Scooter in the Sticks

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

Finding Balance (Again) on the Road

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The picture of Jacob Marley’s ghost in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol dragging along a ponderous collection of chains and metal boxes always flashes in my head when a week has been abnormally intense. Riding early Saturday morning I could almost hear the clanging and crashing of metal on the highway as the ride steadily stripped away everything that was unimportant until I found myself standing along a quiet, empty road listening to the birds and knowing again what is important and what is noise.

The specific details don’t matter. Everyone gathers their own chains and weights. I’m grateful for the perspective that a ride can deliver. Yesterday morning was a fine day to ride despite the huge temperature change from 45F when I departed to 77F when I pulled back into the driveway. Forced to choose a preference I lean towards the colder air. This part of Pennsylvania has an exceptional collection of roads suitable for two-wheeled exploration. While many find thrills in a rapid consumption of miles with lots of wearing down of the sides of the tires I tend to find thrills in what I see. Stopped along the road near Spruce Creek I took a few moments to look in the water for trout. Only a few miles upstream is the exclusive Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club, a fishing site called by some the best trout fishing in the eastern United States.
While I generally don’t push the Vespa hard on the road there are lots of places that it’s hard to resist especially considering how little traffic there is on the road. Deer are always a hazard but on this day I only saw a few wild turkeys.
I don’t even know the name of this creek. A Pennsylvania Stream Map created by Professor Howard Higbee years ago still is the definitive resource for identification. Higbee was a professor and soil scientist and worked with our office to produce the original map. It is still for sale by the College of Ag Sciences for $19.95. Click HERE for more information.
No road is too small to explore. This one, Turnpike Road, was more like a long driveway than a road. I followed it along for miles until it turned to gravel and passed through a farm and into an Ag Security Area where I decided to turn around. The road did continue on over a hill and may have eventually run on to another paved road but I just wasn’t in the trespassing mood.
Find the Vespa. As the temperature hit 77F I decided it was time to head home and fix the lawn mower. Riding – lawn mover. I know, not everyone’s first choice but for me the right one. I got that puppy running and cutting grass with near perfect mental and emotional balance. *grin*

And today I’ll being wielding a shovel and rake with something approaching rapture. All thanks to a ride on the Vespa.

A State of Mind

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On the way home from work I was doing a bit of musing as I wandered around a farm field with my camera and was thinking about how I often come to be in places like this.

Dan Bateman, author of Musings of an Intrepid Commuter, recently wrote about the state of mind that riding can put you in – one decidedly different than that sitting behind the wheel of an automobile. I revisited the two paragraphs below a number of times. What Dan wrote soundly struck a chord and neatly sums up the magic of riding for me.

There’s something about riding a motorcycle that puts us into a different state of mind than cagers. Sometimes that’s bad. We’re more likely to find ways to get into trouble, you know! On the other hand, or maybe just the other side of the same hand, I find myself so much more open to the world around me. I see more, feel more, and thus experience more, than when in a car. I find myself so much more willing to wander off the beaten path. The age old question. What’s down there? Let’s go find out. I’m not so likely to bother with it in a car or my truck. On a bike, in vivid contrast, I’m ready for adventure at a moment’s notice.

I think most people who ride experience the same thing. Using a bike for regular transportation amplifies the effect. I spend a lot of time on a bike. So I also spend a lot of time in an open and inquisitive state of mind. It’s become a regular trait of mine. Riding is a Zen-like journey. There’s so much personal growth that comes as a result of, but not directly tied to, riding. Thus my journey Monday evening.

Musings of an Intrepid Commuter, April 9, 2009

Riding strips away a lot of the noise that builds through the day and can open the door to adventure. I’m not talking about the big, heroic rides across continents, but rather movement through a regular day, through the daily rituals of life. When I push the Vespa back onto its center stand it is almost always to look around. At nothing and everything. I feel the same way I did when I was a kid and everything seemed new and treasure is everywhere. I’m fortunate that I can ride regularly and enter this state of mind.

Dan talks about how a motorcycle makes him more willing to wander off the beaten path. I have to agree. I seldom wheel my Ford Ranger off the beaten path. The enclosed comfort in a modern vehicle makes those turns ponderous and difficult. Or more often just unimportant. I don’t often feel like a kid in my truck. I know it can be done because I used to prowl the Central Pennsylvania landscape in a truck with my view camera in tow. I would move slowly, just as I do on the scooter, and travel down every unmarked path searching for photographic treasure. But it was never easy and I always had to push past the slothful comfort of padded seats and stereophonic music. The Vespa appears in these pictures without any need to push.
Riding to work the next morning was a repeat of the previous evening. Another path, another opportunity to breathe in the world. They aren’t dramatic rides but they are opportunities to be present, something that is more difficult to achieve amidst the noise of daily living. 
I’ve been here before but each time I stop it’s the first time I’ve been here.

A View into a Gray World

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Last Saturday morning I stepped outside into a gray world. Heavy clouds and remnants of a nighttime rain washed the color from the landscape leaving behind a quiet form of the world. This world requires less energy to embrace and is easier for me to process. It’s as if things have been distilled to their simplest forms and textures without all the noise and confusion that can appear in the color and shadows of postcard sunshine. The most ordinary places reveal their magic and a ride through familiar territory becomes new again. Moving along astride the Vespa in this world provides a special satisfaction.

On this morning my plan was a leisurely ride to breakfast in Bellefonte at the Café on the Park. A circuitous route would cover 20 miles and provide mostly empty roads and many opportunities to stop and look around. I’ve always felt riding was like flying. Not in a plane but if I could actually fly. The scooter exaggerates the effect because there is not much in front of your visual field to interfere with the fantasy like there is with a motorcycle. With earplugs stripping away most of the engine and wind noise it can be like a dream at times. A hyperfocus on the road that moves through an almost surreal landscape.

When I look at the Vespa through a wooded landscape I am reminded of how my wife Kim saw this first in her mind – what my riding would be like. How else could she have created my blog title, Scooter in the Sticks, without knowing?

If I have regrets on the road it is that I can’t keep riding. Pennsylvania has thousands of miles or rural roads that to me seem nothing short of spiritual pathways. For me. A place for slow and deliberate riding.

I’m often asked when I will get a motorcycle. I enjoy looking at motorcycles and find some of them enjoyable to ride. The Vespa GTS 250 strongly insists I make a choice. When I stopped beneath the underpass I was aware of the choice. Where did I want to live on the road? Did I want to slowly meander or eat up miles? The Vespa doesn’t preclude the high road but it does nudge me towards the slow one.

Just outside of Bellefonte I stopped to look at a cross at the corner of an old building. I assumed something bad happened here but could not imagine what. As I stood by the road with the camera the passing cyclists probably were wondering the same.

The Café on the Park. An unassuming place from the outside but unexpectedly elegant inside. These days I have to force myself to ride anywhere else when I am out for breakfast.

A pot of hot tea and my journal keep me occupied and involved in the ride. I have been participating in this kind of morning ritual (sans riding) since I was a teenager. One of the habits I haven’t had to give up.

Breakfast is always excellent. And I love getting fresh fruit. If I wasn’t so damn lazy I could have fresh fruit at home. But it seems overwhelming to slice things in the morning.

The ride home was different. I felt the pressure of the clock and the chores of the day. Riding onto Interstate 99 is a dramatic shift away from a slow ride. The Vespa can handle it. I can handle it. But I really wish I didn’t have to.

A Simple Elegance

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For me riding is both simple and elegant. Each aspect of the machine and the ride constructing a satisfying experience. It’s reflected in the simple construction of the picture I made the last time I stopped at Barnes and Noble. Every element essential but nothing extra. That’s what I pursue on my scooter in the sticks. It’s not a perfect path but one that generally leads me where I want to go.

Pizza is simple. Especially one that costs $5.. Nothing fancy after a hard day at work. Strap the thing to the back of the Vespa and go. But not until the manager runs out and warns me that all the cheese will run off at that angle.

It didn’t.

A last stop for crab cakes and salad hung simply on the purse hook. That’s right, it’s called a purse hook. I’ve not used it for that yet but it has carried a lot of other stuff. If simplicity is going to go out the window it’s often because of mental triggers like purse hook, Barbie scooter, moped rider, things like that. Or it should I guess. So far I’m impervious to that sort of positive critique.
I’m writing this just after dawn. It’s 54F and crying out for a ride. The weather is changing and spring is approaching. Last night on the way home I stopped to look at the light filtering through the trees. Something is different. The sun is moving. Or my attitude is changing through solar tempering. I’m waiting for my friend Paul to arrive to we can head north. Or east. Somewhere. Anywhere. It’s just good to get out for once when I don’t have to worry about frostbite.

Taking Steps to Be Safe

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Common sense, exposure to others with greater skill and experience, training, practice and enough humility to be honest about our own ability and limitations. That’s all you need to be a safe rider. Simple. Easy. All but that last part.

I don’t have any simple formula for humility or honesty when it comes to riding and safety. I suppose we each come to it in our own way, some quickly, some not so quickly. I feel fortunate to have crossed paths with several people who have steered me in the right direction – for me. Learning to ask questions related to personal skills, habits and beliefs is a good first step. A healthy measure of suspicion of riding truths and beliefs might be a good second one if you can manage it. There are a lot of sacred cows out there. Some are worth keeping but others need slaughtered. (I heard my boss utter those words in a recent meeting.)

So what am I doing kneeling on the road. That has to be safe right? Consider it an editorial illustration stressing the importance of paying close attention, which in this case is a check of the road surface. Whenever the temperature is near the freezing mark or lower I have a personal ritual of walking out in front of the house and checking for ice. Not on my hands and knees but a quick stroll and some twisting of my boots on the pavement to gauge traction. Not a perfect test or necessarily relevant to what’s over the hill but it does get my brain consciously thinking about why may lie ahead. With so many hills and dales and trees overhead conditions can change suddenly and dramatically. After a day of rain and temperatures dipping into the 20s during the night I knew ice might be a possibility. I was pleased to discover that everything must have evaporated during the night and the road surface was dry and illuminated by bright sun under a clear sky.

It’s just one thing I do to try and make my ride safe.

Sometimes I stop by the local training course used by the Pennsylvania Motorcycle Safety Program for their Basic and Advanced Rider courses. All the paint and numbers would be a hopeless jumble had I not already been through the courses.
I’m not sure if the piles of Styrofoam panels are a new obstacle on the course or just being stored there temporarily until classes start in the spring. I was able to avoid hitting the pile and spent some time navigating through the course.

I think I may register again for the Advanced Rider Training to polish my skills. I’m never sure what I may have forgotten.