TheScooterScoop

“So fresh and so clean” clean. Genuine Scooter Company has sanded down, powder coated, accessorized and updated their site to include photos and data sheets on their bevy of beauties. Why don’t you go check it out HERE and peep the 2008 Buddy, Buddy International, Rattler, Stella and Roughhouse!

They’ve come a long way from 2002 when they sold “only one model“.

While roaming through the site Hell For Leather (see title link), I found a link to an interesting product from Etsy. If you haven’t heard of Etsy, its a neat little place where you can buy independently created works and products, like the one above. This is a vinyl toilet graphic. It allows to you finally customize your crapper with something other than… flowers… or fish… or those fuzzy tank covers from back in the days.

Now unfortunately, as of today, Vital is sold out of this product… but maybe if you use the “contact this seller” link at the bottom of the page, you can find out if there will be another production run.

Oh, AND if you’re more interested in the toilet than the scooter… you might want to get a book instead. No, I don’t have a toilet fetish… but I am intrigued. Maybe I’ll visit the exhibit… I mean, I’ve already seen the video.

(secretly they REALLY wish GM would come out with a micro Hummer)

You know… I’ve always wondered what Hummer owners would say about TheScoop. Would they respect our love for small displacement? Would they care what was going on in the world of micro riders? Turns out that last week I got to find out!

A certain Hummer forum (with over 5,300 members) was recently turned-on to TheScooterScoop and judging by the number of hits we received and the comments in their forum I’d say there were HUGE FANS! and… if by “fans” I mean “fanatical haters of all things small”, then you’d know exactly what I meant. Now I’m not going to post a link to their forum because I don’t wanna start a flame war AND I don’t want to reciprocate the hits… But I’ll give you an idea of what’s going on over there.

The whole thing started out harmlessly enough. One guy was searching for Hummer Fingers and found an old post we did about the death of the H1 called “So long Humvee H1“. He got a good laugh out of it, but THEN came the follow ups with comments like “Scooter Fags!”, “That has to be the most stupid site I have seen yet.”, or “That was depressing and stupid.”

Depressing AND stupid? Wow, TheScooterScoop has been called “depressing” and it’s been called “stupid”, but NEVER in the same sentence… this is a new low for the scoop. Now, don’t get me wrong… not all the posts were violent attacks, there were other discussions as well that were harmless and even funny. I just thought it would be interesting to see what some of the others thought about us (the scoop).

At the end of the day, and when the dust is all settled, I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t already surmised. Hummer owners don’t like the fact that most scooter fans don’t dig hummers and so to be fair Hummer owners don’t like scooters (or microcars)…. which is too bad, because the real issue isn’t about hating each other’s vehicles but about getting people to see the benefits of smaller vehicles on the road ESPECIALLY when it comes to commuting (yourself) to work or school. Unless your job is farming, construction, landscaping, archeology, forestry or military OR you’re part of a car pool, you just can’t beat a microcommuter to get your to your destination.

…though, there’s a group of Japanese who would disagree.

Thanks to reality-fan who is sharing this photo from his flickr account (title link).

Here Sonya Olson makes one ponder… Do mopedists reallly need to wear protective gear? I mean, she can’t be going THAT fast, right? You know… as long as she promises to stay at less than 10 MPH and only ride on the bumpy hills (What?! You know… “stay off the main road”), I would let this one slide.

Wow! I’m not sure what it would look like strapped to your dome, but there’s a good chance it would look badass… unless you’ve got the jawline of Bill Gates, then you may wanna stick with something a little less… Skeletor.

Our good friend Pedro in Portugal found it while checking on the BoingBoing. I’ll wait for the full face version that has the jaw bone to protect my jaw bone… and maybe the glowing eyes accessory would be nice too. If you’ve got $one fiddy ($150) plus shipping, it can be yours! (title link to order)

Please! Someone with a Honda Spree buy one of these things!

(Poldino taking his tilting test unit to the track)

I’ve been doing a little digging around lately and discovered some interesting facts. The Piaggio MP3 and Gilera Fuoco 500 have been creating quite a buzz since the MP3 first touched down in 2006. Did you know that the features found on these modern tilting 3-wheelers are courtesy of Italjet founder and designer Leopoldo Tartarini?

Yep, the man who brought you such classics as the Italjet Dragster and Torpedo had been toying with it for some time. As a matter of fact his son, Massimo, used a version of the tilting mechanism in his folding, tilting, electric scooter (no doubt popular in Japan) called the JACK from BlueEnergy back in 2001 (seen below).

Later, in cooperation with Piaggio (using a Piaggio motor), Leopoldo Tartarini created what you see below… It’s the “SCOOOP” scooter, which would have definitely created some confusion for our site here had Italjet not bowed out before it could be put into production. Sure, Piaggio had been considering a 3-wheeler for some time. Back in 1983 Wolfgang Trautwein created a prototype called the PK3, but the more modern design with independently tilting wheels didn’t show up until now (see the sweet Video).

After the Scooop, Piaggio picked up the ball and started testing THIS Mad Max looking prototype, which I kinda liked as it is. This was just the beginning.

Later Piaggio busted out their prototype called the Los Angeles (below). Kinda big and bulky, not as refined looking as the Scooop… actually it was kinda hideous. I was referring to it as “the gorilla bike” (still a concept).

Which finally became the sweet three wheelers we know today, the MP3 and the Fuoco 500 and I’m sure it will spawn even more varieties in the future. Just think, if it wasn’t for the work of Leopoldo Tartarini, you wouldn’t be able to do this: