Here’s a news video where the US Navy is using Hyosung 250cc bikes for a all-female motorcycle safety training course! On Naval bases across the US, Hyosung motorcycles are being used in their riding classes.
In the past year, 283 Hyosung fuel injected GT250 and GV250s were distributed to various Navy, Air Force, and Army bases all over the US. The following video shows footage on the Navy offering a female only riding course using the Hyosung GT250’s and GV250’s as the training tools.
Hyosung’s newest cruiser arrived this past week and it sure took a good chunk out of our showroom! The ST7 is the biggest new bike we sell. It looks like it is significantly larger than that GV650 when set side by side. The ST7 is not really larger than the GV650 when you compare seat height, handlegrip positioning and footpeg placement – the rider details. The ST7 still has the great adjustable footpegs as the GV650 so we can fit just about any inseam – this has been a huge feature for riders of the GV650 and it carries over to the ST7.
But, the rear tire is an 80 series which sits much taller than the low-slung 55 series of the Avitar’s. The passenger seat is very different than the GV650 Avitar. This pillion seat is larger to allow a passenger to spend some quality time there. This large a seat would look out of place on the sporty GV650 but looks right at home on the ST7. The handlebars are mounted on risers which should give the owner some options should they want to swap them out with others. The handlebars are wider than the Avitar’s. The end result is that the ST7 looks bigger to the eye in every dimension yet, like the GV650, can be ridden by just about any size rider!
The motor, with a top-of-the line Delphi fuel-injection system, fires right up and settles into a nice idle. The low-end torque is enhanced by Hyosung’s stroking of the motor and the increased displacement when compared with the higher-revving GV650. It has DOHC – double overhead camshafts (exactly twice as many cams when compared to our competition at Yamaha). These extra cams will let the ST7 breathe better. The ST7 gets underway easily, sounds good with the two into two pipe exhaust and incorporates new with the old via a tank mounted speedometer on the larger (4.75 gallon) fuel tank with both analog and digital data combined. New also joins old at the back of the bike with a bright new LED taillight in a classic housing.
The end result is that MPG Motors can now offer two bikes with two very different personalities: the classic cruiser ST7 and the GV650 performance cruiser. This gives the GV250 owner two distinct options to upgrade and stay in the Hyosung family of products!
The ST7 – it’s here now with an MSRP of only $7,299!
Hey take advantage of some Hyosung discounts and make a good deal better – it’s your money!
Make it $6,999 by just signing up for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Course – details here!
Military (Thank-You for your service!) – get the Hyosung military discount and also pay $6,999!
Check Hyosung’s website for all the promotions!
Drove a car alone: 251,994 (83%)
Carpooled: 25,277 (8%)
Bus or trolley bus: 1,056 (0%)
Streetcar or trolley car: 42 (0%)
Subway or elevated: 442 (0%)
Railroad: 6,806 (2%)
Ferryboat: 19 (0%)
Taxi: 120 (0%)
Motorcycle: 204 (0%)
Bicycle: 553 (0%)
Walked: 5,079 (2%)
Other means: 1,202 (0%)
Worked at home: 10,792 (4%) (City-Data.com)
So, motorcycles beat out the Taxi, the Streetcar and we crushed the Ferryboat as ways to get to work. But there is nothing but a growth opportunity for bikes when compared to other modes of transportation in Bucks County.
All kidding aside, getting folks from here to there, quickly, efficiently and with a smile is what we believe we do. Everyday I leave Doylestown and drive to Sellersville. Almost everyday, traffic coming down Rt 313 is stop and go. Sometimes the stop and go traffic begins before Dublin. SEVEN miles of traffic! Almost *all* the vehicles have one person in them.
Many of them are not smiling.
Contrast that with this video from Taipei, Taiwan.
It might help if I explain how I look at this video. I don’t see a comparison of cultures, countries, money or politics.
I see how many people make it through a green light versus how many get through the average traffic light here. I think it’s stunning.
The winning hand for a “I want to move folks from here to there” scenario is traffic density. You can just put more scooters and motorcycles in a given space. Every scooter beyond a 50cc will accelerate and keep up with most all other vehicles in an urban setting.
We can just fit more people in the same space with bikes. We proved that a long time ago here. Nine bikes and scooters fit in the same space the MPG Motors F-150.
The future modes of personal transportation in SE Pennsylvania will include more scooters and motorcycles. More people will live in this area over time and funding for new roads will probably not keep pace.
With our bikes, we will be able to do more with the same roads.
You, and apparently pretty much you alone for now, are leading the way! Mark your calendar, reach out to your elected officials and get out and ride to work on June 21st.
Mike McLaughlin, his wife and a friend stopped by recently. Friend was riding a Honda CBR 600, Mike and his wife were riding scooters. Now, scooters and sport bikes riding together can and has been done but it’s not something I often see when riders come to visit.
It made much more sense after I spent some time looking over Mike and his wife’s scooters. Mike’s wife rides a Suzuki Burgman 400. Her Burgman has a Leo Vince custom exhaust and also had a big electronic air-fuel ratio gauge near eye-level. We don’t usually see that either! An air-fuel ratio meter??
Mike then showed me his ride, a Yamaha T-Max. The T-Max is relatively new to the US market and “blurs the boundaries between scooters and motorcycles”. In my words, it’s a performance scooter. The stock T-Max starts out with a 500cc twin-cylinder motor. That is almost twice as big as our biggest scooter motor. Our scooters offer a lot of the rest of the T-Max technology, dual front disc brakes, rear disc brakes, four valves per cylinder. We have scooters that can run over 80 mph. Mike’s scooter goes … faster.
Mike started with the T-Max and then he got to work touching it up.
To the stock T-Max, Mike added a Yoshomira R-77 full carbon fiber exhaust system, a J.Costa racing variator (high-performance transmission) and a BMC high flow air filter.
So far so good. The Genuine Stage II Kit we talked about last month (John and Tara’s “One Bad Buddy”) had most all of that.
Then Mike added a Dyno Tune Nitrous Oxide System (NOS) with a 25 shot bottle. Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) was used in World War II to increase the power of the fighter and reconnaissance aircraft – often at high altitude where the air is thinner. You can read what Wiki says about NOS here. Or, you can go watch the Fast and the Furious movie with Vin Diesel. In the F&F movie, they yell “NOS” about every five minutes – it’s a big part of the movie. But adding the NOS system is only half the story if you don’t want the engine to grenade…
Finally, Mike added what I feel is the most critical upgrade – a Two Brothers Juice Box fuel injection controller. All that Nitrous Oxide adds oxygen to the motor and you must add additional fuel if you want the motor to survive. The Juice Box does that for Mike.
Mike did a really professional job. It all looks factory which is often the true test of a modification suite. He knew the technology and did his research and the end result is just what he wanted.
Mike was kind enough to let me ride his ‘Max. I didn’t use the NOS but even without the bottle, it’s the fastest scooter I’ve ever ridden.
David Harrington recently interviewed Philip McCaleb about what Genuine has planned for 2010. Besides some great insight about today’s scooter industry within our economy, Philip discussed the upcoming 4-stroke Stella scooter and the Blur SS 220i. Philip’s latest interview with JustGottaScoot is Episode 115 and can be found here.
Later this week at 2pm EDT, David is interviewing Pete McIntosh from SYM.
It’s a JustGottaScoot double header for MPG Motors!
I just talked with Mike from the Last Call Scooter Club. Mike told me that they are having a Springtime For Shifters event on April 24th. Here’s what they have on their website http://www.site.lastcallscooterclub.com/ in the Events section. Check it out if you’re free that weekend. here.
Thanks Mike!
Springtime for Shifters
April 24 2010
Philadelphia’s most notorious unofficial scooter club is throwing its first unofficial “non rally” springtime for shifters!
Here is the update on the Get A Buddy A Buddy Scooter Giveaway.
First, please take a look at the press release here. In that press release you’ll see that we want to extend this to as many worthy recipients as we can but we need the support of some sponsoring people, groups or companies. We could use your help to administer this program, help judge the entries (in to MPG Motors by May 15th at midnight), be here on May 29th. Let us know if you are on-board and we can count on you!
On May 29th, we will be giving away at least one Buddy Scooter at MPG Motors to the individual that needs it the most. That free Buddy, however, needs a Buddy!
How many more scooters can we giveaway?
Here is a message from Ira Faro, a member of the EZ Riders Club. Please read this carefully. Make sure you take a look at the part about the lack of mass transit options for some of the people in his program. This is exactly the type of folks we want to support and this shows how a Buddy Scooter can make a fundamental difference in a person’s life!
Ira writes, “We have a program at the Conference of Churches called PEP (Permanent Employment Program). Primarily funded through United Way, the program recruits and trains men and women with poor job histories but who are serious about looking for full-time work. PEP has three phases. In the initial phase, trainees are taught basic work culture – how to dress, being on time, how to interact with co-workers, creating a resume, and so on. Folks who complete that training go on to the second phase, hands-on training in one of three areas – Food Service, Janitorial, or Basic Office. They do the actual work here at the Conference offices with a regular schedule, time sheets, and they receive a stipend equal to the minimum wage for hours worked. The third phase kicks in when they have completed that training – assistance with job search and mentoring during the early phases of outside employment.
These folks are faced with a number of barriers. They may have grown up without an adult in the house to model the work ethic. There may be child care issues. A major barrier is transportation from their homes (often inner city) to major centers of potential employment – in the Lehigh Valley that would be suburban industrial parks. The Conference can provide bus tickets, but often the only jobs that come open are on the second and third shifts as workers with seniority on those shifts bid down to the more desirable first shift jobs. The buses don’t run that late.
As a former motorcyclist and current scooterist, the idea of being able to win a scooter for one of these deserving folks is very attractive. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to find funding to purchase scooters for them, even at deep discount, but if telling this story encourages others to participate in this program, you can certainly use our name.”
Thanks Ira for that message and thanks for all the work that you contribute. We are all going to help as much as we can!
Four weeks ago, one of our own made the longest ride yet of any of our customers. He made this ride in some of the most difficult weather imaginable for a ride of this distance. Jon Tan left our shop Feb 26 at about 8pm. We pushed Jon and his SYM CityCom300I, “Tasha”, through the ice and snow in our lot to get him going. He officially left Downingtown the next morning and rode and rode and rode!
Jon went from Pennsylvania down Interstate 81 to Kentucky and the Cumberland Gap National Park. He spent a day riding through the hills there and headed down to Mississippi. Now you would normally think that passing south of, say, North Carolina might get you some warmer weather. The weather averaged about 35-50 degrees in this part of the trip. Jon maxed out the electrical system of the CityCom. The specifications for the CityCom tells me we have 335 watts of electrical power, about this time I added up that Jon was using 325 of them giving him … well, nothing left over.
Jon, with a voltmeter added to Tasha, balanced the need to keep the bike running while running just enough electrically heated clothing to keep him on the road.
Jon again carried the SPOT tracking device so we could see where he was every ten minutes. After Mississippi he headed towards New Orleans. Because we could see where Jon was in almost-real time, we spied a storm spinning out of Texas on weather.com that would have required putting Jon and Tasha in an aircraft to miss. Jon spent seven hours riding through steady rain and heavy winds.
That just must have been miserable.
Then Jon tracked east to Alabama and visited the Tuskegee Airman Museum. He then called me from the road and told me that he had some speedometer issues the day before. The speedometer was working fine at that point but given that tracking the distance is important to a distance rider, we had Jon stop in at the Carter Brothers, SYM USA site in Brundidge, AL. Jon popped in at Carter Brothers and they got Jon a quick pit stop on the advice of his ever-worrying dealer principal. Thanks SYM!
Jon then was in a race against time to reach Jacksonville, FL from Brundidge by 8 PM. Jon was headed to the Iron Butt Association (World’s Toughest Motorcycle Riders)(IBA) Meeting in sunny Florida. He and Jerome, another rider from this area, drew a bead on Jacksonville. Jerome tracked down the east coast knocking out the miles on his Yamaha Majesty 400. Both riders arrived by 8pm with minutes to spare. Why was that arrival time important? It made Jon and Jerome eligible to make a long ride with the other IBA members!
What would the IBA be (apparently) without a really long ride at their meeting! So Jon, now joined with Jerome, proceeded to do another Saddlesore 1000 ride around Florida. A successful Saddlesore 1000 ride, like Jon did last October, has a rider completing 1,000 miles in less than 24 hours.
Suffice it to say that they both did it again! Jerome has been an IBA rider for some time. Jon did his second SS1000 and the event organizers awarded Jon the “Sick and Twisted” award for completing this SS1000 on a 261cc scooter. Jon and Jerome were on the only two scooters surrounded by a bevy of BMW’s and Goldwings.
Then they rested.
Then they stopped resting. I don’t think they are happy when they are stationary…
Jon and Jerome left and drove up I-95 to North Carolina and finished the trip by returning to Philadelphia Sunday night.
One final note: a quick hat-tip to Tasha! If you consider that Tasha loaded with luggage for nearly 5,000 miles of travel, in the winter, in the rain with a maxed out electrical system being ridden at full-throttle or nearly full-throttle for nine days- and survived – is pretty darn impressive!
Jon had ridden over 4,800 miles in 8 days. Jon Tan – another huge personal effort that we totally respect!
One decade into a new millennium, the ability of a company to tell you what you should think about their products is so OVAH! Think back. It’s not too hard to remember sitting like a bump watching TV, seeing commercials about products and watching more TV. 51 minutes of show, 9 minutes of commercials. “Join us again next week when we …!” Fade to black.
Compare that to Angie’s List, to a viral You Tube video, blog opinions on just about everything. Facebook. Twitter.
We have four of our own favorites in our neck of the woods. You might know about them, or maybe not. None of these sites are managed by the respective company. Passionate owners are the core of these sites and contribute the majority of the content you will find there. So, without further delay – here are four of my favorites:
Alternative Cruisers was with MPG Motors at the very beginning of our relationship with Hyosung. Alternative Cruisers is a user-driven site for cruisers that are beyond the Japanese metric brands and Harley/Victory. The Owner/Operator of ACD is Pennsylvania’s Own, Bill Ramby I’ve known Bill for some time now and he is a first-class guy with a first-class site. Hyosung isn’t the only brand discussed by a long shot. Bill looks at all alternative brands, but I would say that a large percentage of the site discussions surround the Hyosung products.
Along the lines of ACD but with a slightly sharper focus on Hyosung and with more sport bike leanings is Korider (Korean Rider). John Adamo (skadamo) scans the web for Hyosung news and reviews and between ACD and Korider, you get indepth coverage for all things Hyosung from tech tips to rider reports. If you have a Hyosung or want one, check them out.
On to Modern Buddy! Modern Buddy is THE site to talk about your Genuine Scooter. Modern Buddy has forums for all the Genuine products and some great stories about what folks are doing with their scoots! That Genuine President, Philip McCaleb reads Modern Buddy … avidly … should tell you that this is the place to be for GSC.
Last up is SYMForum.com. SYMForum is administered by, none other than skadamo from korider.com! One of the neater things about this forum is the input and influence of worldwide SYM riders on the discussions. The ability to benefit from the experiences of folks from around the world is a real plus to a new owner.
Please do a favor to the moderators of these sites: These sites are labors of love for the administrators rather than a pathway to riches! Visit the site, register as a user, introduce yourself and then dig into the site and see what others are discussing and what has already been discussed. If you are new to forums, all of these sites have a search function. If you have a question, odds are someone already had that question before you and the answer may already be out there.
These particular sites have built lifelong friendships by people that, like you, share a passion for riding on the same bike that you enjoy! Check them out when you can!
