Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa Scooter and Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle.

Vespa Scooter Freedom

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Vespa GTS scooter along rural road.
This looks like freedom to me. Of the mind, the spirit, and the body.

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.

MOSHE DAYAN

An escape from the noise of everyday life into a state of Vespa scooter freedom is a gift of hope and joy. The same now as it was when I began riding a scooter so many years ago. In minutes the noise and stress that can accumulate in my head burn off like fog on a sunny morning. The air embraces my body and I’m flying. All I can think is it’s great to be alive.

It doesn’t take long until I’m far from home. The scooter has quietly transported me to a different reality. The long road, the spring light, the promise of life emerging again from winter reduces my world to something simple I can grasp. Like the throttle of the Vespa.

Riding provides a taste of freedom, and it quickens the soul.

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Riding Freedom: Scooter in the Mountains

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Foggy forest road near Little FlatFog on the Mountain

Standing in the yard with the dogs this morning I could see fog on the mountain.  The scooter moves toward it like a compass needle points north.  I feel the draw.  And I feel the pressure of responsibility to work, or take care of the incessant business of life.  A friend suggests I abandon work and go for a ride.

While standing here making the photograph of the road disappearing into the fog I’me struck by how infrequent it is that I feel disconnected from responsibility, free from the thoughts that I need to be somewhere or do something.  Riding goes to great lengths to help detach for awhile.  I suspect many experience that riding freedom. But I wonder what true freedom feels like.  Or even if it exists at all.

I had to revisit a piece I wrote for Motorcycle.com called Riding and the Taste of Freedom.  See how my thinking changes.  Or doesn’t.Continue Reading

Perfect Riding Season

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Vespa GTS scooter on a foggy, fall morningFog and Vespa

Fog, my favorite, along with dropping temperatures, all part of the the perfect riding season.  Yesterday morning a meandering ride to work offered a chance to see the world looking slightly different.  Unusual.  A feat considering how many hundreds of times I’ve ridden along the same path.  Still, I’m seeing things differently.

And feeling different.

Fall quickens my senses. It heightens desire and illuminates mortality as I recognize the passing of time marked by the movement of the season and the slow run up to the sleep of winter.  All of it, the chill in the air, the shift in light and the change in color work together to make this the perfect riding season.

For me.

The Vespa has been performing flawlessly almost as if it’s woken up and screaming for a more satisfying time on the road.  We’re a perfect match, the scooter and I, and I wonder how I ever thought a motorcycle could add anything to my experience of the world.

Many have tried…

Vespa GTS scooter in fall lightChanges in Light, Changes in Me

Riding home from work, even in bright sun, feels different.  My eyes sense the change in the angle of light, the sun’s position in the sky when I leave the parking lot.

I know autumn has arrived.

I act differently than I do in the warmer days of summer.  I want to ride — feel the desire in my bones.  Even if only the for the few miles of commuting.  I take detours.  Stop and take off my helmet to let the sun heat my face.  I’m like a man who’s journeyed through a desert and finds a pool of cool water.

That soaring of spirit and the illusion of freedom, if only for an instant —  that’s why I ride.

The scooter is waiting again.  It’s a new day of the perfect riding season.

Riding Sets You Free

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It’s as if no one can touch you when you ride…

Vespa GTS scooter on the open roadLure of the Open Road

No matter how many times I see the road reach out into the distance I still get a thrill.  In this place, I experience a sense of freedom.  It keeps me coming back.  On the road no one can touch me.  Cares and concerns melt before the wind and pavement.

I’m certain that riding sets you free.

My friend Paul Ruby and I were going on “a little ride” to breakfast.  Stopping in the eastern end of Penns Valley so Paul could look at an old pickup truck I had a chance to survey the road ahead leading through Woodward and Hairy Johns and on toward Laurelton.

Vespa scooter and Ducati Hypermotard motorcycle in the mountains of PennsylvaniaIn the Mountains

Pennsylvania has mountains.  High places covered by a hardwood forest with threads of roads twisting and turning through a fern, rock and moss paradise.  Riding introduces you to truth.  Sometimes uncomfortable.  When I started riding a Vespa 15 years ago I could still scramble up these rocky hillsides to make a photograph.  Now it’s a careful trek with the knowledge I could easily break a leg or ankle.

Or maybe I just need better boots.

This picture was made just a few miles from where I dropped the scooter.  I was still worried that something bigger might be wrong than the handle bars being out of alignment.

And we hadn’t even had breakfast yet.

Vespa scooter on a sharp curveNo Grids

There are no grids of roads in central Pennsylvania as you climb through the Appalachian Mountains.  If I think about them more than a moment I have trouble imagining how they ever came into existence.  Or how people made their way through this part of the country 200 years ago.

The Vespa was tracking fine through the most severe turns and curves and any concern I had for the alignment issues faded.  The scooter really is at it’s best in this environment.  Just watch out for the loose gravel that seems to be everywhere.

Paul RubyPaul Ruby

Departing the Carriage House Restaurant in Mifflinburg, Paul can’t pass up an empty pack of L&M cigarettes as an opportunity to pose.  I didn’t spend enough time directing him into the proper Euro grimace.  And we really needed a pack of Gauloises cigarettes for the right Ducati feel.

All the photographers I’ve known enjoy being photographed.  Paul is no exception.

Ducati motorcyle and Vespa scooter together on a rural roadCloud Drama

The skies played tricks on the mind the entire ride.  Heavy clouds and darkness followed by bright sun and dazzling colors.  Riding through that constantly changing illumination just makes the whole experience seem surreal.  And I’m an actor in a play bent of flying free.

Riding sets you free.

Ducati and Vespa along the Susquehanna RiverPause Along the Susquehanna River

Surveying the view of the river I notice Paul is tossing his helmet in the air.  I didn’t ask and he didn’t say but I suspect it was his idea to make the picture more interesting.  I just wondered how he would feel if he dropped it and the helmet rolled of the edge to the riverbank below.

He never dropped it after numerous tosses.  Don’t lend him your helmet.

Scooter and motorcycle on the roadRiding Sets You Free

The weather was perfect and the low humidity provided rare summertime views to the horizon.  The ride was great even if breakfast consumed 147 miles.

I’m addicted.  Or at least suffering a compulsion that drives me out the door and onto the road.  I hesitate to count the hours I spend riding.  Or thinking about riding.  If riding sets you free how come I can’t stop?

When I ride in the snow or sub-zero temperatures am I free or in denial?

Right now, I don’t care.  I just want back on the road.

Independence Day

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Steve Williams reflected in a traffic mirror on Calder AlleyIndependence Day 2016

There’s probably a near endless list of things that give meaning to Independence Day in the United States.  Flags fly and millions enjoy the national holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, by the Continental Congress declaring that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and no longer part of the British Empire.

No small feat and one worth remembering.  Amidst the fireworks for sale and the frenzy of cookouts and family gatherings it’s hard to imagine the topic of the Continental Congress comes up much.

On my way to Saint’s Cafe this morning I wondered what it all meant.

Vespa GTS scooter with armored personnel carrierVespa and the United States Army

Don’t let the perspective in the photo fool you — that armored personnel carrier is bigger and tougher than the scooter.  Speed may be the only advantage for the Vespa.

As the parade elements began to gather this morning I wasn’t sure if this vehicle was there for the parade or because of the parade.  With anxiety and fear gripping segments of the country in regard to terror it’s hard to know what’s part of a new system of security.  Or what it all has to do with the fourth of July.

Revolutionary War VeteranRevolutionary War Veteran

The markings on the tombstone are unreadable now but a Revolutionary War Veteran lays at rest in the Boalsburg Cemetery.  I like to think he had a clearer understanding of the meaning of July 4, 1776 and what freedom meant.

Are we celebrating a day or an idea?

Saint's CafeIdle Time at Saint’s Cafe

It’s easy for me to think of freedom as being able to do what I want.  Passing time doing nothing in a cafe. It’s a free country after all.  A notion responsible for a wide range of selfish behavior.  Or just a life led in seductive oblivion. A self-centered view of the world that American Revolutionary Thomas Paine suggested could be a problem:

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

The fatigue of supporting it.  I bet that means more than saying the pledge of allegiance or going to watch the fireworks.  And it’s about more than fighting wars and battles.  John Adams, the second President of the United States and a leader of the American Revolution hinted at a greater responsibility in preserving our liberty:

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

As I worked through the day I wondered about the charge for knowledge and how often it appears our elected and would be elected representatives operate knowing how little attention the electorate pays to the machinations of the system the provides our freedom.

Perhaps that’s what Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the best President to ever serve this country, thought about the dangers of the people not engaging the system we have:

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

In celebration of Independence Day, I’ve started to read about this country I love.