600 mile ride.. On Vespas!

From the Barre Montepelier Times Argus comes word that Crystal Waters of girlbike fame (not the singer) and three others are planning a 600 mile memorial-ride in August. The trip starts off in Central, MD and ends in Central, VT.

Dubbed, The Last Mile Ride, Waters and crew are raising money for the Gifford Memorial Hospital in Randolph MD.

Crystal Waters is known for her site, Girl Bike, which is definitely a fun place to waste time. For more info on the ride itself, check here.

Piaggio HyS is a go!!

It's no secret that Piaggio Co. has been working on some new revolutionary stuff. Heck, the MP3 is pretty revolutionary in terms of motorcycling practicality and their 850cc V-twin motor for the Gilera marques is the first of its type in a scooter. Piaggio is always ahead of the curve. That said, it should come as no suprise that the fabled HyS motor is actually being tested for production!

The HyS is a HYBRID motor system, not much unlike whats found in the Toyota Prius or Ford Escape Hybrid. It's meant to use less fuel and of course shrink a scooter's already small carbon footprint. It seems that, although miniscule in comparison to cars, some towns still ban scooter use due to emissions. The HyS is a solution to that problem and a step in the right direction towards helping solve the big issue: global warming and pollution.

There have already been a few different prototypes throughout the year as Piaggio has been working on this for a while, but the latest news sounds as if the big blue company has finally figured it out. You can check out the press release and learn more here!

Pittsburg PA's Vespa Renaissance

The Pittsburg, PA blog, Pop City, is a nice site about the town, it's communites, culture, and urban development. This week, Margie Romero's post, "The Return of Vespa" may be a little late as far as returns go (7 years late, but who's counting?), but it's well written and covers a lot of ground. From the 60 history and heritage that we're all very familiar with to the profiles of local dealers and owners, as well as a vintage resto shop, you can get a good sense of Pittsburg's scooter scene and how it's taking off in a town that sounds a lot like ours. Check the link and read for yourself!

Doh!

Homer promotes helmet safety & plasti-scoots :)

Nice things come to those who Vespa in NY

An article in the NY Times (7.13.2007) reveals a nice campaign that Piaggio is undertaking in the streets of NYC.

"On Wednesday, an American importer of Vespa, the Italian maker of probably the best-known brand of motor scooter, said it had paid for almost two months’ worth of parking at 48 spaces in lots and garages in Chinatown, TriBeCa, Midtown and the theater district.
Anyone with a Vespa can leave it in one of those spaces for hours. (But not overnight; the lots don’t allow overnight parking.)
The promotion, done in conjunction with Edison ParkFast garages, ends Sept. 30."


The idea is to see if scooterists would use the parking spaces. They claim that 6 to 7 scoots can fit in the same space a car occupies and at $10 an hour for a car, garages and space lots could charge $2 and hour for scoots and make a larger profit. If garages decide to designate space for scoots, then it could obviously drive up sales of Vespas and bring the city closer to the Mayor's goal of loosening up it's congested streets, shrink the city's carbon footprint, and create a plethora of happier roadgoers.

For more info so you can inform your NY Vespa friends, check the link, here.

Ride Announcement!!

Looks like the VCKC crew is having themselves a ride this month! On the 22nd of July, the crew is getting together at the Roasterie coffee shop in Brookside at 1:00pm and leaving shortly afterwards to ride through the scenery-packed Briarcliffe area.

If you've never been on a group ride, it's a great way to get a handle on your skills and become comfortable riding someplace other than around the block in your neighborhood! With more experienced riders on hand to offer advice to lesser experienced scooteristas, it's a safe and enjoyable learning experience!

More info can be found on the Vespa Club of Kansas City's forum, here. If you haven't joined the forum yet, you should definitely do so, and keep from missing the action!

More Vespa'd movies to come

The summer blockbuster that is Transformers isn't the only new movie to feature a Vespa. More is to come with these up-coming films and tv shows:

Lakeview Terrace - with Samuel L. Jackson and Aston Kutcher
Liberty Mutual - TV commercial
"Ghost Whisperer" - TV series on CBS
"My Boys" - TV series on CBS
"Dr. Doolittle" - first epidsode of Canadian series
Get Smart - with Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway
Synecdoche - with Phillip Seymour Hoffman