Scooter in the Sticks

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

First Things First

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Last week thick with riding temptation.  Soaring temperatures, greening landscape, a rapid departure from winter.  I made this picture on the way home from work and recognizing the lengthening days and expanding windows to ride.  But first things first.

My Vespa is filthy and coated with the grime and grit of winter.  A responsible rider would tend to his machinery and perform all reasonable and required maintenance.  At least give the thing a bath.

Time for the Heidenau Snow Tex tires to come off as well.  No sense in wearing the soft, sticky, expensive rubber compound away on warm, dry roads.  The exhaust system should come off as well, be sandblasted and repainted.  And a few more mechanical feats should be undertaken.  First things first.

Our naturalized, woodland garden is coming to life and with it a wide array of trimming, transplanting, raking and digging.  I made a decision to do this work before any serious spring time rides.  And the house calls out for its share of attention as well.  First things first.

Junior the jungle dog peeks through the bamboo grove in our garden.  This running form of bamboo, Phyllostachys  aureosulcata, needs a close eye to keep it from taking over the world.  Spring time means some exploration with a shovel and removal of the aggressive runners.

And there is a lot more work to do.  So before any major Vespa adventures I need to tend to first things first…

$5.24

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$5.24.  That’s what I paid this morning to fill up the Vespa after 78 miles of back and forth to work — $4.159 per gallon for 1.259 gallons or premium fuel.  Stops at the gas pump can be satisfying experiences.

Tapping on my iPhone calculator (I’ve ceased doing math in my head) reveals fuel consumption at 62mpg.  That’s in the normal range for rides to work.  Slightly higher on trips.

A light rain was falling but the air was almost warm making for a pleasant ride.  Cost of that kind of ride — priceless…

Riding: Other Ways Home

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I know, without a doubt, that my life would be more ordinary if my movement through the world was limited to the comfortable confines of a car.  A satisfied grin marked my face as I scrambled around in the gravel along a line of dumpsters. Looking out beyond the Vespa towards Tussey Ridge, sitting on the ground, I was happy.

When was the last time you sat on the ground by yourself?

At 57 years old I’m still curious and get excited by strange things I see. And maybe more excited that I actually see things.  And concerns for appearances and behavior are mostly in the past leaving me free to roll around on the ground in a yellow and black riding suit to take a picture regardless of who might see me.

Riding the Vespa changes things.  Changes what I see and do.  And for the better.  In a car, the commute to and from work is painfully ordinary, a trip from A to B on the shortest route, radio playing, mind wandering, arriving at a destination startled and wondering how I got there.

It’s almost never that way on the Vespa.  I always know what happened. While riding I’m a man in full possession of my senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste.  It’s good.  Life’s richer on a Vespa.

Even amidst a village of dumpsters.

The Senses of Riding

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A dog may not reflect a connection to riding to the casual observer, the connoisseur of mechanical marvel, or the unwashed masses who see riders as fools with a death wishes as they talk on their cellphones.  My dog Junior, like my Vespa, bring me into the world, cause me to move forward, at this time of year through resistance and doubt only to emerge at the other end of a trip with a profound sense of satisfaction.  Like a dog, eyes, ears, nose, they’re all turned on, alert and scanning the world.

The Vespa almost always comes after the dog.  Biology trumps engineering.

A ride to work, on an errand, or just an unplanned and aimless trip to no where in particular is much like he morning walk — senses attuned to the world, sights to see, and that feeling of motion, flying in this instance, but motion both figuratively and literally.  It’s a potent medicine.

And always there’s arrivals.  A place, a sight, a location.  In cold weather I relish in an almost unnatural way the heat and steam of a cup of tea as no other drink has ever provoked.  And again, the senses are focused keen like a sharp knife on every sound and motion, sight and smell.  All lost on the non-rider?  How would I know?

There are the grand sights and the small ones.  When riding to work or on little journies from one task to the next a person takes things as they come.  Standing at a coffee shop counter I spy the tulips across the room in the window.  I’m certain, had I arrived in the van, my mind would be elsewhere and I’d never have seen them.

Thank you ride.

Suffering and Joy

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Sometimes, when desire meets reality, you come face to face with suffering.  Most recently it was unexpected physical discomfort related to the cold and my newly arthritic feet.  Out early yesterday with the temperature hovering around 20F should have been like a walk in the park.  Instead I was served a big bite of suffering.

Looking back I can see how my love of winter has decayed into a state of annoyed acceptance that it’s a fact of life in central Pennsylvania.  This first cold ride of the season really surprised me and has me wondering how much cold I can tolerate.  A question every year round rider wrestles with at some point.

After an hour I planted myself in Starbucks to hold a paper cup full of hot chocolate in my hands, let my feet warm, and scribble a few notes on index cards about the challenges ahead.  I wrote “Suffering” at the top of the first card intending to post under that title.  But things have a way of changing.

The iPhone vibrated on the table displaying an image of my friend Gordon.  He and his wife Val bought their 14 year old son a .22 rifle for Christmas, a Ruger 10/22.  Nice gun.  And since he had never shot a gun before he asked if I could go with them to the local shooting range and get them started.  I remember the .22 rifle my father got for me around the same age and the joy I found going out with him to plink away at tin cans.  
Funny how warm some of my memories are related to weapons.
Last time I fired a gun at this range was in the early 1970s when a serendipitous encounter with gun dealer led to firing thousands of round of ammunition via an array of automatic weapons.  My first experience with a Thompson sub machine gun, M16, UZI, and an Ingram MAC-10 with a suppressor.  I learned two things.  Automatic weapons are fun to shoot.  Loading magazines isn’t.  It’s an interesting story that I’ll share someday.
Gordon’s son wasn’t the only one surprised on Christmas morning.  Gordon’s wife Val gave him a pair of riding gloves and some scooter brochures.  The meaning is obvious.  More joy at Christmas.
Went riding again today with no suffering.  Suppose there is a yin and yang to it all.  Didn’t realize polar forces of opposite strength were at work in my riding life — the suffering and the joy.