I want to consider a comment made by Dan Batemen on his ” Musings of an Intrepid Commuter” blog—that coffee shops are a natural habitat of motorcycles. For those reading who have never had direct experience with two-wheeled motorized vehicles there is no truth to the premise that they are sentinent metal creatures. They are machines and respond to the commands of the operator save any intervention of physics or mechanical failure.
So the idea of “natural habitat” must reflect the operator. And operators being endowed by their Creator with free will make the choice to stop where they would. The gap between stopping at Starbucks and the local tavern is wide. I often see numerous motorcycles parked in front of taverns and wonder how many are having a cheeseburger and coffee.
I stopped at a coffee shop today, one at the local Barnes and Noble. I was drawn mainly by cold, I couldn’t go any further without having my hands fall off. They are a nice place to have something hot to drink, write in my journal and have a snack. I can find a similar focus sitting alone in a café as I can while I’m riding.
What other destinations do motorcyles gravitate towards?
Well I don’t know about the others but I enjoy bike meets, it’s great to stand around and admire the machinery and just talk rubbish about bikes on a warm summer evening.
some of our best rides have had the destination of “no destination”. We just wander. A Starbucks is just a loose “turn-around” point.
Yeah, I understand. When I was making photographs with the big wooden view camera I would just load everything into the truck and drive just with an eye open for potential subjects. Would often have no more than a direction in mind.
I do the same with the scooter though I always seem to end up in a coffee shop…. *grin*
I was thinking about how you said you could find the same focus in a coffee shop as on the ride. It is funny how it is the opposite for me. By intent, really. On a bike it’s like a zoom lense. Everything is zoomed in and is in clearer focus for me. When I go to a coffee shop I purposely “zoom out”. I don’t want to focus. I just want to watch the world go by and see the macro picture. Seems to be theraputic in a different way. I let stress pass off in the waves of the moving world that go by. Just wanted to share that with you.
Dan
It seems to me that I often find a masked rider near abouts the Harris Acres area. He seems to come and go – and *sometimes* he will even pull up in our driveway. We have difficulty extending the stay for long – as we don’t normally keep voluptuous chocolate chip cookies in the house like the ones at Barnes and Noble. We shall have to work on making the neighborhood a more “hip” place.
If you are implying I “ride for cookies” I’ll have to admit there’s some truth to it. Doesn’t go far in supporting the manly image of scooter riding though.
When riding in cold weather, the thing I remember most is the blood pooling in my thighs, so that I could not swing my leg over to get off the bike. I guess that is not a problem with a vespa. I’m considering getting back into motorcycles/scooters. I suspect I’ll purchase an Aprilia Scarabeo 250 or 500. The 500 attracts me because it has the ABS, in addition to automatic transmission, as well as proper motorcycle wheels. Aprilia sells these as automatic motorcycles, rather than scooters.
One does have to make adjustments as one ages. Looking forward to being a retread at age 52. Being a rider once again, as a retiree means I probably won’t hit the road under less than IDEAL conditions. NOT going to ski around corners in the snow and ice anymore.
Hmmm. I AM old, that sounds good.
tinker,
I’ve not experienced the blood pooling you’ve described even at the coldest temperatures (6 degrees F)I have ridden in. I just got a new pair of Tourmaster Overpants so I think any leg coldness I’ve felt will be gone. Probably won’t get anymore really cold weather this year to test that theory.
The automatic twist n go transmissions are really nice. I like having both brakes on the handlebars. Using the footbrakes on conventional bikes was always a pain, they were often small and hard to use with boots.
The Aprilia bikes are great–can’t go wrong with them. You should also check out the Vespa GT and GTS series as well as the Piaggio BV500.
Good luck on your retirement riding. I can’t believe I waited so long.
steve