Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa Scooter and Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle.

The Honda Trail 125 — A Small Joy in a Riding Life

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Paul Ruby performs the Crane pose on an old stump
And with the Crane comes danger…

Discoveries

The most dangerous part of this ride was Paul on a old stump teetering on one leg to strike his favorite pose from the Karate Kid. Problem is he’s no kid and a fall from that stump would test the SOS feature on my iPhone.

I purchased the Honda Trail 125 (CT125) because I had grown uncomfortable riding the Royal Enfield Himalayan off road. Alone. In places with no cell coverage and little traffic. While those fears have been sorted I’ve come to discover a special joy in riding the Honda.

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Scootering Tomorrow

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Vespa scooters on a rural road.
Enjoying the central Pennsylvania landscape.

COLD MORNINGS

A conversation with a friend this morning reminded me of the powerful influence my body can have on my emotional and spiritual well being. A sore back transports me to decrepitude and despair. Burning neuropathy in my feet can engender belief that my life is in decline and only hopelessness and death await.

Winter makes things worse. The cold can no longer be held at bay as it once could. Now it flows through bone and sinew causing me to shrink into the warm spaces of home, the heated places in my mind. I grow more and more immobilized by thought and circumstance.

And then a text arrives, “Scootering tomorrow?”

I’ll soon be 69 years old so it may be hard to believe those two words have power to energize an old man. I can’t, It’s still strange to for no other reason to suddenly be excited, lighter in spirit and hopeful of the day. Just at the prospect of going for a ride.

My friend Paul and I decided to ride our scooters to breakfast. He’s not usually a cold weather rider so I was surprised he was willing to go early when the thermometer would be pointing at 34F. I stopped along the road to make a photograph. He didn’t get off his scooter and I learned later he was discovering that wind penetrates zippers on jackets.

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The Eveready Vespa GTS

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2006 Vespa GTS 250 on lift in shop
My 2006 Vespa GTS at Kissell Motorsports getting its annual Pennsylvania Safety Inspection.

Eveready Vespa GTS 250 Keeps on Ticking

Once a year, Pennsylvania requires motor vehicles to undergo a safety inspection. And for some, an exhaust system inspection for emissions. Motorcycles and scooters are exempt from the emissions test. I know a lot of riders that never have their bikes or scooters inspected. When I recently acquired my father-in-law’s Vespa ET4 I noticed it had not been inspected since 2012. So unless you’re stopped by the police, it’s difficult to see those stickers on a motorcycle, unlike a car where their bright colors are visible on the windshield.

I have mine inspected regularly at Kissell Motorsports, not so much for safety since I do those checks routinely myself, but rather because, well, I’m not much of an outlaw when it comes to rules. It’s probably related somehow to my aversion to high speeds and roller coasters.

My friend Andy’s GTS in the Garage of Despair, machines waiting for service.

While at Kissell’s waiting for my GTS I noticed a couple of Vespa scooters in the repair cue. The GTS belongs to my friend Andy and has a mystifying starting issue that has been difficult to resolve. Paul spied the scooter outside over the weekend at a Kissell Motorsports event and it appears it is ready to return home. Good news after losing many weeks of riding.

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Finding Balance with my Vespa Scooter

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Life over the past year was complicated by a pandemic, the relentless march of aging, and the seemingly endless tasks of daily life. My Vespa scooter helped ease the pain.

A view of a rural central Pennsylvania valley
I’m blessed to live in the hills, mountains, fields and forests of central Pennsylvania.

Surrendering the Fantasy

I’ve become more willing to accept that my life is in a continual, endless cycle of change. There was a time, decades in fact, that I struggled to keep things “under control,” the same, predictable, and unchanging. I was facing upstream in the rushing current of life until I finally raised the white flag of surrender and allowed the river to sweep me away.

And with that surrender came victory. A life in the flow. I’ll still find myself standing up to fight, but my Vespa scooter helps me accept the inevitable march of change. It blazes a path toward balance.

I used to judge riding by measures of quantity — how often I was on the road, how many miles I gathered, the number of experiences collected, how many photographs were made.  I would tell myself riding was a way of life, a manner of living, with the goal of always traversing the landscape on two wheels. I won’t lie, it was a seductive fantasy. But one I had to surrender like all the others in my life.

Standing in a farm field on my way to breakfast surveying the sweep of landscape that sums up the place I live, the mountains, fields, and forests of central Pennsylvania, I’m struck my the fact that I arrived with no plan or expectation other than a friend asked me if I wanted to ride to breakfast.

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Scooter Minimalism

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Vespa GTS scooter in a farm landscape
Gazing at life.

Simple Riding Experience

It’s difficult to not be swept up in the idea of simplicity when riding a Vespa scooter.  Or think life will magically improve if it wasn’t so complicated.  When I’m riding, my cares and concerns seem to magically evaporate in the wind.  But however sturdy that illusion, I know it’s not true. The cares and concerns are there waiting when I return.  And the man I was when I departed returns as well.

Still, there may be something to that dream of simplicity, a sort of scooter minimalism.

Civilians don’t understand. Once they complete their admonishments of catastrophe and death when referring to scooters and motorcycles, I sometimes wonder if they’re envious on some level, harboring a secret yearning for the simplicity that they think two wheels represents.  Regardless of how insane or dangerous they might think riding is, they sense what seems to them like a life without care or concern.

As I stared down the valley, past my Vespa, it’s easy to embrace that dream.

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