Category: International

Motogiro d’California

Motogiro d’Italia is a motorcycle touring rally made famous in the 1950s and revived in 2001.  The event, showcasing classic Italian machines, is venturing outside Italy for the first, of what I would imagine will be annual, Motogiro America. The oil leaking event will be held in and around Monterey, CA preceding the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix in July 2008.  Webbikeworld.com reports that the routes will include a lap around the racetrack at Laguna Seca as well as scenic rides around the picturesque Monterey Bay area.  There is a range of entry classes including a “Vespa Class.” Hopefully other vintage Italian scooters will be allowed as it would seem very fitting to have some of the beautiful Lambretta D race machines participating (I’m talking to you, Alex).  It sounds like a dream week for any Italian Iron enthusiast.

Is It Time For An American Scooter Confederation?

The Australian website, mcnews.com.au, reports on an association of scooter importers that will represent manufacturers and dealers in an effort to “assist riders to avoid potential pitfalls”. This seems aimed directly at upstart importers of lower quality scooters brought in by the container load for fly-by-night organizations. The Australian Scooter Federation boasts membership from many top flight manufacturers including the marques of the Piaggio group, Honda, Yamaha and Kymco. The article states that the ASF members will conform to a ‘code of conduct’ to ensure high quality and dealer support. Is it time for such an organization in the U.S.A? I think so. I recall a little sticker on the gas tank of many an Allstate scooter that suggested there once was. Discuss.

Bastianelli vs. Pontedera

Ryan’s honeymoon photos from the Vespa factory and museum. The Massimiliano Fuksas’ new museum appears to be dead in the water, a museum employee told Ryan there was a new museum expected to open in late 2008 “near the factory.” Fuksas’ site doesn’t mention the project, either, so it looks like those floating red clouds were just more pre-IPO public relations hype. Bummer.

“La Lambretta Cinese”

Motoblog is calling this thing the “chinese Lambretta.” I can’t read italian, so I’m not sure if it was meant as a joke. Aside from there already being a (at-least-half-)chinese Lambretta, they can call it whatever they want, it’ll always be a Zhejiang Zhongneng Gas Scooter ZN151T-F to me. It’s not the most hideous-looking thing out there (once you strip off the corkboard paint job), and it might even look more like a Lambretta than the rebadged Adlys, but I’m not buying one.

Asian rip off scooter t-shirts

Some dude is knocking off those West Coast Scooters, AC/DC Vespa and Harley Vespa t-shirts. I’m not sure who printed them originally, a Google search for “West Coast Scooters” brings up ten Chinese-scooter-drop-shippers with that name and a CafePress shop that’s also knocking them off. Anyway, it looks like “RetroJungle” was selling them on eBay but there are no current auctions listed. A few months ago, someone was even selling knockoff Shepard Fairey Amerivespa 2005 T-shirts (redesigned to say “2007,” so I guess it’s a trend and we’ll be seeing poorly-made knockoff Merciless Tigers/2strokebuzz soccer jerseys any day now. While we’re on the subject, a guy in Kansas City is doing some “Skoot and Destroy” stuff, he didn’t know we’d already done it, or that Thrasher made us throw away most of the patches we made. I told him I didn’t care, as long as he made it clear it wasn’t coming from 2strokebuzz.

News chunks 10/23/07

  • A Korean student in England decided riding his scooter back to Korea would be less uncomfortable than a 13-hour flight.
  • The Times of London is digging the new Vespa S. Current rumor is 50cc and 150cc versions to the U.S. in the spring.
  • The Age of Melbourne, on the other hand, may be the first media outlet to see through the façade of Piaggio’s “green” marketing, after receiving a life-sized non-recyclable promotional piece featuring the MP3. Australia is hot for scooters this month. A University of Tasmania team has assembled the first Australian-made hybrid scooter, powered by Ethanol and batteries, and Sydney is apparently searching for its identity as a scooter city.
  • The Sun rides Aprilia’s new Mana 850cc automatic motorcycle.
  • Leonardo DiCaprio’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend sideswiped a photographer’s scooter in Israel. Oh, sorry, that’s not even interesting to E! Online readers.
  • If you’ve always thought “Sure, Segways are great, but man, I hate standing up, and I wish they were uglier, lower-tech, and more expensive,” Toyota has a concept vehicle for you.
  • In London suburb Croydon, citizens are teaming up to document “antisocial” scootering and report it to police in the wake of the death of a local police officer.
  • D.C. police are on the other side of the fence, after a scooter cop was hit-and-run by a white van. (Fact: recklessly-driven white vans now outnumber all other vehicles on Chicago streets, 6-to-1.)
  • For some reason there were at least… let’s see… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… five stories in the press last week about Piaggio’s new plant in Vietnam, without any new info beyond the announcement they made in February. Thanh Nien News had the decency to follow up their PR-wire story with a fairly interesting story on the vintage scooter scene in Vietnam.
  • A New Jersey yoga instructor and mother of six becomes the first woman in America to eat thousands of dollars of depreciation and trade in her SUV, replacing it with a $11,000 Vectrix electric scooter. The expense is totally justified by her reduced carbon footprint and the dozens of dollars she’ll save on gas between now and the first day it snows and she has to make six separate trips to drop her kids off at soccer practice, girl scouts, and karate. Yes, that’s pretty cynical. As Smarthouse points out, the Vectrix has many merits, and it’s a positive step for ecology, but as I’ve said many times, it seems that consumers aren’t considering all the factors when looking at the economic benefits of scooters, like this Wisconsin couple who seem to be ignoring the fact that riding a pair of 60mpg scooters isn’t really any better than driving one 30mpg car.
  • In that same story an Oshkosh, WI urgent-care clinic director estimates that scooter-related urgent-care visits will rise to 5,000 nationally this year, up from 1,300 in 2000. If the national urgent-care industry is actually keeping stats like that, we’d love to see them, but it seems a little unlikely that anyone would have been accurately tracking nationwide motorscooter injuries in 2000, or that any study of that sort would differentiate urgent-care visits from emergency-room visits.
  • A new SYM dealer has opened shop on the Incriminators’ turf. “You see them all over Hollywood,” store manager Tonya Stewart says, “[Scooters are] in movies and music videos, and stars are riding them as well.” Well, sure, Tonya, but those aren’t really SYMs now are they? God, I’m bitchy tonight. This is like 2strokeTMZ.

Get bobbly on a scooter

Another reason I’m kicking myself for not checking ScooterSwag more often: Your own personalized bobblehead riding a scooter. It’s totally worth $130 to have your head sculpted in minature by an Asian child, and it’ll keep them busy so they don’t try to restore any scooters. Cassie describes it as “creepy,” but I really don’t think it holds a candle to a bobblehead of you sitting on the toilet clenching your fists with two giant poops on the floor next to you. Geez, when did Jeff Koons start making bobbleheads?

Gizmag rides the Vectrix Maxi

Starting up the Maxi is a disconcerting affair – switch the key on, hold the left brake lever in, touch the right brake to start the bike and… Well, nothing happens. It’s completely silent. Only a large “Go!� on the well-designed instrument display gives away the fact that the power’s on.

The Vectrix electric scooter has been on the market for a while now, but this is the most thorough review we’ve seen. It’s clearly leagues above other electric bikes on the market and it features some innovative technology beyond the electric motor, but it sounds like it just can’t quite compete with a gas-powered scooter on price and performance. Kudos to Vectrix for trying though, it’ll only get better and better.

ScootRSS

Say what you will about ScootRS (please don’t, actually, I’ve heard it all), Randall’s always been kind to me (though, to be honest, I wouldn’t buy a scooter from anyone without seeing it in person first). They’ve recently expanded their facility in Ho Chi Minh City (a funny story in that post, though “Where do some people get their hatred of Asia from?” is an easy question to answer). But the real point of this post is that ScootRS now has an “item of the day” RSS feed and whether you’re down with the eastern hemisphere or not, it’s a neat way to familiarize yourself with random vintage scooter parts, I look forward to playing “Identify that Part” every morning.

Bajaj to close main Pune plant?

Facing a 15% drop in first-quarter two-wheeler sales after a major demerger and a very public emphasis on the budget automotive market (possibly with Renault), Bajaj Auto announced Thursday that production of their only current scooter model, the Crystal, would move from Bajaj’s main Akurdi plant in Pune to a three-wheeler plant in Waluj. 2SB reader/Bajaj fan Dave McCabe suggests this move is similar to Ford announcing they’re no longer making cars in Flint, MI. (Or Piaggio moving Vespa production out of Pontedera). The work week has been cut to four days in Akurdi, and union leaders and workers fear more layoffs or even the possibility of the historic Akurdi plant closing permanently. Despite several revamped motorcycles and talk of an electric bike, scooters don’t seem to be a priority at Bajaj these days.

German Scooter-Weekend just one month away

There is still time to call the travel agent, pack your bags and get to Germany for their annual Scooter-Weekend celebration, sponsored by Scooter-Attack.  On September 29th the Hockenheimring will host hordes of scooterists from across the world in what has become one of Europe’s premier modern scooter events.  The schedule includes drag racing, custom scooter shows and dyno shoot-outs.  The event is for scooters and mopeds only.  Quads, motorcycles and scooters with motorcycle engines are not allowed! 2strokebuzz.com reporters are still open to any offers of sponsorship to attend the event.  In the case of no live coverage from this correspondent, check back in about two months and there should be a nice link to a gallery of photos detailing the weekends festivities.

Click here for computer friendly flier in German.

LML Vespa? Doubt it.

IndiaTimes reports that after relaunching international shipments in the last couple months, LML is back in the (Indian) domestic market, with their “Vespa brand” scooters. I’m assuming this is sloppy journalism and not some sort of LML-Piaggio joint venture where the LML NV SPL and Select II (on which the Genuine Stella is based) are actually being sold under the Vespa name, but in the unlikely event that Piaggio is involved, that would likely bring a quick death to the Stella.