Scooter in the Sticks

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

Riding the Vespa GTS Scooter into Spring

by 4 Comments

Vespa GTS scooter parked in a wet farm field.
Scooter passing through one of the many planting ready fields.

Time to De-Winterize the Vespa GTS Scooter

The temperature soared to the low 70s yesterday causing me to almost remove all the winter armor from the scooter. Nothing like the mid-30s when the picture was taken during one of those winter exercise rides. Predictions for more sub-freezing temperatures for the end of the week dampened my enthusiasm for removal just yet.

Riding the Vespa GTS scooter in relative comfort is still a priority. The best cold weather vehicle with two wheels in the garage.

Continue Reading

Scootering Tomorrow

by 21 Comments

Vespa scooters on a rural road.
Enjoying the central Pennsylvania landscape.

COLD MORNINGS

A conversation with a friend this morning reminded me of the powerful influence my body can have on my emotional and spiritual well being. A sore back transports me to decrepitude and despair. Burning neuropathy in my feet can engender belief that my life is in decline and only hopelessness and death await.

Winter makes things worse. The cold can no longer be held at bay as it once could. Now it flows through bone and sinew causing me to shrink into the warm spaces of home, the heated places in my mind. I grow more and more immobilized by thought and circumstance.

And then a text arrives, “Scootering tomorrow?”

I’ll soon be 69 years old so it may be hard to believe those two words have power to energize an old man. I can’t, It’s still strange to for no other reason to suddenly be excited, lighter in spirit and hopeful of the day. Just at the prospect of going for a ride.

My friend Paul and I decided to ride our scooters to breakfast. He’s not usually a cold weather rider so I was surprised he was willing to go early when the thermometer would be pointing at 34F. I stopped along the road to make a photograph. He didn’t get off his scooter and I learned later he was discovering that wind penetrates zippers on jackets.

Continue Reading