Category: Video

2009 Yamaha TMAX Video

The Yamaha TMax is garnering some serious love from the motorsports press, and the new yellow color livens up the look a little. So leave it up to Yamaha to unleash an ultra- lame marketing campaign. The target market for a $8000 scooter is not sheepish motorcyclists, it’s people who specifically want to AVOID being lumped into the testosterone-fueled image-conscious world of motorcycles, but still want to enjoy 2-wheeled life. No one in that market (including me) will recognize the third-tier motorsports celebrities in the ad, nor will they empathize with their “image” problems (let alone their acting skills). And here’s another tip: get those stupid dated tribal-flame bullshit decals off that yellow T-Max, or I’m going to come to Cypress, CA with a heat gun and do it myself. You’re killing me, Yamaha.

The T-Max (once you take those stickers off) is possibly the most appealing scooter available domestically right now, and Yamaha wants to let America know. I understand that. But what does reinforcing scooter stereotypes do for your other scooter models? Wouldn’t it make more sense to sell it as a great scooter, rather than a passable motorcycle? Is it smart to market TMaxes to the small percentage of Americans that are already motorcyclists, rather than the much larger percentage that aren’t?

[Thanks for the video link, Ryan]

Speaking of jumps…

Let me walk you through my run [Thanks to the Hell’s Fairies for the video]:

  • Ramp: It’s a testament to the Blur’s awesomeness that a 255-lb idiot can jump that high without breaking anything.
  • Flag Joust: I knew I’d never pull that off, so I didn’t even try, in the interest of time.
  • Beercan Slalom: I practiced this seven hundred times when no one was around and had it down. Under pressure, not so good.
  • The Gauntlet: The plan: having screwed up royally, I decided to ignore the boards and ride directly into the crowd, as fast as possible, in the hope of scaring everyone so much they forgot to throw their sponges. The reality: I was closer to them, so they were able to hit me head-on, with more force.
  • Follow-up: So it turns out the Blur has a lot of sponge-friendly nooks and crannies, so I was able to loop around and throw all the sponges back at everybody. Later, I took the Eisenhower expressway home and flipped my visor down at 65mph and it was so spotted up with soap spots that I couldn’t see. That was fun.

BTW, Jordan and Rawc are more or less OK, thankfully. Aside from that, it was a great rally, more photos and commentary soon. Thanks, everyone.

Slaughterhouse on Fox News Chicago

Here’s one of David Viggiano’s Slaughterhouse bits from Fox News this morning. There were more gags and adventures, hopefully someone can convert Tivo to Youtube. All in all it was fun, and loads better than this. As I was leaving, I heard MadTV’s Michael McDonald was on his way over to try out the Gymkhana. Thanks to Johnny of Motoworks for putting it together. Slaughterhouse starts tonight, of course. Be there!

UPDATE: Thanks to Thanks to Fox, Gapers Block, Time Out Chicago, and Love, Chicago for hyping the rally!

2sb meets the Breeders

I alluded to this a few times in the past, but I can finally share it:

Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve been completely infatuated with the Pixies since “Gigantic” came out and I bought “Pod” by the Breeders the morning it was released. Many of you remember my dear departed evil cat Cannonball. Many of you have seen the Vaughan Oliver posters around my various dorm rooms, apartments, and now my house. A few years ago, my company was asked to record, design, and sell the Pixies’ reunion concert CDs, and I even got to design an official t-shirt for the tour and work with Vaughan Oliver a bit on some Dead Can Dance CD packaging. Even better, I got to stand onstage at Lollapalooza to watch the Pixies’ set. I thought it’d never get any sweeter than that.

Well, last year, I met a great designer from Dayton named Chris Glass. We hung out at the ludicrous Creation Museum in Kentucky when I was home for Christmas, and he took his leave saying he had to go meet with “the girls about their website” and said something about “you know how rock stars are.” I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, but later on, I figured out that he was talking about Kim and Kelley Deal.

Well, to make an already long story a little shorter, Chris finished Breeders Digest and my friend and co-worker Steve Delahoyde, also a big Breeders fan, asked me to ask Chris if the band needed any videos for their new album. Chris talked to them and they said “Sure, as long as we don’t have to be in it.” Chris leaked us a few songs, we picked one, agonized over some ideas, scheduled a shoot, then delayed it so long that we got to shoot some footage when they played here in May. We met Kim, Kelley, Mando, and José, and they were fantastic people who did their cameo perfectly in one (long) take, even though they weren’t actually aware we were rolling (it was a four-minute-long cameo). Steve edited the four separate videos, then we messed with the flash interface for months, then waited a couple more months, and at last, I’m ecstatic to share it with you. I hope the video does justice to the song, and I hope you’ll check out their incredibly great not-so-new-anymore album Mountain Battles (get it on LP, it sounds great and is packaged as beautifully as usual by Vaughan Oliver).

Thanks to the band, Chris, Richard, 4AD, the actors and crew, and especially Steve, who put WAY more work into this than I did. Embed this sucker everywhere you can (a link to the “embed” code is next to the Breeders’ logo), I’d love to see Steve’s phone ringing with more video work.

Oh, to keep it scooter-related, all the “running” scenes were shot by Ryan Taylor from my Genuine Blur 150, he was strapped to me with a tie-down, facing backwards. Luckily no one got hurt. The scooter was parked in the background in one scene that got cut, maybe we can get that up on YouTube sooner or later.

ZNen “Lance” factory video tour

Welcome to Zhejiang Zhongneng Industry Group Co Ltd or “ZNen”. They make (or have made) scooters for many different importers, including the new “Lambretta” sold in Italy, Baron, FlyScooter, ZN, possibly Roketa, TNG, and Peirspeed, and plenty more (it’s hard to tell without looking at the VIN, and even then, it’s confusing). Some of these brands are better than others, and often the dealer and importer you buy from has as much to do with your experience as the manufacturer. The Chinese are plenty capable of making good scooters, it comes down to the ethical and financial choices made by the manufacturer, importer, and their dealers.

At Dealer Expo2008, a ZNen rep spent a half hour trying to convince me to import their scooters. I finally cut her off and asked “don’t you already have many importers here? She said “sure, but you can make more money if you import directly.” I said I wasn’t interested in importing (I didn’t bother telling her I’m not a dealer, either). Only then did she reluctantly staple a Lance Motorsports business card to my brochure.

I talked to a couple other booths selling scooter manufactured by ZNen. When I asked “Aren’t these the ZNen models they’re selling at their booth?,” most admitted they were pretty angry that ZNen had bought a huge booth to try to sell scooters directly to the same customers they were targeting. Then they went on to explain that their quality control and dealer support was better than all the other ZN importers’. Lance didn’t have a booth, and probably were under the impression that ZNen was giving dealers their information, which was hardly the case.

You can’t tell much about ethics or quality from a video. Even if you think this video does prove something, it still leaves 20 importers to choose from. I’ve never ridden a Lance scooter, but there’s plenty of evidence on the internet that they’re not great: Many complaints about quality and service, Many dealers sell them online, they’re indistinguishable from some other brands that friends have had negative experiences with, no experienced dealers that I know and respect sell them, and ZNen’s ethics are questionable, as noted above. Are Lance Scooters OK? I don’t know, but this video tells me nothing.

Righteous Rotenburg Rally

This is the kind of race/rally weekend I can get behind: a DSSC meet in Rotenburg, Germany. Ryan, who sent the video, points out that all scooter rally raffles should be immediately replaced with “throwing shit.” Oh, and DEBASER. (Keep an eye out for some exciting sorta-Pixies/2strokebuzz related news coming Monday.)

Australian Yamaha scooter TV ad

Via Steve, a nicely-done Australian Yamaha TV commercial showing the economical aspects of their scooters. Genuine and even PiaggioUSA are working on pretty limited budgets, but you have to wonder why Yamaha and Honda, who actually do run national spots on cable TV, haven’t done anything like this here in the U.S. yet. If it wasn’t for the Australian coins shown at the end (and if they added a few models to their lineup), they could even run this one.