TheScooterScoop

Here a stunt man takes one for the team, the Dainese team; developers of the Dainese D-Air Racing vest. It’s really looking promising! Tie this to Yamaha’s crotch airbag and scooter wrecks start looking more like a ride on the bouncy castle.

How do you get 6 grown men to work if you’ve only got a motorcycle? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Video quality is kinda crappy, but it gets the point across.

So you’re a young kid and want to roast marshmallows but, what do you do when you’ve got more money than sense? Buy an expensive crotch rocket and twist the throttle until something cool happens. Keep watching… it takes about 50 seconds to get to the good stuff.

Vanenbrink is Dutch for “kickassed design” or at least “Out-there design”… don’t believe me check out some of their other projects.

Here’s how they describe this little environmental oddity:

Mitka: a New Mobility concept for individual transport at short distances.

The Mitka is a new environmentally friendly vehicle, which has been developed in a joint research project (TU Delft, TNO, Gazelle, Nike) for future mobility. It is very suitable for distances between 5 and 20 kilometers, and has been tested by Nike Europe.

The Mitka has several innovative design features, such as a rain protection system, power assistance (‘going by the wind’) and a three-wheel chassis design for natural corner leaning. The intelligent dashboard provides a palmtop-computer for travel information.

Concept design by Vandenbrink.

Cool enough. I’d definitely like to give her a test ride. Thanks again to Jo B. for the scoopage!

Our good friend Jo B. wanted to scoop us on some new developments from Japan’s Axle Group. You may remember their electric / magnetic hybrid scooter (above) from back in the day. Looks like a sweeeet electric and I’d love to see it on the road… the question is “will we?”.

No word on the EV-X7, but the Axle Group is planning to sell a mini-scooter version of the magnetic-powered bike next year, which will be priced at about $2100. Read more in the title link from TreeHugger.

Go here to keep tabs on Axle Group.

I don’t have a whole lot of details here, but looks like Germany’s Emax is kicking up a new Silicone Lead Acid battery scooter for 2008. Here’s what AutoExpress (title link) had to say:

The battery-powered twist ‘n’ go machine has a range of around 60 miles when travelling at its restricted top speed of 30mph – and the maker claims it costs only 1p per mile to run.

Even better news for motorists is that the Emax is classed as a moped – so drivers who passed their test before February 2001 can ride it on their car licence. The scooter has an LCD and analogue dashboard display, while the custom frame has been designed to carry batteries rather than an engine.

The system incorporates four 12V/60AH silicone lead acid power packs – and Emax says these can be completely recharged within three hours.

Thanks to our good friend and reporter David Steiner (who provided our coverage on the Vectrix) for the scoop here.