Scooter in the Sticks

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

A New Year, Another Ride, and Another 3 Prints Project Meeting

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Downtown State College, Pennsylvania on New Year’s Day.  The ice sculpture remnants from First Night glistening in the morning sun. The first day of the year was mild for the beginning of January.  Almost no snow so far this winter.  A nice way to begin 2012.  Riding, I was thinking about resolutions. About not making any.

Leica M6 in tow and a box of black & white prints on hand Gordon and I started the year with new prints.  Our 3 Prints Project agreement is to show up each week having exposed two rolls of film and three new prints.  It’s a tough assignment amidst a busy life.

As part of my avoidance of making resolutions I was reading those of others.  Joe Crivelli, author of No Baffles motorcycle blog, had a good set of resolutions for riders titled New Year’s Resolutions — Motorcycle Related.  Good reminders for the road.

Mandoo is a regular at Starbucks.  He and Junior have met on several occasions and have a genial relationship.  Junior could learn a lot from Mandoo.  On command he will sing, or more specifically, utter a long lonely howl.  Seems like an important part of growing up canine.

On the subject of learning I can across a list of lessons learned during the past year written by Bobbi Newman, author of Librarian by Day.  Her list is a good reminder of some of the important things in life and is titled “Looking Back: The 5 Most Valuable Lessons I Learned (or Re-Learned) in 2011”.

3 Prints Project: January 1, 2012

Last week on a morning walk through town.  Shadows and road markings always catch my attention.

Kim makes a lot of photographs with her digital camera with an intensity that I admire and wish I had.  She sees things I miss because I am hurrying on to the next subject.
The front window at Saint’s.  People seem to get lost in things within those walls.
I’m carrying the Leica M6, there’s a roll of film in my pocket, and have a few project ideas in my head.  A good start to a new year.  
Happy New Year!

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.

The Cold Weather Riding Frame of Mind

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A morning drive, minivan, on the way to pick up my Vespa GTS.  But not until I pick up my daughter who’s agreed to drive the van home.

Not until we have breakfast at the Corner Room in State College, Pennsylvania, a place I’ve been eating at for the past 40 years.  When I find something I like I stick with it.  Training for an upcoming half marathon accounts for her wet hair.  I don’t understand running.

The scooter is home, safe in the driveway again.  The ride home was cold, 25F and windy.  Neglected to plug in the electric gloves and found myself warming my hands on the headlight at each traffic light.  Like the old days.  The pre-Gerbing gloves days.

Riding in the cold takes mental preparation that I’ve not done yet.  It’s more than gear, it’s a frame of mind that a rider has to place themselves in.  And right now it seems a far away place.

Left the scooter in the driveway thinking I would go for a ride later — after I warmed up.  I’ve been warming up for hours and am no closer to a ride.  In another hour it will be dark and even colder.  Maybe a good night’s sleep will help me enter the cold weather frame of mind.

Vespa Maintenance

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My Vespa is nearly ready for the road again.  Snow tires mounted, drive-belt and rollers replaced, new spark plug, wire, and cap, oil and filter changed, everything ready to hit the road.  Aaron Grove, the technician at Kissell Motorsports who was working on the scooter, showed me the faulty plug and cap.  Somehow the threaded end of the plug stripped out and fused itself in the cap of the plug wire.  Not sure how it happened but with the new parts I should have another 30K kilometers of trouble free riding.

At least.

Aaron is a year round rider like me which meant he understood why my exhaust system was so heavily rusted.  You ride in the winter with salt on the road and things happen to metal.  He rides a vintage, (I think I can call it that) 1970s Honda CB400.  Raining hard outside he assured me that he would have ridden to work if the bike wasn’t apart in his garage.  I’ll have to keep my eye open for him this winter.

Most of the work was finished when I arrived but it was nice to watch a skilled craftsman work.  Aaron has a confident manner as he methodically moves through a task.  I watched him connect the battery leads and Battery Tender wires with a speed I can only dream about.  Not a single curse word to be heard.  That’s probably just one of the differences between a professional and myself. 
Almost had me wishing I would take the time to reacquaint myself with the tools in my tool chest.  Someday.  Just not today.
Snow showers forecast for tomorrow with the temperature hovering near the freezing mark.  If all goes well I should be riding the Vespa late tomorrow morning.  It’s about time I got back on the road.
I keep telling myself that but with a week off for the holidays I am getting pretty comfortable laying on the couch…

Searching for the Christmas Spirit

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A week ago I borrowed a motorcycle from the selection of pre-owned machines of Kissell Motorsports –a 2005 BMW F650 GS. I’ll often find myself looking at their web site listings or trolling eBay for the quintessential deal. For a lot of riders a used motorcycle is the best route into the world of riding.  And during those rides I found myself thinking about Christmas.

Junior and I walked in the park this morning to the tolling of bells from a nearby church, announcing Christmas Day. Blue sky, bright sun and the temperature pushing forty degrees doesn’t feel like Christmas.

I’ve been thinking about Christmas all week, trying to bring to life those feelings I had as a kid when Santa Claus was real. Memories of candle light services on Christmas Eve singing Silent Night, the anticipation of presents under a tree seem to fade away a bit more every year. Charles Dickens wrote that Christmas can, “…win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home.”. Maybe that’s what I was looking for.

Roaming the countryside on a motorcycle often fuels a flood of thinking. I found my thoughts leaning towards the past, to things that would not come again. Each stop along the road seemed to trigger a memory of Christmas time. Each memory bringing another, and another.

Looking at motorcycles (when you tend to obsess about them) isn’t a lot different than coveting a BB gun or some other must have item of childhood.  The evening I picked up the BMW was like that — the proverbial kid in the candy store — so many things to desire.

A festive red Ducati should feel like Christmas shouldn’t it?

Or certainly a pink Vespa would conjure some sort of magic if only given a chance.  But maybe what the Grinch said is true: “Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.”

The pink Vespa will have to wait for another day along with the Triumph Tiger 800 XC and the flat screen TV I was thinking about.

The BMW F650 GS in its 2005 incarnation is a marvelously nimble motorcycle on the gravel roads that crisscross the central Pennsylvania forests. Aggressive knobby tires provide a surefooted ride at speeds I don’t normally attempt in these environs. The bike is completely comfortable from the start.

I felt like Charlie Brown. Christmas time is coming and I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel. Or at least that was what I was thinking. Riding through beautiful landscapes I can’t quite appreciate because I’m searching for the Christmas spirit. The little red-haired girl is waiting at home for me, my black dog too, and here I was along a creek, watching the cold, clear water sweep by and nothing. I’m blessed but don’t quite appreciate it.

The F650 GS leads me to the Pump Station Cafe in Boalsburg where I can appreciate a cup of tea and a scone, and the blessings of the motorcycle’s heated grips when I take out my journal to write.  BMW has great heated grips.  They feel hot even through thick winter riding gloves.

I suppose there is no connection between riding and Christmas save for the incidental juxtaposition of machine and iconography.  But I did find that missing Christmas spirit.
Last night family and friends gathered on Christmas Eve, for fellowship and food, to spend time together and acknowledge what’s special this time of year.  Maybe it just becomes more difficult to see past all the wrappings and tinsel to the meaning of Christmas, a time of transformation and forgiveness where, for a time, the world is a more gentle place.
Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for the holidays.

Scooter in the Sticks

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

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