Scooter in the Sticks

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

Reminder: Be Safe on Your Scooter or Motorcycle

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Accepting Risk While Riding a Scooter or Motorcycle

I’ve posted this video titled “Morning Fall” by Edward McGinty before as a reminder as the spring riding season (pandemic allowing) gets underway. It’s always seemed prudent to me to be honest about the realities of the road and the risk I’m willing to assume. What made sense last month, last year or decades ago may have no bearing on reality today. What matters now is to be safe on your scooter or motorcycle.

Every time I watch this video I’m reminder of aspects of riding I hold important — helmets and protective clothing, boots, gloves, and the haunting specter of deer on the highway. And I’m also reminded of the strategies I employ to make the most of the risks I take on.

As a video, this piece is well-produced and delivers an unexpected turn at the end. I hope you find some utility in watching.

https://vimeo.com/bossboyd/morningfall
“Morning Fall”
Cast: Zia Harris
Written & Directed by: Edward McGinty
Produced by: Suzi Yoonessi & Ben Odell
Director of Photography: Adam Silver

Be smart and be safe as you embark on your spring rides. If you’re like me you’re itching to take advantage of the restorative powers riding can bring to the table.

And if you have parked your machines until stay-at-home orders expire or you just feel comfortable on the road again during this COVID-19 pandemic, let’s all hope we can ride again soon, safe from a virus, and with the best skills and strategies to return home in one piece.

Just Keep Riding

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So what if you’re getting older.  Just keep riding…

Is Aging a Physical Condition or a State of Mind?

After the previous post with the Morning Fall video I thought I would post something a bit more upbeat.

I like to think aging is, in part, something I can manage mentally.  This video always helps support that notion. And it may have some benefit down the road to help me just keep riding.

Memories of this video often spring to mind when I ride my Vespa scooter, or any other two-wheeled machine.  While I realize some aspects of aging and health may make continued riding impossible, I believe there are a wide range of circumstances that can be overcome through determination and willpower.  Those are the situations where my own thinking and beliefs trip me up.

It’s important that I determine the difference between those things I have power over and those I do not.  I want to be careful to not judge myself harshly or consider some lack of action my fault, or a lack of willpower, when in fact they are truly insurmountable. Too often people judge themselves and others as “not trying hard enough” when in fact there is absolutely nothing that can be done.

This video provides me with a jolt of hope and strength when I feel bad. It helps me to just keep riding.

What does it do for you?

 

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Riding Risk: Something Every Rider Should Consider

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Morning Fall from Boss Boyd on Vimeo.
Morning Fall
by Edward McGinty

Reminders on Riding Risk

Every so often, I post this video as a reminder, not just that riding brings with it risk, but more importantly, that risk is something every rider should, from time to time, think about.

A clear understanding of the risk involved when you head out on the road can help inform the skills developed and applied to a ride that will improve the odds that you’ll return safely. And if your family or significant other has concerns about your scooter or motorcycle you’ll be better equipped to discuss those concerns beyond, “I’m safe.”Continue Reading

Tolerance for Noise

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How much noise is in your life?

Why I Photograph

Dredging through my files I found this old video — a visualization of the kind of stuff I write about now only without a scooter as subject.

Back in 2000 I was in graduate school working on a degree in art and learning to explore my self and the things that motivate me.  After a life of saying (and believing) “My work speaks for itself”, I was pushed to examine, explore, doubt and second guess everything I believed to be true.  Or at least those things related to art and photography. I resisted at first but slowly came to realize the value in understanding what was driving me (or not).

In one class taught by a member of the painting faculty we were challenged to respond and react to a variety of ideas and questions using video — an attempt to expand our ability to think and talk about why we work.  As I thought about photography I began to realize there was little motivation regarding beauty, light or form.  What I found was a method to help strengthen my tolerance for noise — the demands of earning a living be one part of it.

I was doing this before I bought the Vespa scooter and started riding and blogging.  But those things serve the same role now.  Last night I was talking to my wife about this when she asked why I try to do so much.  It’s not that I want to accomplish things — it really is a need to get the noise out of my head.  It builds up, a nervous, sometime frenetic energy that just needs drained like a recurring boil.  Nothing cosmic or romantic — just a terrible aspect of how my brain works.

So the video is a quick reflection of the sort of thing I write about now on Scooter in the Sticks.  We usually had three days to make a video.  Was sort of fun.  While classmates decided to use friends and actors in their videos I always chose myself.  I’m always available, show up on time and don’t complain.

When I’m on a deadline and don’t want any additional aggravation — I ride alone.

 

Scooter for Everyday Living

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If you have doubts about the utility of a scooter for everyday living I think this video will change how you think about them.  It’s a look back at scooters in the early 1960s in Great Britain.

After watching the video I was surprised at the size and scope of the scooter culture that had developed and wondered about the barriers for a similar embrace of a scooter for everyday living in the United States.  Low fuel prices coupled with a general tendency for people to want bigger, more powerful machines and it’s easy to understand why we don’t see more scooters.