Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa, Royal Enfield Himalayan, Honda Trail 125, and a Kawasaki W650

Cold Riding

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Vespa GTS scooter with chrome front rackCold and grey this morning for my weekly ride into Saint’s Cafe where I attempt to keep a creative flame alive — if only a flicker.  The 35F temperature provided another opportunity to try the new First Gear jacket and test my Gerbing electric gloves to make sure they’re working.  The jacket was great and has a little more room making it much easier to manage the wires to the gloves which must be fished through the sleeves. Cold riding requires me to embrace a gear ritual that at the beginning of each season seems unbearably tedious.  Here’s the ritual I have to learn (again) to be tolerant of:

  • Layer, layer, layer.  Depending on the temperature it can be up to five not counting the jacket and thermal liner.  It’s a damn nuisance.
  • Overpants. I hate fussing with the pants, those long zippers and then trying to get the Velcro secure at the ankles to keep the air from rushing up towards my bellybutton.
  • Wires and jacket.  I have to say the new jacket is much, much easier to manage the wires though they still hang up at times.
  • Balaclava. Think ski mask.  This thing keeps the frigid air knife from my jugular vein.  Absolutely essential when the temperature nears freezing and below.
  • Earplugs and helmet.  I like riding quiet and want to continue hearing birds sing hence the earplugs.  Foam, -32dB contractor plugs.  Then the helmet.  I hate getting this out of order by doing the gloves first only to find out I can’t secure the helmet with gloves on.  I’ve tried many, many times. (Insert appropriate curse word)
  • Gloves.  After securing the ends of the sleeves and having the wires in the right config, I attach each glove and then pull them on and make sure they are securely over the sleeves to make sure no cold air rushes up the arms.

I think I’m now ready to ride in the cold.  I do this every ride when the temperature is below 40F.  That’s a lot of rides.  This ritual requires about 10 minutes time.  After months of quick departures it is the longest 10 minutes of my life.  Luckily for me, it fades after a few weeks and seems simple and easy.

Scooter riding jackets hanging in the garageI have all three riding jackets hanging in the garage.  From the left is my mesh Triumph jacket, old First Gear, and new First Gear Kilimanjaro.  I’ve been considering the fate of the middle one.  Someone suggested I give it to Junior to lay on and soak up some daddy mojo.  I was leaning towards the landfill option.  I mush note a saw a comment on a forum about how much trouble Hi-Viz is to keep clean.  My first reaction was, “What?”.  After a moment to think I realized not everyone is like me and never washes their riding jacket.

Junior is going to love my old one.

Scene from Saint's Cafe in State College, PAGordon and I had a fine conversation on our collective creative trauma and entropy.  Neither of us had any solutions on how to flame the photo fires but it is nice to know you’re not alone.  He brought a new book produced by one of our graduate school advisors who has remained remarkably productive his entire career.  I suppose it’s how you get your work in the Whitney, MOMA, and receive Guggenheim Fellowships.  The book was a collection of photos made at proms and titled “Prom”.

Steve Williams with his Vespa scooterThe new jacket is brighter than the neon Public Parking sign across the street.  Chalk one up for modern pigment and textile technology.

Hi-Viz glow on Vespa scooter.

Hi-Viz changes the riding experience — take a look at the glow in the headset reflection. It’s like riding a Day-glo scooter.

Vespa scooter on dirt and gravel road

Wasn’t a lot of time for riding but I did manage to find some dirt and gravel roads to play on.  The little street tires are not ideally suited for this kind of riding nor are the shocks but it’s still fun to see what sort of trouble you can get into.  More on trouble in a future post.

Frank Armstrong: Photographer

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Vespa GTS scooter on a rainy morning

On the road early to have breakfast with photographer Frank Armstrong at the Naked Egg Cafe in Pine Grove Mills, Pennsylvania.  Grey mist shrouded the valley with a quiet threat of rain.  For a few moments I considered the seductive ease of getting into the car rather than pull on protective gear to ride.  A moment in the driveway pondering the monochrome sky and the choice was clear.

Frank was on a photographic walkabout starting a couple days in Worcester, Massachusetts.  I became part of a small email group of photographers that in the pre-digital era that included Frank and have been friends since.

Frank Armstrong, photographer at the Naked Egg CafeI associate two words with Frank — photography and Texas.  A camera is never out of reach and the Texan sensibility and storytelling is delivered with at Lone Star state drawl.  This quick picture was made while waiting for an order of dry toast.

Vespa scooter in a car filled parking lot

My chair faced the parking lot during breakfast and I noticed how insignificant the Vespa scooter looks amidst a sea of automobiles — a visual reminder of the need to carefully manage myself on the road and the American love affair with cars.  I predict this will not change in my lifetime and the Vespa will remain alone in the lot.

Frank is criss-crossing Pennsylvania making photographs on his way to Ohio to visit friends.  It’s been awhile since I engaged the kind of serious photography he has been doing for decades.
Gordon Harkins, Paul Ruby and Frank Armstrong at the Naked Egg Cafe

Gordon Harkins, a photography instructor at Penn State, Paul Ruby, a State College photographer, and Frank Armstrong are all members of the Zoners email group.  As much as I look forward to getting together with these guys, I have to say I was feeling glum as I considered the photographic work they are engaged in while my own creative output has spun down to images with my iPhone or point and shoot camera.     I’ve been in a multiple year slump.  Talking with Frank has me thinking it’s time to work again…

Vespa scooter in autumn leaves.

After breakfast everyone went their own way.  One stop on the way home to wonder how the summer slipped past so quickly and to think a bit about my own photographic next steps.  It’s probably time to abandon film and darkroom work and make a commitment to digital photography and printing.  I’ve avoided it for a decade now and the result is I remain frozen in time not making any new work.  Ebay here I come…

Frank’s visit this time and the ones in the past all provided some creative kick-in-the-ass though I suspect he didn’t realize it.  If you have a moment check out Frank Armstrong’s website to look at the complete collection of work.

 

Learning to See

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Vespa GTS 250ie scooter on gravel at night.As the day began to darken I stood in the driveway watching the sky as the dark clouds swept overhead, the grey descending like a thick blanket masking sharp edges of the world so only soft shapes and tones remained.  “The light is nice right now,” emerged from my lips and intended for no one, just talking out loud to myself.  The photographer inside was weighing possibilities, factoring time till dark, making a mental note of the tripod in the topcase of the scooter, struggling to decide if I should venture out to make some photographs.  Part of me wanted to go inside to make a cup of tea and watch season 8 of Trailer Park Boys.  Another part was trying to remind me that a photographer takes pictures, they don’t think about them or talk about them.  Finally, thankfully, Kim, who was nearby in the garden said, “Go.  Go take pictures.  You never know what you’ll see.” That idea is at the heart of learning to see creatively.

Kim is right.  She’s almost always right when it comes to the mental gymnastics I go through related to creative thought, inertia, and production.  Sitting here now I know that she’s largely responsible for me being able to put more than a few words together in an intelligent manner.  Without that influence I would still be a photographer, selling my expertise to the highest bidder with little ability to reflect or share what I was thinking, feeling or seeing.

There is no substitute for working if you want to improve your skill or output with a camera.  If you want to make good pictures you have to be out there shooting.  The more you shoot the better you’ll become.  That may be oversimplifying things a bit but working, especially when you don’t want to or when you’ve convinced yourself there’s noting to see, those are the times that you need to step out.

A passing rainstorm swept away the heat and humidity leaving the evening at a cool 68F as the light escaped in the west.  I didn’t see anything to shoot but I did get out on the road, on the Vespa, and let my spirit fly for a bit, let my eyes wander across the landscape should the piano picture appear (that’s the one you like enough to put in a frame and set on the piano.  A technical term used by photographers over 50).

You’ll never know what you’ll see so it’s best to have a camera at hand and experience the world so you don’t miss the visual gifts that abound.

 

Renewing a Dead Battery

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Have you ever misplaced your car in a parking garage?

Last Tuesday evening I wandered through five floors before realizing I left my truck at the loading dock when I returned from an assignment around noon. With the flashers on. After five hours the battery wasn’t interested in starting the engine.

But that’s not the kind of battery I’m talking about. Creative batteries are the focus right now. Where the Vespa usually provides a reliable source of positive energy the last few weeks have found it coming up short. Rides to work on gray mornings have not worked their usual magic.

Crashing waves and 500 miles of space between my office and me usually have a powerful influence on creative energy but like the Vespa I found myself wrestling with my expectations – work, photography, writing and photography. At times I can hear myself whining.

A Yamaha Vino in suspended animation along Shore Road in Ogunquit.

Mental preoccupation has been active enough at times that I find myself choosing to leave the scooter in mothballs on some days rather than ride when I know I won’t be able to focus as well as I should on two wheels. Couple that with work requiring four wheels and things get messy.

Sitting along the shore for my last breakfast before returning home I wondered what direction Scooter in the Sticks should/would take. To this point it has been a meandering work not until the rides I love so much.

Maybe I’m thinking too much and riding too little.

Watching Kim use her camera in the fading light reminded me of how resistant I can be to situations I judge inadequate for photography. Or riding. Or pretty much anything. I wish I could work with a camera as freely as she can.

More piling on of expectations.

It’s raining hard in this picture made on Old Orchard Beach just south of Portland. My pants were soaked from rain running off my Gortex jacket. Kim is collecting shells washed up by a storm. My little digital camera gets soaked despite my best efforts to keep it safe inside a plastic bag. It’s good photography weather.

On the way back to the inn I stop to photograph the railway that passes just east of Kennebunkport. At home I discover Amtrak runs on these rails and if I was so inclined I could take a train from my house to Maine. An adventure for another day perhaps. For now, looking at these tracks makes me wonder what the future holds.

It will hold more riding, writing and pictures. Stops like this one to admire the changing leaves. Those might not always be the best method of renewing dead creative batteries but it probably can’t hurt. And typing these last few words makes me think the green light on the charger has just started blinking.