New Lazer Superskin helmet coating peels back like a real scalp!

Ohhh kay?  And besides "sounding really gross" how does that help us?  Watch the video my friends.  After I saw it I must say I like the idea... but couldn't you just coat your helmet with teflon?  Maybe I don't fully understand the mechanics behind it, but if it makes riding safer?  I LOVE IT!

For a bit more info check out the title link to Scooter-Station.  You can also check out the Lazer Helmet site or watch this video on their production facility.  One problem, it looks like Brazil is the closest distributor we've got.  :(

Biker vs. Geek - Who's the mouse and who's the man

Austin isn't the only town in Texas putting scooters on the YouTube.  Texas motorcycle magazine Texas Iron also has something to say about scooter geeks (like myself).  The outcome wasn't quite what I expected considering this is from a site with "bad ass" in their tagline.

Shout outs to Texas Iron Editor, Frank T., for sharing this video from their parody series.  Yes, I said "series".  I'm just thankful that there was no bloodshed.  Keep 'em comin' Frank!

Expect a scooter from Kawasaki as soon as the Styx River ice rink opens

(Obiboi!  All that great design seems lost on Kawasaki.)

Les amis over at Scooter-Station (title link) aren't the kind of guys to wait-and-see if Kawasaki will surprise us with a scooter for 2009 or 2010... nope, they went straight to Japan and asked Kawasaki's big bosses in person.  So, Will we see a scooter from Kawasaki?  To summarize their response, "no."  Click on the title link to read the whole piece.

Poll results - Your favorite 150cc from SYM?

The votes are in and it looks like the next SYM 150cc scooter with a chance at coming to the USA is the VS 150 with 67% of the 168 total votes.  There are some adjustments to be made caused by 4 votes outside of the USA, but not enough to sway the results in the Fighter's favor.  I personally liked the Fighter in black, but I'm feeling pretty good about the VS in white.  She got some really favorable reviews outside of the US and I'm impressed by her specs given the fact that she's got Taiwanese engineering and workmanship behind her.  Of course the real test will be when she goes head-to-head with the other 150cc offerings in its class that are available on our shores like the Kymco People and Super 8 150, Vespa S and LX 150, and the Genuine Stella and Buddy 150, Piaggio's Fly 150, Aprilia's Mojito 150 and the variety of Chinese offerings. No word on the American MSRP yet.

Notice the absence the Japanese in this range?  Kinda strange considering it's the 125 - 200cc class that dominated scooter sales this summer.  It's not like they don't have them.  Perhaps they prefer to keep their resources focused on their top sellers and high profit niche models (Honda = Goldwing, Suzuki = Gixxer, Yamaha = V-Star, Kawasaki = Ninja).

Here's a couple more images for ya:

And an action shot of the 125 version, which is essentially the same on the exterior.

When is it ok to speed on a wet road?

When you can ride as good as Kiyonari . Thanks to Tim for pointing out this incredible example of bike control.

Of course there are other titans of the tarmac doing things just as amazing.

Mr. Projector could use YOUR help

Mr. Projector Benefit at Aurora Theater

Hey!  What are you doing tomorrow at 6pm?  How about attending the Mr. Projector Benefit?  Houston Scooterist and all-around good guy Aaron Ball (AKA Mr. Projector) needs your help, so he's throwing a party at the Aurora Theater this Saturday.

Proceeds from the event will go towards extensive medical bills incurred by Ball following a recent scooter accident that resulted in open-heart surgery.

The benefit will take place Nov. 22 from 6-8 p.m., and will feature a new episode of Mr. Projector, screenings of vintage educational films, and a live auction. Admission to the event is $10, and the first 50 people will receive a free Mr. Projector DVD.

Mr. Projector is the bespectacled and bow-tie-wearing alter ego of handsome actor Devlin Rogue, who stars in a movie-within-a-video podcast created and portrayed by Ball. The podcast was conceived as a vehicle for sharing Ball's extensive collection of 16-mm educational films from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Ball was injured in a single-vehicle scooter accident just after Hurricane Ike. At the hospital he was treated for a minor leg fracture and sent home. A few days later, Ball began to feel worse, and soon found himself back in the hospital with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection. The infection spread quickly, infecting his heart and kidneys before it could be accurately diagnosed, and the damage was so severe that Ball had to undergo open-heart surgery to replace his badly-infected mitral valve.

Aaron didn't have insurance, so in the spirit of thanksGIVING why don't you show this turkey some love.  Go to the show or (once I've figured out how) send him some loot.  Thank you!

Poll: Next SYM 150cc Model? You choose.

-OR-

(Click to make each SUPER sized)

Both scooters are 150cc 4-stroke with very similar performance and specs. Both are from the drafting tables of Nova Design. Both are from SYM, but only ONE has a chance to make it to the USA. So what's it gonna be? You choose.

Review of the VS 150 is HERE.
Couldn't find an English review of the Fighter, but here's a Video commercial.



***UPDATE 11/18/08 3:30pm***
You may notice a problem with the "Show results" button only saying there is "1 vote". Don't worry, I will tack the tallied info up at the end of this week or you could just click on the title link to go straight to BlogFlux. Right now we are at about 100 votes. Keep 'em comin'!

Here they are in white so you can see the details.

Major Kong scooter

It's never too late to prepare for next Halloween or even your next rally.  Don your favorite cowboy garb and swing yer cowboy hat in the air and hold tight cause it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

If Major T.J. "King" Kong is too far of a faded memory, you could always dress as Homer Simpson and reenact a similar scene (which I could only find in Spanish).

I found this thing over at Disaboom.com

Jobs for out of work scooters

If low gas prices have you back to driving your 4WD Dually to the office you should consider a career for your out of work scooter.  Here's an idea from ace2heart.  It's not real, mind you, but a concept called "Sweep-scooter" that he/she entered into the Worth1000 Dream Vehicles 5 contest. 

Just thought it could give you some ideas to keep your poor, lonely scooter active and engaged during these times of $2/gal gas.  Don't worry Scooty!  You'll be back to work before you can say "carbon tax".

People STILL hating on scooters?!

(what are people so frightened of? a little ol' scooter?! I wish I could remember the source of this image)

Hrm... this question still prevails. I remember asking something similar back in 2005 and just when I thought everything was cool and that scooters were finally being embraced by people (specifically Americans), I see signs showing otherwise.

Personally, I'm sorta sheltered from scooter haters. I hang out with scooter people, I read scooter sites and magazines, most of my friends think they're pretty cool. So imagine my confusion when I stopped by Motorcycle.com's YouTube channel today. There was the Majesty video I did some time ago. It had over 27,000 views and a 4 star rating with 30 comments. I was thinking "Wow! The scooter fans really dig this one!", and then I read the comments. Things like:

"lol i throw a fu*king big stick in fornt of that freaking faygo haha."

Now, I'm not sure what that means, but I'm not sure the Insane Clown Posse would appreciate your useage of profanities in the same sentence (if you can call it that) with their favorite drink.

What could be the source of the hate? Is it that people associate "Scooter Libby" with scooters? Is it that people are too insecure to ride them? Is it because Jim Belushi rides one? I thought people liked Jim Belushi. I don't know the answer, but I do know this... SCOOTERS ROCK! :)

So, what's your take? Why the hard feelings against scoots?

PennDOT puts the brakes on Chinese Scoots!?

(PennDOT says "zhè zú gòu le, xiè xiè" to Chinese scooters. source: flickr/ironleg)

A recent article in the power sports industry trade mag, Dealer News, reports that Pennsylvania has put a hold on registering any scooter with a "L" VIN. It may be hard to imagine, but Pennsylvania may be just the first state to exercise a crackdown on Chinese bikes. Here's a snippet from the original story:

Scooter sales are through the roof. But some dealers in Pennsylvania haven’t been able to deliver a single scooter for the past two months. There’s even been talk that at least one dealer has gone out of business. Is it a supply-and-demand problem? No. The dealers have plenty to sell, and people are willing to buy. It’s a registration problem.

In an online bulletin dated September, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation informed dealers that they could no longer issue temporary registrations and tags for any scooter or motorcycle with a VIN that begins with the letter “L,” the country code for China. Instead dealers must send these title applications to the department’s Special Services Unit in Harrisburg. The unit inspects the applications and decides if a title may be issued. The unit checks each VIN with an online database maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency to which importers submit their paperwork.

This is not only affecting the "fly by nighters" but also the more established brands like TNG, Lance, United Motors and QLink. Chinese distributors call it discrimination, some dealers say they can't believe it, other say it's about time. I just wonder what the impact will be if this really is just the first of many state crackdowns. You can click on the title link to read the whole story.

Deal of the decade or dealer of death? The $315 scooter.

I'm a fan of extremes (I was gonna say 'acrophiliac' but that's heights what the word for 'extreme lover'?) , so in reaching across the spectrum of scooter prices we've seen a vintage going for $25k, there's the modern Piaggio MP3-500 which will take you above the $10k mark once you get her out the door and on the other side of the spectrum is what you see here.

I won't tell you the name since I got this in a spam last week, but I couldn't believe my eyes. THREE HUNDRED and FIFTEEN bucks for a new scooter?! You can't buy a USED scooter for $315. I don't know how they do it, but my question for you is... Would you rock the $300 scooter down the street? Speaking of rocks, this was part of the description:
"Two 50CC model with rock price, 20 % off. the lowest price in the world."

Wow! It is actually the price of a rock! For real look here. Opinions?

Ride it or trailer it? How Batman gets to the rally

He trailers it.

You wanna see something cool? It's not new, but check out the homemade Tumbler. Bob Dullam's got SKILLS!

The Bat Scooter also made a listphobia list.

2009 Scooter Model Round-up - Malaguti

Since we're expecting a slow news week... you know, no big announcements or anything ;), we'll be keeping an eye on EICMA #66.  This will be the show where the remaining 2009 models are expected to shake out.  What's new?  What's exciting?  What's expected?  Stay tuned as we run through them this week.

First let's start with a brand that's not going to make much of a difference to us because you can't get them in the USA, Malaguti.  Malaguti has trumped Piaggio's MP3 for bad-choice-of-names with their new 125cc / 160cc Malaguti BLOG.  I'll be on the lookout for the Aprilia Ninja Cat and Italjet Hadron Collider 250 announcements this week too.

The Malaguti Blog is described as such:

"an agile scooter, easy to ride in the city traffic thanks to its low seat, with large wrap-around leg shield and windshield, compact and short wheelbase, flat platform, under-seat storage compartment big enough to hold 2 jet helmets, double disc brake, high-powered frontlight.  The maximum comfort combined with the modern and aggressive, elegant and dynamic design of a “Made in Italy” scooter.  BLOG are equipped with the innovative and reliable 160 and 125 cc, liquid cooled, electronic injected engine, the ones assembled also on the CENTRO range.  They grant excellent results in terms of performance and driveability under any condition."

The Centro, Malaguti's big-wheeled scooter, is well received in the rest of the world so the engine should do good for the BLOG.

Malaguti has an update to the hot little liquid cooled Phantom F12 R 50cc Fantasy 2-stroker as well.  Look for a trippy new graphics set that will look something like this: 

Additionally for 2009 Malaguti will offer a new 4-stroke version of the Phantom and a new flagship scooter called the SpiderMax RS500 that goes a little something like this:

Looking more like a robo-mantis than a Spider, the SpiderMax RS500 is based on the GT 500 execpt she's "more dynamic and sportier".  You can read all the deets right here if you'd like.  I'm gonna save my hands for news on scooters scheduled for the American market.

Lambretta, lovingly restored. Asking $25,000, firm.

Years 1966-1968. Your choice of Metal/Chrome, Red/White, or Yellow/White.

Yes, you're reading this correctly and no, I'm not on crack... I'm not so sure about Royal College of Art grad Grahame Fowler and his firm GGF Restoration who is really selling them on Vivre for twenty-five LARGE each. Grahame Fowler also makes a $1,725 aircraft-grade aluminum chess set also available at Vivre if you're interested.

Nuff respect to Grahame. I appreciate his gumption and wish him much success with his fashion career in NYC and his little scooter restoration project. I could see spending that much on a Lammy... if it were an original, hand-built by Corradino D'Ascanio himself.