After reading “The Baron in Winter” I decided to ride the Vespa today to finish up some shopping errands. The driveway is still a solid block of smooth ice from the ice pellet storm a few days ago. I had to carefully walk the scooter to the street and drier pavement. The temperature was a balmy 27 degrees and a clear blue sky. The picture shows the ice that I departed from….
The roads were mostly dry but I had to be wary of those sudden patches of snow and ice that seem to always appear on turns. I saw a big sheet of ice come off the top of an SUV about 100 yards ahead of me—glad I was not right behind it when that mass sailed onto the road.
Riding was wonderful. The scooter needs some cleaning so the salt spray doesn’t do too much harm so I will figure out what to do with that. Stopped to fill up the tank— 2 bucks!
Made it to three different stores, bought everything I wanted to get including three new pairs of jeans. Everything fit nicely under the seat or in a bag hanging from the seat.
I’ll keep thinking about that riding in real snow. Not quite up to that yet.
If you really want to ride in some seriously cold and snowy weather you’ll want to have a look at the snowmobile gear. It will keep your warm and dry.