Scooter in the Sticks

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

Photo Project Update: February 20, 2007

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By pushing myself to expose a roll of film every week I am slowly beginning to get back into a photographic groove, or at least recognize one exists. When I commit to exposing film, not making good photographs, I get better. Like a musician, dancer or athlete I am practicing. I’m able to quiet the critic and editor in my head and just respond to the things I see in front of me. The same applies to looking at prints and contact sheets. When I let go of expectations I learn things. This lesson for me this week arrived in the form of the portrait of my dog Essa.

Low light required a slow shutter speed and large aperture setting resulting in a very shallow depth of field. This isn’t rocket science. What was intriguing to me as I looked at the photograph is how preconditioned I have become to having everything sharp and in focus from foreground to background. It is an automatic response most likely honed from years of working with a large format camera shooting landscapes. It is so ingrained in my camera thinking that I am blind to other possibilities. These laws I build for myself cut me off from freely exploring with the camera. So I have something to work on. That’s the way it is when I work. Questions come up. Maybe about a place or subject, or maybe about how I think about things. And I use the camera to explore for answers.


The cold and snowy weather kept me close to home and largely off the road with the Vespa. I did manage to ride one day and expose three frames during the ride. The three frames along the bottom of the above contact sheet were all made during a ride that also took me to our local Vespa dealer where I purchased a Vespa mug and black T-shirt. I’m anxious for the roads to clear a bit so I can ride more. I’m hauling the Mamiya 7 in the MotoFIZZ back that’s strapped to the rear rack. I wrap the camera in a lens wrap hoping to keep any vibration to a minimum. I don’t want to subject the camera to the vibration and heat that surely would be present under the seat. If anyone has had any experience hauling camera equipment around I would be curious to know if vibration has been an issue.



Everything else was shot during walks with the dog and in places I would probably not be riding the scooter. One in particular required crawling under some electrified barb wire.

2007 Riders Choice Awards Voting Still Open
Let the motorcycle industry know what you think.


Your vote will let the motorcycle industry know how you feel about things in the 2007 Riders Choice Awards sponsored by Motorcycle Bloggers International. Dream bikes, dream rides, the good and the bad, and off course if you are so inclined Scooter in the Sticks is in the running for best blog! Click HERE to see the ballot.

A Few Words About Safety

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It’s snowing outside again. Not hard but enough to influence a decision to stay off the road. I had my riding pants on before deciding to keep the Vespa in the garage. The roads are wet, mostly free of snow, and with temperatures in the high 20’s a ride is not out of the question.

I received a note from a fellow rider this week that described my riding and writing as revealing “the beauty that dwells in the middle”. He went on to explain this as a marked contrast to the media culture that pushes extremes. I smiled when I saw an advertisement on the online version of the New York Times announcing the coming episodes of National Geographic’s Planet Carnivore. I don’t live there.

Before moving on to safety I confess to a wonderful comfort in the middle. I am not an adventurer, warrior, or adrenaline seeker. I look at and think about the world in front of me and wherever I find myself it is enough. There are more discoveries still waiting for me in my backyard. As a photographer I find connection and direction in the work of Czech photographer Josef Sudek and his ability to find beauty right in front of him.

As a rider I am still learning. I don’t expect to stop until time or circumstance prevents me from continuing. Living in the middle as a rider means thinking about safety and carefully considering what that means to me and what risks I am willing to take. I don’t confuse living safely with managing riding risk. If I wanted to live safely I would not ride. It’s here that things can get sticky for some would be riders that want to live safely, carefully, and want to believe that accidents will never happen if they follow steps a, b, c….

The notion that accidents should not happen if everyone follows the rules may be how someone justifies a legal action for an accident. Unmet expectations on the road might lead to anger and rage when others don’t perform as they should. This angry energy gives rise to more and more unsafe drivers and highways. And it leaves me with more difficult questions related to managing risk. What can I do?

Safety breaks down into four areas for me:

1. State of mind
2. My physical condition
3. Mechanical readiness of the scooter
4. My skill and experience in making and executing decisions

Each of these can respond to work and energy that I put into them. None fall into the Act-of-God area. All benefit from practice and attention and will make my ride safer. And I know they make me a better man. When I look at this short list and ask myself if I applied it to driving before I became a rider the answer is no. Riding safely, managing risk, and riding “in the middle” works together like magic to sweep away the curtain that make it difficult to appreciate the quiet places and moments in front of me.

The snow has continued to fall while I have typed this post. The house is quiet save for Kim turning pages in a magazine and I am living in the middle. I’m grateful that riding has made it much easier to accept and appreciate the life I have.


Don’t forget to let the motorcycle industry know how you feel about things in the 2007 Riders Choice Awards sponsored by Motorcycle Bloggers International. Dream bikes, dream rides, the good and the bad, and off course if you are so inclined Scooter in the Sticks is in the running for best blog! Click the image to get to the ballot.

2007 Riders Choice Awards Voting Now Open!

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From now until March 12th public voting for the 2007 Riders Choice Awards is now open. These awards are sponsored by Motorcycle Bloggers International, an organization of bloggers creating original content from around the globe. It is a chance to vote for the best and worst of the motorcycling world for the year 2006. You go to your voting ballot click HERE.

Now I feel weird saying this next part. Scooter in the Sticks is a finalist in the Best Motorcycle or Scooter Blog category this year. Many thanks to those of you who nominated me! The competition is good with some exceptional motorcycle sites on the ballot. I feel fortunate just to be in the running as a writer about my Vespa riding experiences.

Check out what’s on the ballot!

Latest Ride


I managed to get out this past Monday for a last ride before the snow started to come down yesterday. I planned to do a non-stop 60 mile run to test the effective duration of my non-electric riding gear but the temperatures soared to 29° F and I already knew it would be fine at that temperature all day long at 55 MPH. I want to try it around 15° F though.

The reality of my riding is slow with many stops to take pictures. I almost never ride continuously. I am always stopping to take pictures or look around so it is hard to know how good my gear would be for a long-range commuter.

Until the temperatures drop I will continue to ride through this area to get a better feel for the GTS and slowly work my way through the 600-mile break in period. The sun was out and it was a relaxed ride.


I did manage to get the scooter stuck in the snow at one point trying to run down an unplowed farm lane. I felt kind of stupid for a second thinking I would not be able to get it out. Kicking snow and pushing instead of riding did the trick!

Farms are Cool

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Pushing the pen across paper while my dog noisily gnaws on a large Milkbone makes it really difficult to attend to my writing. Farms are cool places to look at and the surrounding landscapes are my favorite photographic subjects. Mountains, old growth Pacific forests, Yosemite, the ocean—-they are all beautiful. But I am disconnected from them because I live here. Photographing those traditionally beautiful places leaves me with postcard images. I never have time to get close enough to see past that pretty veneer. And it would take months, maybe years.

On the ride home from work my instrument panel showed 23° F. With the sky clear and the sun bright as it headed for the horizon it was warm enough for a detour through the landscape I love to look at. Almost immediately after leaving the main road I came upon Meyers Dairy Farm. Those red barns just glow in strong sunlight. The remainder of the ride home was a slow puttering event that allowed me to be a tourist again in my own neighborhood. I didn’t have the big camera with me but plan to haul it out this morning.


Arriving home I decided to do something about the salt and grime that has been collecting on the Vespa for the past two weeks. With a sponge and bucket of really hot water I was able to remove a lot of it. Perhaps today I will do a bit more.

A few have inquired about my non-electric solution to staying warm—especially my hands. I wear expedition grade Black Diamond Mittens with a pair of thin polypropylene gloves underneath them.


I added the gloves because I needed to slow down the chilling of my hands when I stop to take pictures. The metal body of the small Canon S50 digital camera is like holding a small block of ice. The thin gloves slow down the numbing effect on my hands. If I fiddle too long with the camera I will warm my hands on the headlight before slipping them back inside the mittens. Once my hands are really cold it is difficult to bring them back without returning to a heated area.

After a bowl of cereal I’m going to head out on a photo ride. No idea where I’m going or for how long. Most likely my hands will dictate course and duration. It’s 14° F right now with a promise of higher temperatures this afternoon. After a check of oil levels, air pressures, lights and things I’ll be off.

Cold Commute

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Nine degrees for the ride to work yesterday morning. A number of people at work commented on how cold I must have felt but the truth is I was overdressed and should not have worn a long underwear top. That item rode under the seat on the way home, considerably warmer at 18° F but then I did take the freeway home for a 70 MPH spin.

Riding again I realize that the cold is more a mental than physical challenge. Looking outside after I get up, checking the temperatures, the resistance I feel is related less to the data in front of me and more to my desire to still be in bed. The actual ride to work has no bite of cold, no numb hands, nothing like that. What it does have is the exhilaration of riding found anytime of year. And the bracing air I feel when I crack open my visor at a stop sign or traffic light just reminds me how great it is to be able to do this.

The thermometer shows 12° F for this morning’s ride. Saturday looks to be the same with temperatures rising to 25° F by afternoon so I may try a longer ride on the GTS.