Scooter in the Sticks

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

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.

Vespa Medicine

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Reflection of Vespa rider, Steve WilliamsNoise and Chaos

After a week of a sore back, thoughts of retirement and looming deadlines at work, I was ready for some Vespa medicine.  Something to slow down the neurons firing in my head. A ride on the scooter to soak up the crazy energy and let me savor the world.

Heading for a cup of tea I looked at my reflection in the window.  Smiling, thanks to a little ride into town.

Vespa GTS scooter in State College, PennsylvaniaScooter for the Urban Jungle

I can hardly invoke the term “urban” or pretend the towns I ride through are a “jungle”.  Still, it’s what I encounter. The ribbons of asphalt encountered in the countryside make the jaunts through town seem hectic in comparison.  The Vespa was designed with these sorts of places in mind and performs so well that I almost look forward to the times when I’m not looking for groundhogs and deer and instead grow wary of pedestrians and traffic lights.  The Vespa medicine is so strong that I seldom find even a slight rise in heart rate amidst the traffic that has others voicing their displeasure with horns and hand signals.

Riding soothes the beast.

Vespa GTS scooter under a heavy gray skyEuphoria in the Mist

God I love riding in the mist, navigating under a murky sky in a thin drizzle.  All riders have a description in their head of ideal riding conditions.  My own lean toward cold, dark and wet.  An unexplained thrill runs through my body that I can only attribute to some internal fantasy at work transforming an ordinary experience on the road into something just short of magical.  There’s a romance in the ride that sparks a physical reaction that’s hard to describe.

The effect of the Vespa medicine is enhanced.

Vespa GTS scooter at Wegmans grocery storeUnexceptional Riding

Seldom see a motorcycle at the grocery store.  Nothing adventurous, heroic or ego-building in collecting supplies.  The scooter seems to yield more easily to utilitarian tasks.  Or so I believe — it’s something magical about the Vespa and has little to do with the rider.  Whatever is at work, a ride to the grocery store can be as thrilling as a ride through the Quehanna Wilderness area.

I’m powerless over my Vespa and my life has become unmanageable.  Vespa medicine has unlooked for side effects.

Vespa GTS scooter on a rainy dayHome Again, Home Again Jiggety-Jig

From home to market and back again — living a nursery rhyme on a scooter, an aging man swept up in mechanical magic that propels an ordinary experience into something more, an undeniable craving to be flying along the road with the cares and concerns of life burned away leaving a simple thrill at being alive in the world.

Amazing what a little Vespa medicine can do.

No Schedule

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still life of an empty cup and a tea potSimplicity

This past Friday at 5pm my intent to retire from Penn State became irrevocable.  At the end of June I’ll step on to a path for the next adventure.  One of the siren songs of this new life is possibility of having no schedule to live by.  I can’t comprehend what that might be like.

Last weekend I rode into town to meet my friend Paul at Saint’s Cafe and look at some new photographs he made in Nova Scotia.  The simplicity of a cup of tea reminds me of what retirement could be — an opportunity to focus on one thing at a time without a chorus of mental heralds shrieking a list of times and places I have to be.

Vespa GTS scooter in State College, PennsylvaniaVespa Riding

The ride from home to town is familiar.  So much so that I have to heed that I don’t become complacent on the road.  My back still hasn’t recovered sufficiently to entertain long rides.  Four posts in September attest to the physical limitations I’m working with.

I’ve been looking at motorcycles again with an eye to adding one to the garage when I retire.  While partial to the Vespa scooter it surprises me how little excitement I can generate for any particular motorcycle.  The scooter has wrecked me for them perhaps.

Saint's Cafe in State College, PennsylvaniaSaint’s Cafe, State College, Pennsylvania

Even though the physical space remains the same, and often times I see familiar faces, Saint’s Cafe is like an ongoing story with twists and turns you can’t predict.  I never know what I’ll see or experience.  Can’t imaging growing tired of the place.

Retirement will test that theory.  And I’ll test it again in the morning.

I have a schedule to keep tomorrow.  Ugh…

Simple Pleasure: Where Do You Find It?

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Vespa GTS scooter along freeway exit in the morning lightA New Day

Took the freeway to work one day this past week.  A crisp clear morning,  a spine pretending to almost be normal, I stopped to enjoy a moment alone on the road.  It’s a communion of body, mind and spirit that sweeps past unlooked for but welcome.  A simple pleasure that can’t be bought or planned.  A gift I’ve opened and received gratefully as a rider.

Simple pleasure of seeing my dog in the garden grassSimple Pleasure – a dog in the garden

Being open to the small moments that flame life takes practice.  Lest I miss them, I need to slow down and transform my eyes from detection devices into tools for introspection and insight.  Noticing Lily stalking through the garden grass, I realize how much there is around me that I don’t want to miss.

Riding a scooter, going forth on a motorcycle, these exercises have cleared my eyes.

Vespa GTS scooter in a pastureRiding Shrine

There are moments when my Vespa ascends from riding contraption to shrine.  It usually happens when it’s standing in some lush promontory where it stands against a wider world.  After weeks of nagging irritation from my back, it was a joy to face the morning and feel good about riding, the job I was moving toward and the knowledge that life was rich as a result of a few simple pleasures.

Tea at a morning call on a cafeTea, Light and Friends

An hour in Saints Cafe, some hot tea and conversation with a friend; it’s a simple pleasure that requires only an investment of time on my part.  Time that, in almost every case, returns far more value than the cost of admission.

Vespa GTS scooter in the blazing sunA Ride Home

My back has recovered enough to ride back and forth to work.  I’ve learned to sit up straight to minimize fatigue to that area of the body.  Still experimenting with the rougher experience of riding on gravel roads as habit leads me to old cow paths on the ride home.  The dazzling light of a low sun at the end of the day is a simple pleasure that I don’t embrace nearly enough.

Is there a good reason why I don’t see more sunsets?

Meyer Dairy milk bottle in a GIVI topcaseMilk in Glass Bottles

Twenty four hours ago the milk in the glass bottle was grass.  At least that’s what I like to think.  Meyer Dairy is two miles from my house and they still bottle and sell their milk to the community, a dying breed of dairy farmers not shipping their milk to a cooperative or factory in return for a milk check.  The simple pleasure of drinking fresh, local milk, hides the hard work and complication of daily production.

Seeing the bottle in my GIVI topcase has me wondering how long they’ll last.  Or my Vespa scooter.  Or me.

For now I’l enjoy the little rides I can take, a simple pleasure purchased with the effort I make to choose the scooter over the car.

Where do you find simple pleasure?

Old Age and Youth

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Vespa GTS scooter in front of the Family Chill & GrillFamily Chill & Grill

After several weeks of work to rehabilitate an angry lower back injury, I felt well enough to explore the physical limits with a short ride.  Nothing like a sore back to make you feel old.  I’ve read the yoga adages, “You’re as young as your spine is flexible.”

I’ve not been feeling young.

My friend Paul and I departed for a short ride to breakfast at the Family Chill & Grill and Firehouse Pizza in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, just 15 miles from home.  A reasonable distance to appraise how things are going.  Unfortunately the place was closed — Labor Day — requiring us to move further down the valley to find a place to eat.

Paul Ruby with his new BMW R1200 RT motorcycleBMW and Vespa

Eventually we made our way to Altoona and Kings Restaurant.  Paul commented on all the old men gathered for breakfast.  I gently reminded him we’re old men…

By the time I rolled the Vespa back into the garage there were 85 more miles on the odometer. As long as I don’t have to pick up anything heavy (like a dropped scooter or a quarter) my back is pretty good.  Another week and I should be back to normal.  Whatever that is now for me.

Paul got rid of his Ducati Hypermotard and replaced it with a 2005 BMW R1200 RT which he plans to ride to New Mexico in November.  With a full fairing, heated grips and seat, and spacious hardcase luggage it will be a fine machine for a ride like that.

I’m not thinking that grand.  I’ll be happy when I can put the dog food dishes on the ground without supporting myself with a walking stick.

Old age and youth — two sides of the same coin.  I need to keep tossing it.