I checked the weather report last night and it called for clear, cloudy and tempertures near 40 degrees. I went to bed not feeling well but warmed by the thought that I would ride the scooter into work in the morning. No need to set the alarm since I wouldn’t have to catch the bus. I felt better when I got up so I had breakfast, got dressed and went out to the garage. When I opened the door it was snowing! The road was covered and more was coming down. Following expert advice I’ve gleaned from “The Baron in Winter” blog I walked out to the street and checked the surface qualities. Grease. Snow at 32 degrees. It was really slippery.
The bus had gone. My 2WD Ford Ranger is almost unusable in snow, especially this kind of stuff. I could wait a couple hours for another bus. Could call a cab. Or I could take this opportunity to experiment with riding in a new road condition. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided to ride the scooter.
I carefully made my way over the snow covered backroads as I drove to work. I avoided the main ones where the cagers would be flying along at 60 MPH. In addition to the slippery surfaces the air was damp and my visor was really fogging up in ways it never does when it is colder. I had to watch for cars coming behind me so I could yield to them since I was going only about 20 MPH most of the way. I made it safely without incident. Several times I experimented with braking and sliding to see what that would be like. And I had to be careful when I was stopping and putting my feet down because they wanted to slide out from under me. Everything considered I was comfortable that I could ride in snow in limited ways.
Google. I saw in one of the posts on the MADTV blog a comment about links generating Google juice. I knew that Google factors into is search scheme how many sites are linked to a specific site and that moves it up in the ranking. I had never tried to find my blog so I did a few tests. Searching for “Steve Williams” doesn’t do anything helpful. I think there are a couple of us out there. Searching for “Steve Williams” and “scooter” brought me up as #1 out of 10,200. Pretty neat. And a few down was “The Baron in Winter”.
Searching for “Vespa” doesn’t find me and neither does any other combination of people searching for general Vespa or scooter riding information. But time will tell….
Finally, I have to wash the Vespa. When I parked it I saw a lot of salt spray on the thing. It is especially visible on the black parts. It is supposed to warm up today so maybe it will get a bath.
Hey Steve, you’re getting some Google juice back from me now. You’re in my links page.
Nice work on the snowy ride, it’s actually kind of fun if you’re careful eh?
mad,
Thanks for the link! How long until I’m getting a million plus hits a day and can cash in???
The snowy ride was fun. I’m careful but it reminds me of sailing in storms, walking trails at the edge of cliffs, my awareness just gets heightened in a way that I feel hyper alive. I sometimes get the same feeling while photographing landscapes and I am just looking at things.
steve
Hmmm not sure how long that million hits a day will take, I’m still waiting for that day myself. Although saying that my Dad’s blog gets very respectable traffic stats.
Yeah I know just what you mean about that heightened awareness. Makes it good to be alive and sometimes just sometimes you have that perfect moment….
This is such a coincidence! Last night I had a two hour teleconference. During this time I sat in front of the computer. I idly typed in the title of my blog and found I was on google. cool, huh?
Good for you for exploring. It is nerve wracking at times but don’t you feel good having done it? Sounds like you did it just right, too. Would you have tried it if you hadn’t been reading the blogs?
Dan
irondad,
It wasn’t too nerve wracking, actually sort of fun. I like the challenge. It’s snowing again now but I am taking the bus tomorrow. Supposed to snow all day.
steve
Congrats!
Now you know. Does it make you want to keep going, pushing it further? Or, is it enough for you to say, “Yeah, I did that.” – and pursue it no more?
For what it’s worth, snow comes in several different varieties, and there is usually some form of ice underneath. Winter riding really is a rich field of study.
But I can’t tell you how happy I am that you took your gorgeous Vespa out and risked disaster just to ride in the snow.
Bravo, my friend!
Ride well,
=gc=
Gary,
I’ll probably ride some more in the snow before I make any final decision. It was one of those challenges that I felt I had to try. It was exciting and fun but I keep asking myself why I do it. I probably will go out again tomorrow with a few snow showers predicted. Ride 15 miles north to the county library to return a couple books.
I walked outside a few minutes ago and there is a lot of hard ice on the road in places. Lots of dry stretches too. Wouldn’t want to be moving fast and hit fifty feet of ice….
My goal when I bought the scooter was to not have to winterize it and ride it through the winter-weather permitting. I have gone far beyond what I thought I would do. I have a couple of motorcycle friends who dismissed the scooter as a toy. Now that I’m riding and they have theirs up on blocks in the garage they don’t say much about it anymore.
I like it.
steve
I didnt find thing that i need… 🙁
msn
I wonder what it could have been that you needed?
Post something specific to the latest post and I’m sure someone will have an answer.