Scooter in the Sticks

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

Reminder: Be Safe on Your Scooter or Motorcycle

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Accepting Risk While Riding a Scooter or Motorcycle

I’ve posted this video titled “Morning Fall” by Edward McGinty before as a reminder as the spring riding season (pandemic allowing) gets underway. It’s always seemed prudent to me to be honest about the realities of the road and the risk I’m willing to assume. What made sense last month, last year or decades ago may have no bearing on reality today. What matters now is to be safe on your scooter or motorcycle.

Every time I watch this video I’m reminder of aspects of riding I hold important — helmets and protective clothing, boots, gloves, and the haunting specter of deer on the highway. And I’m also reminded of the strategies I employ to make the most of the risks I take on.

As a video, this piece is well-produced and delivers an unexpected turn at the end. I hope you find some utility in watching.

https://vimeo.com/bossboyd/morningfall
“Morning Fall”
Cast: Zia Harris
Written & Directed by: Edward McGinty
Produced by: Suzi Yoonessi & Ben Odell
Director of Photography: Adam Silver

Be smart and be safe as you embark on your spring rides. If you’re like me you’re itching to take advantage of the restorative powers riding can bring to the table.

And if you have parked your machines until stay-at-home orders expire or you just feel comfortable on the road again during this COVID-19 pandemic, let’s all hope we can ride again soon, safe from a virus, and with the best skills and strategies to return home in one piece.

Video: Dreaming of Riding a Vespa Scooter

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Vespa GTS 250ie in the woods.
Robbed of riding by the COVID-19 pandemic, I reach for dreams of riding.

Riding a Vespa Scooter

It’s been almost a month since I’ve been riding — either the Vespa scooter or the motorcycle. I stopped for sound reasons but I have to admit the world feels a lot smaller right now. And despite the rosy rhetoric about opening up the country again, I have little faith that it will make much sense for someone like me for months to come.

I hope I’m wrong.

In the meantime I’ve been remembering and imagining rides gone by. And dreaming of rides to come. It’s a strange place to be when something so common and familiar is suddenly gone.

I’ve made another VLOG entry exploring the feelings surrounding riding a Vespa scooter. For me at least. It may be meaningless for someone else.

Video production remains an awkward dance between the equipment on hand to capture pictures and sound, the ancient computer on which I attempt to edit the video, and the ideas in my head that I struggle to give life to in the digital realm.

Here is VLOG #3.

My third attempt at a video entry. I’m struggling technically, especially with audio. But I hope I have some small measure of success in sharing a little of the thoughts, feelings and dreams of riding a Vespa scooter.

Thank You to Poet Susan Mitchell

The opening line of the video, “In my dreams, the ride goes on forever” was inspired by a poem by Susan Mitchell titled, “The Road.” In that work, she writes, “In the car’s dream, the road goes on forever”. From the moment I first read that poem that line has echoed in my mind. It was before I started to ride and has only grown more intense with each passing mile.

Thank you, Susan Mitchell. And to my wife Kim for sharing that poem with me. That gesture and others have helped move me away from being an educated barbarian…

Do I Need to Practice Riding a Motorcycle?

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Shadow of man on winter farm field
If I’m completely honest, I need to practice riding a motorcycle.

Life-Long Motorcycle Training

I’ve been riding a lot during the past 15 years. While I may not have racked up the miles of some riders I have invested a lot of hours on the road on my Vespa scooters and now with a BMW K75 motorcycle added to the mix. With all that experience it would be easy to believe that I know what I’m doing and need not concern myself with additional practice or training.

There is a technical term that is used to evaluate that system of belief:

BULLSHIT.

If you’re riding a motorcycle or scooter on the road and what to more effectively manage risk, the need to practice skills, review riding strategies, and do an honest assessment to uncover bad habits is something that never goes away.

During this time of staying at home during the COVID-19 pandemic I’ve been rerouting my non-riding towards training and riding strategy development.

What about you? Where do you fall on the spectrum to take time to practice riding a motorcycle?

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Selfishness and Sacrifice

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Vespa GTS scooter in the snow
The snow was coming down too fast and sticking to the ground. Time to go home.

Safe Snow

I fly out the door on the Vespa scooter when I see fog or snow.  Earlier in the week, I made it to the end of the street before I realized what I considered “safe” snow was anything but.  And that I best get home while I still could.  Those large, flying flakes were actually starting to ice up on the road.  It occurred to me that it was stupid to be riding in the snow, perhaps even riding at all, if a bump or fall could add me to the already nervous medical staff of the local Emergency Room.

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Riding in the Zombie Apocalypse

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BMW K75 motorcycle on rural road
A BMW K75 motorcycle in the zombie apocalypse.

Reality in the Bright Sun

Can I outrun the advancing zombies on my motorcycle? Those words echo in the darker chasms of my mind, a river of fear flows through the abyss and I’ve slowly overcome by a fever of fear and anxiety. Far above there’s panic in the world. And the only treatment, or at least the one I reach for first is to go for a ride.

Riding imparts a quiet solitidue in my head. It can wash away the darkness and leave me standing in the sunlight, upright, calm and with a renewed perspective on the day. Or at least that’s my hope as I push the BMW K75 out of the garage.

I’m attracted to stories containing threads of melancholy and loss; especially in literature and movies. Irresistible forces and frightening odds with a protaginest who emerges beaten and bruises, heavy with grief yet triumphant as a representative of all that’s good with humanity. It’s never been clear to me why I’m attracted to these stories. I’m neither a hero in life or in the fantasies that drift through dream and consciousness.

It’s early morning with dazzling sunlight, welcomed after so many days of a monotone grayness that whispers to crawl into bed and go to sleep. The motorcycle moves smoothly along the highway as I head south along the front ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s colder than I thought it would be, a few degrees below freezing, and my feet producing a dull ache as they give way to the cold. Another stop, this time for fuel and some time indoors to allow my body to warm.

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