after a fried-chicken-inspired ride through Namhansansong. Chicagoans scooter through the snow for bibimbap, Koreans scooter through the snow for the Colonel. Who knew?

Anyway, here’s a new mini-contest until we have rideable conditions again: That there photo is CWC cosponsor Ryan’s Yamaha Razz, he did a few doughnuts in his back yard on Jan. 9th and then threw it into that snowbank with the centerstand up. Guess what day and time it falls over (in the comments) and the closest guess gets a $10 gift certificate from Scootmoto.com. Go!

Andretti test 1: 2sb crashes the Andretti

I’ve mentioned a few times that PowerSportsFactory has given us a Benelli/Andretti 150XT for a long-term test. I also bought a used Blur around the same time to replace the one stolen at the MotoGP race in Indianapolis, and thanks to a few minor snafus in both transactions, a busy schedule, and a little bad luck, I finally obtained plates and titles for both bikes yesterday. Yesterday it was 46°F and sunny, probably the last decent riding day we’ll see until Spring in Chicago, so it would have made sense to pick up the Andretti that’s been blocking a hallway inside my office for weeks now. But what fun is that? I decided to ride it home in the 34° sleet today instead.
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New Dates: High Rollers and Ride to Work

Orin kindly reminds us all that the mega-huge 10th-anniversary Las Vegas High Rollers rally, which is usually held on Presidents’ Day weekend, is in March next year (March 19-23, 2009). Ride to Work Day, which is usually in July, will be held on June 15 in 2009. It’s also been renamed “International Motorcycle and Scooter Ride to Work Day”. Neat to see “scooter” officially added to the increasingly cluttered logo (did anyone actually feel excluded that it wasn’t before?). Also note that “International” is now used in the “International Male” sense, rather than the geographic sense.

Cold Weather Challenge

WINNERS:

  1. Bob Hedstrom: -16°F, 10.1 mi
    1/15/09, Minneapolis, MN, 2007 Vectrix
    … I’d been riding a Vectrix a lot during the past summer and always trying to test its limits. I really wanted to see what extreme cold would do to battery performance.
    After checking the temperature at 10:45 am and it was still hanging in at -19. Time to ride. The Vectrix has a lot of torque and even the bare looking portions of the streets had a bit of slip to them. I had to be very careful but kept it upright the whole time. I outriggered my boots in all turns…     Map
  2. Tom S.: -11°F, 11 mi
    1/15/09, Omaha, NE, 2008 Yamaha Zuma
    Commuting in my Jeep is not a whole lot different from being on my Zuma at these temps so I bundled up extra good and headed to work on the Zuma of Doom! 90mpg is always better than 12mpg!… It’s getting cold enuff to where I’m ALMOST ready to give it to the Minnesotans… NOT IN A MILLION YEARS!!! haha!
  3. Colin Doyle: -10°F, 14.1 mi
    12/15, Collegeville, MN, Honda Ruckus 50
    Video!
  4. Luigi G.: -7°F, 10.1 mi
    1/16/09, Dover MA, 1970 Vespa GTr
    I had to do the run early in the night instead of just before sunup as I needed to get finished packing for the long ride to the FYBO rally… (epic report in comments below)
  5. Stefan: -6°F, 10.3 mi
    1/16/09, Cleveland, OH, 1980 Vespa P200
    Old lady was driving me into work…I see the temp at Walgreens was -12°, and i’m all like “it’s on!.” get to the shop, fire up the “mf’n juggernaut beotch p-deuce”, map out a nice 2.5 mile loop, and run it 4 times.…Is it true the runner up prize is a 3 second pull on a bottle of malort with an old style chaser?

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CWC+2SB=AFU

Tonight I planned to post the Cold Weather Challenge sign-up page and unveil some new stuff for sale at Scootmoto. Tonight I ended up botching a WordPress upgrade, then locked myself out of the 2SB admin page, completely destroyed the site, and took three hours to fix it. I think it’s almost back to normal now, let me know if you see anything weird. For the last two hours I was pretty sure I’d killed the site for good, so just seeing it load is making me very happy. Maybe the Cold Weather Challenge will start tomorrow night. Sorry, Ryan. In the meantime, here’s the Cold Weather Challenge theme song (right click to download).

Cold Weather, Challenged

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Well, the 2008-09 Cold Weather Challenge is officially underway. We came, we saw, we ate kimchi, we froze. It actually snowed a little. Above, a picture of Ron checking out computerized toilets at Super H-Mart. More photos in the 2sb Gallery. Eric posted some photos on Flickr and a video on his site, featuring crazy dancing asian man, which I thought was just a cold-induced hallucination. Thanks for coming, everyone, I’ll have the rules and entry form posted here on 2sb within a couple days, start watching the thermometer and your speedometer. I just made that up.