Category: Manufacturers

VVV: Third Eye Blind, “Semi-Charmed Life”

So we’re back with the second installment of Vespa Video Vednesday, only a couple days late, and this time we’ll choose a video at random from David Smith’s list… Ah, crap, not this one…

Band: Third Eye Blind
Song: “Semi-Charmed Life”
Album: Third Eye Blind (1997)
Scooter(s): Many vintage Vespas and Lambrettas
Scooter content: 30-40 seconds
Jump to the good parts: all over the place

This is the sound of late-nineties douchebaggery, the sound of Spin-Doctors-wannabees stomping on Kurt Cobain’s grave throughout the second half of the decade. To be honest, it’s not a terrible song, it’s catchy enough, but its oversaturation in commercials, movies, shitty parties, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch was more than enough to make these guys rich, and they probably hate the song more than I do. It’s such a chick flick cliche that even chick flicks make fun of it now.

I didn’t have a TV for the second half of the nineties, so I never saw this video until a few years ago. I don’t imagine I would have cut the song a break even knowing about the scads of sweet vintage scooters in the promo clip. If you turn down the sound, and you aren’t prone to seziures from the EXTREME! NINETIES! ONE! SECOND! EDITS!, there’s a lot to see here. Clearly they rounded up a So-Cal club at the height of the vintage glory days (Burgundy Topz? Secret Society? someone will post an angry comment and tell us, I’m sure) and you can see in the scooterist’s faces, they’re hoping the song doesn’t catch on and immortalize the two afternoons they spent hanging out with these guys.

Check in next vednesday! Ve promise it vill be better.

Adidas/Vespa parties in 5 cities

vespadidas
After teasing America with mostly unobtainable European tidbits, the Adidas Originals/Vespa clothing and shoe line is hitting the U.S. in full force with five launch parties at U.S. Adidas Original stores over the next week:
Berkeley, CA July 23 6-8 PM
Chicago, IL July 23 6-8 PM
Georgetown, DC July 23 6-8 PM
Miami, FL July 23 6-8 PM
Portland, OR July 24 6-8 PM
(Click on the city for the specific invitation)
These “Private Shopping Events” include a 20% discount and a gift with an $80+ purchase (I’m told anything that’s sold out or unavailable in-store can be ordered online at the event with the discount). Visitors can enter to win a customized Adidas Originals Vespa S-50.

Dispatch from the Hodge Republic

Just got an email from Rob Hodge. If you don’t know Rob, you’ve never really experienced scootering. Rob’s sort of a scootering mad scientist, with emphasis on the “mad,” and comically tactless, and we sort of miss having him around the Midwest, though we’re not necessarily asking him to come back. He’s worked at some of the best scooter shops around, and generally knows his stuff, but sometimes when he’s pouring half a gallon of Marvel Mystery Oil into your open cylinder, you start to wonder. Anyway, here’s what he’s got to say, translated from Hodgespeak:

I’ve created a new Yahoogroup to spread information regarding
Hodgespeed Tuning’s ongoing projects. […] If you only want to receive product updates and bulletin-style notices, these will be sent as “special notices.” if you
want all the info, sign up to “receive all e-mails.”

in other news, it’s short notice but i’m having an “open house/garage night” tonight, (July 1, 2009) at 5:00 at my location at 2314 Thorndyke in Seattle. The main project for the night is a 4-speed upgrade and complete re-wire of a smallframe with one of the new Parmakit ignitions. Feel free to bring your project over for some wrench time or to get an opinion. My father in also in town and he’s extremly competent in electricals, as am I.

See, at least he’s modest. His dad is entertaining, too.

Yes, he’ll uprgade a transmission and rewire an entire bike in one night. And it will work. But it won’t be pretty. Worth checking out if you’re in Seattleland, but have an excuse ready (“I need to pick up my girlfriend at night school!”) or you’ll be there all night.

Note: no, he didn’t include the Yahoogroup address, and yes, I have been looking for an excuse to throw that art up for ages.

Bajaj considers new “sport” scooter.

Despite the 2005 demise of the mighty Bajaj Chetak, with Rahul Bajaj stating “Holding on to anything from the past is a sign of weakness,” we were almost certain there’d be a full-on retro Bajaj Chetak out by now. Sadly, Bajaj’s only scooter over the past few years has been the disappointing-selling Krystal, and there are no signs of a return to metal-bodied scooters, even with LML’s marginal success. But Bajaj is finally admitting they bailed out of scooters too soon, and is currently developing a “powerful sport scooter” to regain some scooter market share.

SYM vs. Lance

This whole thing might have worked out if Lance hadn't NOT EVEN BOTHERED TO TAKE THEIR OWN PHOTO of the damn thing.
Last week, Carter Brothers, SYM’s US importer accused Lance Powersports of buying SYM’s Fiddle II scooters from SYM’s Chinese supplier via a third party with the intention of selling them in the USA as the “Vienna” 50 and 125. (Are there any European-sounding “V” words left to name a scooter? Yes! But that’s another story!) Of course SYM demanded they not sell the scooters here and… well… let’s try something new. Instead of posting snarky commentary in which 2sb takes sides and gets in trouble and has to apologize profusely for being right, let’s just post their dueling press releases, which are far more entertaining than anything we could come up with, anyway. Enjoy:
Continue reading “SYM vs. Lance”

It’s about TIME…

Chad Schaefer (months ago) passed along five great stories from TIME Magazine’s newly-available-online archives. They were decades-old to begin with, so you’ll forgive the delay. Here are some excerpts, click the title to see the full stories.

Speed

TIME, October 17, 1955
…Italian motor-scooter enthusiasts, often harshly criticized for their desire to dominate the road, were still glowing at [79-year-old Pius XII’s] understanding words to a group of Vespa riders: “Those who complain of your noise, do they ever think that your speed may take you to church in time for Mass, or that you may be rushing a sick person to the hospital? Be patient with those who abuse you.”…

Rocks Round the Clock

TIME, August 14, 1964
… Suddenly, the kids began ranging through town in packs, stopping traffic, banging on cars, chanting (“Up the Mods”), looking for trouble. They raided cafes for dishes and glasses to throw, knives and forks to brandish, chased each other up the beaches and down the streets under a hail of rocks and crockery. On the promenade, herds of noisy Rocker motorcycles roared incessantly; buzzing them in hand-to-handlebar combat were enough Mod motor scooters to hold mass Vespa services.…

Fuzz with a Buzz

TIME, January 13, 1967
…the New York police have found a way to let one man cover the ground of five: the motor scooter. Police Commissioner Howard R. Leary has already checked out 575 cops on 80 Vespas and Lambrettas. And he has just asked for funds to buy 300 more. Eventually, he wants all 2,000 patrolmen to mount up…

Drunk astronauts and cosmonauts on scooters in Paris

(no original title) TIME, June 13, 1969
…the next morning [U.S. Astronaut] McDivitt hustled out to the Air Show, where he and fellow Apollo 9 Crewmen David Scott and Russell Schweiclcart showed Cosmonauts Vladimir Shakalov and Alexei Yeliseyev around the American exhibit. The proceedings started somewhat stiffly; then a bottle of bonded bourbon was broken out and things began to loosen up. By the time the revelers reached the Russian exhibit with its plentiful stock of vodka, they were saluting everything from Snoopy to space medicine. Toasted to a light crisp, the space travelers finally piled onto their Vespas and scooted back to the American pavilion—two hours late for their ensuing engagement.…

Victim of Affluence

TIME, February 7, 1972
…In 1970. only 55,000 Lambrettas were sold compared with 180,000 a decade earlier. Faced with the realities of a stronger economy, the late Innocenti’s son and nephew, who now run his company, have stopped production of the Lambretta in Italy but will keep a parts depot. They are arranging a deal with the Indian government and a Bombay company to move Lambretta production to India beginning in 1974…

Benelli in trouble?

According to motoblog.it, Benelli sales have been lower than expected worldwide ((Google machine translation). Qiang Jiang, who bought the marque a few years ago, is threatening to close what’s left of Benelli’s Italian-based production and assembly facilities. American Benelli importer Power Sports Factory gave 2strokebuzz an Andretti 150XT (“Velvet” in Europe) to test, you may remember I crashed it in the snow on its maiden voyage, but I’ve put some miles on it lately and it’s a good bike, look for a review (finally!) soon. Surely a good review on a rinky-dink American scooter blog will immediately turn things around for QJ and Benelli.