When scooter news breaks, we put it under a tarp in the garage.
If you’re not in Cincinnati this weekend, the Magnificent 7 SC is hosting a Chicago-area ride on Saturday (April 10 2010, rain date April 17).
Meet at Cafe Cappuccino, 3800 Harlem (next to Bakers Square) at 9:30am Ride departs at 10:30am. Return to city eta 5:00 pm for free pizza and $3 Blue Moon pints at The Playroom on Belmont.
This is a long ride; 100+ miles with two planned stops along the way. Please, only larger scooters capable of cruising at 50mph.
Scooter Therapy, Madison, WI’s Genuine/Kymco dealer is attempting to enter the Guinness Book of World Records on April 17 with “The World’s Largest Scooter Ride.” We heard rumors of this a couple weeks ago, and found it curious: Isle of Wight organizers brag that their 2008 Sunday ride was Guinness-verified as the world’s largest parade of scooters with about 5000. Even though there’s no mention of this record on Guinness’ site, European rallies routinely top 1000 scooters.
It turns out, despite the vague name of the event, Scooter Therapy is trying to break a 2005 Dutch record for Largest Parade of Mopeds (motorcycles Under 50cc), which currently stands at 674. All mopeds and scooters are welcome, but only those under 50cc will count towards the record.
I don’t know what kind of moped population Madison has these days (maybe it’s through the roof, unlike most states, WI law clearly specifies 50cc scooters as mopeds, legal to operate with a regular driver’s license, and Madison is a relatively affluent college town) but that still seems like a lot of bikes, considering that the biggest (and more-publicized) midwestern scooter and moped rallies rarely attract half that many. When you limit it to 50cc bikes, and hold it on the same weekend as a big moped rally in Louisville, that just doesn’t seem possible, but maybe they know something I don’t. In any case, it’s a ride, it’ll be a good time, and they’re giving away a Genuine Roughhouse 50, so if you’re in the area you’ll want to check it out. Here’s hoping they pull it off and steal the title from those stinking Nederlanders!
Guido Ebert wrote a story last week alleging that all is not well with the SYM/Carter Brothers relationship for which he was instantly chastised. Sound familiar?
Comparing powersports journalist Guido Ebert to 2strokebuzz is like comparing Roger Ebert to an anonymous YouTube comment. So you’d think Piaggio would jump at the chance to get him on their bandwagon, right? If Piaggio’s going to set up every lawnmower repair shop in the midwest as dealers, you’d think they’d give them a little marketing support. I honestly wondered if this was an April Fools joke, but I don’t think it is.
I know Vespa rudely scheduled their dealer meeting in California the same weekend as Genuine’s dealer retreat in Wisconsin a couple years ago, but it doesn’t seem sporting to schedule the grand opening of the redesigned Scooterworks Chicago space the same day as Motowork’s North Avenue shop opening. I’m not sure who called dibs on the date first, but if I can’t go to both, I’m not going to either. Even if one of them books Jay Leno.
Aside from the headline, which sounds kinda like a porn video, this story reminds us that as indignant as we get about events like last week’s incident in Arizona, scooterists and motorcyclists can be a threat to pedestrians and cyclists and we’re not always as careful or responsible as we could be. I’m sure the sort of british chavs responsible for this specific incident don’t read this blog (or care about anything but themselves,) but I know plenty of people that read 2strokebuzz have no problem riding after a few drinks, and/or like to show off, and ALL of us get distracted from time to time and make bad decisions. Most of us also drive cars a good share of the time, and fiddle with Pandora, and have screaming kids in the back seat. So (rightfully) say what you will about the driver of that sanitation truck, but never forget that no matter what you ride and how careful you are, you’re capable of inflicting harm on others, too.
Marseille’s Piaggio dealer King Moto rigged up Olympique Marseille graphics for pretty much every vehicle in the Piaggio Group lineup. Why do those look so cool, but when you see a Arizona Diamondbacks or Indiana Pacers scooter, you just want to cry?
Johnny at Motoworks let us know there’s another Vespa party at the Adidas Original store (923 N. Rush Street) this Thursday (4-1-10) from 5-9pm. Last year, they had similar parties all over the country, so if your town has an Adidas Original store, you might want to give them a call. They promise “first dibs on new Adidas gear” and a 15% discount at the party.
(Note: Motoworks’ new location at 1710 North Avenue is having a grand opening party on April 17, so save that date, and we’ll post more about that later!)
Now, I’ve been wearing Sambas since Pelé played for the Cosmos (Hmm, “Pelé” is in the Mac spellcheck dictionary, nice!). I love Adidas, I love Vespa, but I gotta say, the party last year was a disappointment. I had the impression that the Adidas Originals boutique threw a party at least once a week (Missy Elliot Line! El Salvador Line! etc…) without much thought into pleasing the specific target market. They had a generic trip-hop DJ, and a few chicken salad sandwiches, but (even after being asked a week early) couldn’t wrangle a scooter parking zone for the evening. A respectable dozen or so scooterists showed up, pretty excited about what we’d seen online, only to discover that a tiny fraction of the line was actually available in-store (two shoe styles, a couple t-shirts, and a “meh” tracksuit). No one wanted to stay long, with meter maids hungrily eyeing the assortment of semi-legally-parked scooters outside, and even though the 15% discount was extended to online orders placed through the store, no one bought much. So it may be worth checking out, but I’m betting the Motoworks store opening party will be a lot more fun.
This has been all over the web, but in case you missed it: Damn Dirty Dave’s “Pipe Dream” Vespa, in progress. Not sure what the story is, sounds like maybe it was a project for the Vegas build-off that didn’t quite get finished in time, but I’m glad he decided do hang on and do it right rather than rush it together for the show. It’ll certainly be among the most distinctive custom Vespas of all time.
KYMCO is sponsoring the IZOD Indy Car Series again this year, so they’re running a Live Like an Indy Car Driver contest. Grand Prize is a KYMCO 4-wheeler, but with luck, you can win the two runner-up prizes: KYMCO Super-8 scooters signed by IRL racer Ryan Hunter-Reay. Pick up an entry coupon at any KYMCO dealer.
Aside from the Memorial Day limelight, would life really be that great to be an Indy Car driver? I’d imagine it’d be a lot of carefully-budgeted interstate travel, groveling for sponsors, and squeezing performance out of an underfunded car and crew, I dunno, it sounds like the pits, no pun intended. I’ll take graphic design over IRL racing any day. Maybe I’m biased from my uniquely shitty experience at Indianapolis Motor Speedway a couple years ago, and IRL would be loads better than NASCAR, that’s for sure.
O, Glorious day, we’ve finally got all our feeds sorted out and we’re back into Feedburner and all is good. If you’re following us on RSS, everything should still be working properly, without you having to take any action. If you do notice a problem, please let us know!
You also may notice that the email updates are coming from illnoise(at)2strokebuzz(dot)com now rather than my work address, which I’d been trying to change for a few years. You might wanna add that address to your address book to prevent spam filtering (and also because it’s 2SB’s contact address!).
If you’re not following us via RSS OR getting email updates, you can set up either by clicking the appropriate links in the top-right corner of the site.
Two great BBC4 documentaries from the 90s:
A must-watch “Classic Motorcycles” scooter documentary from the early ’90s featuring an amazing array of period photos and footage from the early years of the Vespa and Lambretta.
Another great BBC documentary from a bit later, focusing more on the mid-90s U.K. rally scene.
(Thanks, Steve, via the CHIscooterList.)
English plumber Colin Furze has rigged up his commuter scooter to shoot an adjustable 12-foot flame backwards at encroaching drivers. “I’ve been told that if I fire the flames while riding on the road it’s equivalent to using a firearm and I could be in a lot of trouble,” Furze says.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260047/Wheels-James-Bond-fan-invents-flame-throwing-scooter.html#ixzz0jX4OanJM
(Thanks, Kathy!)
The other day when my Firefox browser automatically updated I was given the option to select a ‘persona‘ for the browser. I did some searching using terms of my areas of interest and found this neat Super Sport 50 theme by someone going by the name 214_PC. It’s pretty much just a nice clean white background with the SS50 logo. Searching for ‘vespa’ comes up with a few other hits, but I thought this was the coolest.
I’d been poking around trying to write a decent story about Hammerhead’s La Vita scooter, but Orin beat me to it. He’s certainly right that the bike sparks some conflicting emotions, but he does a nice job of objectively looking at what it is (and isn’t).
So I’ll spare you the 1000-word rant I’ve been working on. For now.