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THE WEB STORE DEDICATED TO THE VESPA UNIVERSE OPENS ITS DISPLAY WINDOWS ON THE INTERNET.
On the new www.VESPA.COM website, dedicated to the most loved scooter in the world, the Vespa Store opens its display windows: a wide range of clothing, gadgets and accessories, to live every day with the style and values of youth, freedom and elegance which Vespa has disseminated across the five continents.
Vespa Store, the VESPA.COM web store in which the extraordinary Vespa 946 made its debut, already bookable on line, is now enhanced with five sections - Clothing, Helmets and Accessories, Gadgets, Vespa 946 Accessories and Vespa Special Collections - constituting the richest and most accessible “Official Vespa” catalogue ever presented. To live always in perfect Vespa style.
Milan, 18 June 2013 - Vespa is not just a scooter. It is the most widespread and popular two-wheeled vehicle in the world. It is a legend built on over eighteen million units, on a record of technology and style that sets it apart over time, since the first unit in 1946 to the latest model, the futuristic and precious Vespa 946. Vespa is the only scooter in the world which knows how to be loved, so much so as to be cared for and maintained well beyond the average life-time of any other vehicle and to go beyond its function as an urban vehicle to become a cult object, a real collector's item, symbol of a lifestyle.
Vespa has been able to anticipate the cultural upheavals that have swept the world in more than six decades, taking on the role of protagonist in the lifestyle revolutions related to the young, fashion and music. Vespa has been a protagonist in the lives of entire generations becoming the bearer of values of elegance, freedom and friendship. And over the decades Vespa has managed to create a unique style linked to its cosmopolitan soul. Now the web, a perfect synthesis of a world increasingly without borders, becomes the place to share these fundamental values for which Vespa is an ambassador.
The VESPA.COM website, a point of reference for Vespa enthusiasts worldwide, now hosts the new display windows of the Vespa Store, the web space in which - thanks to the possibility of on-line booking - the Vespa 946 made its debut, the most precious and technologically advanced Vespa model ever conceived. On the new Vespa Store a rich array of clothing, gadgets and accessories, conceived and designed drawing on the most classic Vespa iconography, is available to enthusiasts to live in Vespa style, dress with the same casual elegance, surrounded by preciously made objects which are reminiscent of timeless shapes.
The Official Vespa Store provides access to the five major sections that divide the items on sale:
Clothing: with the rich Lifestyle collection consisting of T-Shirts, Polos, Jackets and Windcheaters. Always characterised by top quality materials and first-class workmanship and designed in the Vespa style that perfectly summarises a neglected, graciously snobbish elegance.
Helmets and Accessories: in addition to Vespa helmets, from the most recent lines to the classic series with the flags of the world, belts, sunglasses and bags of various types, from practical and very young shoulder bags, characterised by an elegant “vintage” look, to large travel bags are on sale.
Gadgets: the legendary perpetual calendars in perfect 50s style, wrist watches and clocks, document holders, stationery and many other proposals, always decorated with historic Vespa images from original prints preserved in the Historical Piaggio Archive, to surround yourself in domestic life with real Vespa objects.
Vespa 946 Accessories: a section dedicated to the sale of accessories for the new Vespa 946, to make the most valuable scooter unique. Each accessory - from genuine leather helmet bags to the top fairing, chrome luggage racks, genuine leather hand grips, special parts in aluminium - is made with the richness of materials and attention to detail that characterise this exclusive jewel that is the Vespa 946.
Vespa Special Collections: helmets and clothing, richly finished and exclusively dedicated to the most modern Vespa. To always wear, on every occasion, the elegant exclusivity of Vespa 946.
The new e-store, whose content and functionalities are accessible from the various desktop, tablet and smartphone platforms, consistently adopts the look and feel of the new www.vespa.com, the official Vespa website, on-line since a few weeks and true "compass" for lovers of the Vespa and its style worldwide.
The new Vespa Store is immediately active for Vespa enthusiasts in Italy, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
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Recreating the first around the world ride 100 years on
In northern California, we tilted east through the foothills of the Sierras, with Mount Shasta in the distance covered in snow even in June. Which is where it all started to go horribly wrong for Clancy and Allen. With the mountains looming, they stopped at the express office in Redding and shipped their 50lb panniers on to Portland, then bought cheap blankets in the General Merchandise store for camping. That sorted, they tanked up with more ice cream, fuel and oil, and set off late in the afternoon for the dreaded road that lay ahead. They didn’t have long to wait: within a few miles out of Redding, they were climbing an endless succession of rocky grades with hairpin bends, then sliding down the other side to be greeted by small but lethal lakes full of boulders.
Often the road got so steep that they had to dismount and run beside the machines, and as they were sliding down one hair-raising slope with their back wheels locked, they came upon a young couple in a Cadillac stuck fast on a tree stump.
They got it free, but the hill was so steep the fuel couldn’t make it up to the carburettor, but not to beaten, the resourceful Bob blew into the top of the fuel tank, his face slowly turning the colour of a beetroot, while the driver cranked the starter handle until the engine spluttered then fired into life and settled down into a steady rhythm. The grateful couple gave the riders six eggs, a small can of baked beans, an even smaller can of condensed cream, a little bread, sugar and coffee, and a pail to cook it in, and since by now it was growing dark and they were still in the heart of the mountains, they found a grassy spot near a crystal stream, and while Clancy cooked up a feast in the pail, Bob made a bed of weeds and leaves between the Hendersons, they wrapped themselves in their blankets and, with strange sounds from the woods all around and lightning crackling overhead, finally fell asleep just before the grey light of dawn woke them again.
At 5am, tired and hungry, they fired up the Hendersons and set off on roads which, impossibly, were even worse than the day before. A ferry carried them across the raging Pitt River, and halfway up the next mountain, Clancy’s Henderson ground to a halt with a dry and slipping clutch. He greased it with oil from his tank, but the clutch was so worn and the track so steep that he could only push the Henderson up it in the fierce sun, stopping when he was so exhausted he couldn’t hold the bike upright and resting until he could try again.
It took him 20 attempts and two exhausting hours to get up that one hill, and there were a dozen more beyond. “If ever a man was bitter against motorcycling, it was I and then,” he wept, but when he had the strength to lift his head, realised for the first time the extraordinary beauty around them. Compared to that, we had it easy as we swooped along silky tarmac through a landscape of pine-clad mountains and rushing rivers and across the state border into the alpine glories of Oregon, filled yet again with respect and admiration for Clancy and Allen getting through this landscape on what were basically mule trails.
Shortly after passing a prairie schooner with a prospector, his wife, small son and dog aboard, they encountered the worst section yet: the 12 miles of Cow Creek Canyon which Clancy described grimly as like an endless frozen pig pen as steep as a roof and littered with logs, rocks and ruts. Arriving in Roseburg as darkness fell, they collapsed into the first inn they could find, and emerged to find that someone had stolen Clancy’s gloves. The next day, the road was so bad, and the scenery so glorious, that as Clancy put it perfectly, a poet would have been in heaven, and a motorcyclist in hell. When they finally rolled into Portland at 11.30 at night, their misery was compounded by the sight of the crowds going home from the last night of the annual Rose Festival, which they had been looking forward to all the way from San Francisco.
Cow Creek Canyon, Clancy’s endless frozen pig pen, which we rode with local bike journalist Bart Madson, was now a perfect motorcycling road, twisting and turning under the dappled trees, over the railroad tracks and past a river sparkling in the sun. Greeted by the paved streets, electric lights and tuxedo-clad waiters of Wallace, Idaho, Clancy and Allen decided that the Wild West only existed any more in movies, only to have their certainty overturned the very next night when they arrived in Missoula, Montana, to find a posse in hot pursuit for a gang of desperadoes who had shot at their landlady, stolen the sheriff’s six-shooter and terrorised the town before heading for the hills. Wincing at the outrageous bill the next morning, they rode off into a thunderstorm so bad that by dark they had only covered 20 miles and were forced to spend the night in the shack of prospector Isam Cox, who rustled up a feast of bacon, beans and coffee for the exhausted but grateful duo.
In Wallace, we found the electric lights were still working and the streets still paved, but the brothel had closed in 1988 and was now in a museum. The girls had left in such a hurry that they’d left their clothes behind, and by the looks of it they didn’t have much to wear but a few skimpy under things, poor dears. "Greg, want to phone the hotel tonight and confirm our reservation?” said Richard as we put on our helmets. “No need. Dr G’s from the Crow tribe, and they’ve already got a reservation,” I said. Laugh? I thought they’d never start.
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The cool, retro design of the Tucano Urbano El’met has been recognised by none other than high-end British fashion house, Paul Smith.
 Choosing the El’met for its stylish design and range of colours, Paul Smith is now selling the open-faced helmets in both the Covent Garden and Marylebone London stores.
Tucano Urbano specialises in Italian-designed, stylish, urban commuter wear for scooter and motorcycle riders. The El’met fuses modern technical features with a classic open-face design. The twist is that Tucano Urbano offers this helmet in no less than 19 different colours from classic navy, green and black, to fluorescent yellow, blue, pink and orange! With a clear full-face visor, the helmet allows riders to look cool, be seen and stay protected.
Available in 9 different sizes from XS to XXL, the El’met is also on sale at Tucano Urbano dealers across the country and prices start from £169.99.
Check out the full Tucano Urbano range and find your nearest stockist at www.tucanourbano.co.uk
Tucano Urbano UK is on facebook and twitter
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Our contact in Shanghai was Roger Owens, or Junior as he was called back in the days when he was the youngest member of the Northern Ireland volleyball team I captained at the Commonwealth championships in 1981. Or was it 1881? I can never remember.
Now a successful businessman, he’d sent his company’s bright blue London taxi to meet us at the airport. As it hurtled along the superhighway from the airport into Shanghai, it was like entering the set of Bladerunner on drugs, with the rivers of headlights and tail lights streaming constantly between some of the most exquisitely designed skyscrapers on earth. And yet, as we turned into the street where our hotel was, there was a tiny bicycle repair shop on the corner, with an old man squatting on the floor fixing a puncture, just as in Clancy’s day.
Next day, it was out on the Clancy trail with our guide, Kent Kedl, boss of a company called Control Risks who specialised in fraud investigation, kidnapping management and hostage negotiation. “Kent, with a name like that, you’ve got to be either a Californian surf dude or one of Superman's mates,” I said as we walked off a main street straight into the heart of old Shanghai, its narrow streets pungent with the aromatic smoke of assorted creatures being fried, boiled or roasted and noisy with the clack of old men playing mah jong and traders advertising their wares.
In narrow windows hung bolts of silk, wool and cashmere which tailors would transform into fine suits and shirts in a matter of days for a song, while the cobbler next door would furnish you with a pair of bespoke handmade shoes in only a few days more. The Confucius Temple Clancy described is still there, past a pond crossed by a zig-zag bridge so that ghosts can’t find their way to the Starbucks opposite and are forced instead to queue for a pricey tea ceremony, although I doubt if Bill Clinton and the Queen coughed up a fiver for a cuppa when they visited. And beyond, the Yu Gardens are exactly as Clancy found them: a haven of goldfish ponds, elegant trees, bamboo groves, cobbled walkways and temples for calligraphy, meditation or prayer.
As we emerged, Gary spotted a stall selling Mao hats and badges, and a white Chinese fighter pilot’s helmet with a red star on the front for which the stallholder was asking 320 yuan, or about £32. “How much should I offer her?” he asked Kent. “Same tactics as hostage negotiation. Offer her 30 per cent, then walk away,” laughed Kent. He was right, of course, and two minutes later, Gary walked away 12 quid lighter and a helmet richer. “If you need a jet to go with that, I know a good arms dealer,” said Kent.
The next day, having seen what Clancy saw, we met Roger for the tour of what he hadn’t, taking the ferry across the river into another world, of wide boulevards and 3,000 skyscrapers, more than New York, with another 2,000 planned. At the end of the day, we toasted Clancy in the Long Bar of the Peace Hotel, where Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin once dallied. In the corner, the hotel’s legendary jazz band played just as they had as young men before the Communists disbanded them after the Revolution in 1949.
With the city now buzzing again, they had been hauled out, dusted off and told they could start playing their decadent capitalist tunes again, even though they were now all in their eighties.
The next day, we were on the plane to Nagasaki, where as the Bulow docked in 1913, Clancy almost certainly grinned with pleasure to see, as his Henderson was lowered onto the dockside, a sight he had not seen for some time: roads. As he motored north, around him was a country more delightful, beautiful, peculiar and above all different to anything he had ever seen, particularly the quaint habit of locals to dash out of their homes and into the road when they heard his horn, thinking it meant the arrival of the fried fish salesman, the pipe cleaner or the clog mender.
Still, apart from kamikaze pedestrians, rickshaws and carts, he had the roads to himself, since he saw no motorcycles and only a single car in his whole time in Japan. It is, as you can imagine, much the same today. We had arrived in Nagasaki just too late for cherry blossom season, that time of year when the petals come fluttering down to remind the Japanese of the fragile, temporary beauty of life. But then, the city where we stepped ashore became an even greater reminder of that on the morning of August 9, 1945, when the 240,000 citizens woke to a warm but overcast day and were glad when the clouds parted at 11am to reveal just enough blue sky to make a sailor suit. They shouldn’t have been, because at that moment the crew of the B-29 Superfortress Bockscar returning from finding Kokura, their planned target, obscured by cloud, saw Nagasaki through the same gap and dropped their bomb on it from 30,000ft.
In three seconds, 70,000 people died and another 70,000 were fatally poisoned by radiation. We emerged into glorious sunshine and bought two cones from an old ice cream seller, and in a few deft scoops she created what looked like two perfect roses almost too beautiful to eat. She handed them to us with a polite bow, and in that moment I was reminded again why I love Japan, for the infinitely loving care given to the beauty of detail in everything from bathing and the tying of a kimono to the tea ceremony.
And so, with world peace in the balance but my love for Japan secure, I returned to our traditional ryokan and a struggle with the four thousand buttons on the slightly less traditional automated toilet. At one stage I accidentally cranked the heated seat and hot air bottom drying fan up to maximum heat, leading to a few seconds of intense panic that my nether regions would burst into flames and I would be charged with arson.
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We put this down to the efforts of our members community sharing their views, thoughts, and ideas.
We have gained hundreds of new members recently because we believe the BBA is for real bikers who love motorcycling and is not for legislation drum banging bureaucrats.
WE DO NOT:
Publish printed articles full of adverts. Send you meaningless text messages. Charge £27.00 per year per member. Hold meetings about the meetings we had when we last met! WE DO:
Provide amazing value for money when compared to the BMF and MAG. Provide you with an android app full of resources for the avid motorcyclist. Give you up to date motorcycle news. Let members voice opinions, thoughts, and ideas through the website. Get you involved with campaigns that matter to us motorcyclists. Take a look at the fastest growing motorcycle association in the UK. Even if you don't join us you will find the BBA is a modern 21st century association for BRITISH BIKERS.
www.britishbikersassociation.org
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