Time for a Break

When you write a blog there isn't really a time frame in terms of length of posts or months or years (has it been that long?) you can keep writing . What I mean is, you can keep doing it as long as you like. As long as it holds your interest. No one tells you when to begin, and no one tells you when to punch the proverbial time clock.

The rides are as good as they've ever been. In fact, through the riding group I'm involved with, there seems to be a fairly local discovery of some roads just off the beaten path of a main artery I've written about in the past. Highway 9 out of Avon.

Getting on two wheels is always a refreshing experience. A revitalizing internal thing. Yet writing feels like it's beginning to become harder and harder not to rehash each ride into the same general experiences.

To me they're always new. But there are only so many ways you can rewrite how good it makes you feel just to be out there. To feel the bike underneath you. To hear the unique drone of that little Vespa engine as you wander toward the best riding roads.

I'm not the type of person with a need to refresh the experience of riding in some new way just to keep the joy in it. I'm content where I am. I'm content with who I am. While I'd certainly like to be able to ride more, I wouldn't trade what fills my life in place of riding for it.

So I'll lay this little page in the ether on hold. Maybe until the spring. Unless something really good just has to be shared.

May your lust for the road be matched by the steed that carries you

Harv

When You're Prepared


When you're prepared you can do many things, I've learned. Its all the rehearsal before the stage lights come on that makes the experience so worthwhile. No matter what you do, its preparedness that allows you to think more clearly in the face of adversity.

I've been playing the saxophone since the late seventies. From the days that my parents had to insist that I play for half an hour each day to playing as long as time would allow. Its been a great musical life. But it all started with learning perseverence.

You might think that playing that long might make me feel like I've accomplished something. That I've arrived. Nothing could be further, as they say. What its gotten me is a tenacity to keep at things until I break through. My sound has definitely evolved. My style, changed so many times as I'd learn new things that playing to fit the music seems natural. Its a skill that evolves the more you play.

This is not unlike that machine I put away this evening. Wet and cold. A steady light rain and a temp into the thirties during an indirect meandering home after the meeting with our scooter group.

I would not have tested the weather if that tenacity and pure desire to ride were not instilled in me from a young age. But I prepared myself. (Over time, just as I had with the saxophone.) Mainly for the cooler air though the rain never got to me.

There is something inherantly fun about riding a scooter in the rain. I don't know what it is, but it just seems like legshields and floorboards were made for this type of weather. Pin a sizeable windshield to the thing and you've got a pretty serious foul weather repellant form of two wheel transportation.

It takes time to learn the proper combination for you the individual. What's too warm or too drafty for seasonal riding where you live? Questions we ask ourselves.

But why would anyone take that much time to put on that much gear just to ride in cold or wet weather?

Ask someone who loves to ride. Enough to find the right gear in order to prolong the riding seaon. That person will tell you its worth it. Something about seeing the changing seasons from the saddle of that favorite two wheeler. So what if its cold. Or wet. If there's better gear made for inclement weather, that rider will tell you.

Sometimes its trial and error. Sometimes the right combination of clothing is already in the hall closet. The end of the summer riding season is a great time of year to bring a few extras along for the ride. Change into them when dusk falls and see how well they work. An extra sweat shirt or an added liner for example. Overpants or long underwear. Definitely a personal choice. (Or both!)

Still, you get the best idea of how cold or wet weather riding gear will work for you when you use it for the longer rides. Because you get comfortable on the longer rides. You... settle into the spirit of the ride when its more than just a few miles. Short rides don't really provide much information on gear and that includes how well the bike works for distance treks. I think the shorter rides are indicators giving an idea of how clothes might work or feel, but settling into a long ride is as much a state of mind as anything else.

Oh, before I forget, I should point this out:

There is no perfect gear. There is very good gear and there is gear you can get very comfortable in, but you sort of have to, I don't know, come to terms with the few shortcomings you might discover. It might mean a quick duct tape wrap on a fold to stop a draft from shooting up your sleeve. (You can solve that problem if you know someone who can sew velcro to the wrist of a jacket for example) It could mean buying those thicker socks you would only use to ride. But those are small investments to extend your fun into the cooler weather won't be regrettable efforts. The ride is worth it.

A little over a week ago I began the ritual of digging through all the old winter riding gear. I acquired more than I thought over the years! And other than needing new heavy socks, everything else fit the bill. Sure, I was overdressed for hanging out at a coffee shop. But I wasn't over dressed for the ride home. Which certainly wasn't by the direct route.

What I haven't told you yet is that I'm usually one of the first to arrive at the coffee house for our Wednesday Night Rides. I didn't expect anyone to ride to the meeting (save Colin-man of steel) since I didn't check the weather and it had started to drizzle at immediately the moment I crossed from my driveway onto the street. Imagine my triumphant joy at seeing Chauncy, Zuma and Colin arrive on two wheels. Besides these brave souls, Sam, and the Dibbers also came. I'm guessing they fit the meeting in along with other responsibilites or they also would have ridden. I really don't see anyone in this group shy about riding when the weather changes.

We had a good meeting. We talked and laughed and passed Keith's new Scoot magazine around. Ideas for next season's runs were tossed into the fray. Keith has always got great ideas for rides. Be they long or short, he's an excellent organizer and really knows how to get the group involved in the planning.

I guess its easier to plan what to wear when you've planned for the ride, eh?


Harv

American Highway


My family had the good fortune to take a vacation in Disney World. Since I no longer get on (or in) planes under any circumtances I chose to drive. My wife, kids and in laws got there in just over two hours. I got there in about two days. Its a little over sixteen hundred miles by car. I loved it.

Now I considered taking one of the bikes. The Harley would have been the first choice since its a decent tourer by my own standards. But the family thought I could bring along more luggage with the car so the '98 Camry did the task. I even had the advantage of a Garmin lent to me for the trip. A surprising little tool so long as you program it correctly.

More often than not I drive a car in silence. Whether the distance is long or short. Conversation usually just flows from me but when I drive I must be trying to get as close to the riding experience as possible. That's what my wife thinks anyway. I'm sure she's right. She likes to take naps when I drive. I'm a very predictable driver.

So the drive from St Cloud Minnesota to Orlando Florida was a vacation in itself. Heavy rains through Atlanta. My first time actually doing the driving through that city.

When you hit Florida you think, based upon everyone whose visited the ocean, that the state is as flat the waters that surround it. But once you hit the turnpike toll road you realize there's more to the beatiful state than just year round summer weather and palm trees.

I saw roads sweeping away from main arteries which made me think about getting a scooter trailer. I could fulfill luggage duty for my family and take advantage of my night owl proclivities . A quiet Vespa prowling tropical tree lined Florida byways. The memories I would have. Warm summer nights in the dead of winter.

I thought about those roads as I began the return home last Saturday. I thought about hundreds more as I passed them in Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky. For a northerner with his roots in the snow its pretty amazing to think about people riding comfortably in autumn clothing after September. I drove silently into Wisconsin and yet another reason begged me to think hard about a scooter trailer.

A river seperates Minnesota from Wisconsin. The bridges I've seen are all posted at highway speeds and traffic flows at even higher rates. An LX150 is at its limit around 65-70mph. While the bike can ride wide open throttle on country roads devoid of steady traffic, its nearly a death wish to pin the throttle down and try to keep up with cars treating you as an obstruction and an obsenity. A GTS 250 would solve it. It can attain and keep speeds to seventy and above. But I love the bike I have. Getting over the river is just an obstacle to overcome safely.

Four days on the road by myself. The return trip was the more enjoyable one. Recalling things you saw on the way down, for instance. And it never quite looks the same as it does while you're getting there.

I find the road a quiet personal pleasure. A solace. You're moving but you're still. I think I wrote that somewhere once before, but it warrants writing again. Its a big country with a million sights to see and interesting roads from which to see them.

My family loved the resort and their vacation.

Me, I most loved the distance between A and B.

I can't help it. I'm a road bum.

Harv

Clutch Not Brake

They say you can never go home again. The point being that the distant past can never truly move forward into the present. You can't get there from here.

It all started with a 50cc Honda scooter a few years ago. A 1978 Honda Express in a bright, very lime, green. A diminuitive machine with a top regulated speed of 27mph. They look more like bicycles than motor scooters. And if you take them for what they are you find yourself weirdly enamored by them.

My father in law had a rented storage unit. It was on the edge of the small town nearest his farm. A space filled with all the oddities we seem to keep in the indecision of possibly needing someday and throwing out. Furniture, hoses, you name it. Property purgatory.

I helped him clear the unit out. That's when I saw it. Hidden by sheets of plywood and stacks of wooden chairs. A cobwebbed old scooter which had been through better days. But everything was there. As far as I could tell anyway. Quietly, patiently waiting for someone to bring it back to life.

I dug into it with the advice of a few friends. Dan, who lives in my hometown guided me by phone while Loren, whose ability to breathe life into mechanical things always amazes me, came to my rescue here.

"Well I think there's supposed to be another part in there, there." Loren would say.
"You should be seeing something that looks like such and such between the lorkin cable and the stiction valve," said Dan.

I said, What?

The scooter was showing more and more of its internal glory by the day. Loren had the exhaust to reweld the aftermarket "flow derestrictors" drilled into it. I examined this, poked at that and became more familiar with this most basic of internal combustion engine designs. Little things about two stroke engines started to come back to me. I remembered that I actually liked points back in the day. Saw them as a challenge. Only because I reset them to factory specs. I knew how little I really knew.

Before long the Express was running and road legal. I tooled along the country roads outside my neighborhood. A hint of blue smoke marked my passing. It was glorious. Even if it was the slowest motorized two wheeler I'd ever ridden, it was fun getting up to thirty plus mph on the slopes. Even if it meant huffing like the little engine that could just to crest them. Each ride would end in a little fine tuning. Tensioning spokes if nothing else.

Then I heard that the new Vespas were also constant variable transmission. Auto-scooters which could really get you up to travelling speeds. An LX150 found a home in my garage.

But the maintenance seems more involved than I would like. CVT belts and rollers need to be checked and replaced regularly. About every four thousand miles on the rollers, six to seven thousand on the belt. Let me put it another way. I don't look forward to what it takes to do that maintenance. You need to move or remove quite a bit just to get to the valves, for instance. The whole engine/transmission assembly needs to be detached from the rear shock and tilted, just so you can get the valve cover off to check them. Its the maze ahead of the cheese that gets old.

So why not a four stroke Vespa? Or something reasonably close to that design? Stellas came close but they've been two strokes until now. Hot plugs, soft siezing... They sound magnificent when they're running but I'm no longer interested in the fiddling required of two strokes.

Then I read about the new four stroke Stella and I thought, This, this is the scooter I've been waiting for. Four standard gears and a clutch, four stroke engine and the basic iconic silhouette of the classic Vespa's evolution. The engine is on the right, where I can easily get to it. And the belt and rollers are history.

Maybe coming home needs to be a blend. A proper mix of the best of the past with this moment. I'm hoping the upcoming 4T Stella might be that bike for me.

Harv

Just Around the Corner

Autumn rides. When you live far enough north that parts of Canada are actually south of you, you begin to cherish these waning days of warmth. You learn to appreciate getting the time to put some tarmac between you and the tires. The forests are changing from their deep green hues to golds, reds and orange. Leaves are beginning to blow free of their hold in the dense cover of summer. A little now, but more each week. Before too long you'll be looking up and seeing the dark bark of hardwood and squirrels scampering to hide food for the winter months.

Have you ever parked by the side of the road just to watch the animals through the trees of a hardwood forest? The kinds of woods that you know were hewn back so the road could be cut through them? Ancient oaks swaying, creaking in the vacuumed silence created by shutting down the bike's engine. The natural world makes all sorts of strange noises.

The air takes on a crispness. Its as though you can smell the change coming. Critters are preparing to hunker down and they're grabbing all the available edible foliage, nuts and tubers they can find.

And you've got to dress for these rides. Not just the safety gear but maybe a sweater, or the thicker gloves. Fog on the visor.

My wife tells me that I somehow manage to radiate both extreme hot and extreme cold upon returning from the colder of these Fall season rides. I dunno, I just feel really great when I get back home.

No matter where you are, there's something about getting the rides in before the bad weather comes to stay. Snow drifts and icy roads, a foreboding memory of last year's winter serves to remind us to take the time while we can.

I've written enough. Time for a ride.

Harv

Oh No, Not Again

I've been reading motorcycle magazines for as long as I could remember. When other kids were into Hot Rod I was reading Cycle World, Motorcyclist and the now defunct Cycle. Others read Mad and Cracked, I read Cartoons magazine. Somewhere in my posession is a box chock full of old Cartoons issues. Crass and Bernie, Ellefson's creative cartoons. I had Evel Knievel stunt motorcycles. Even went as the guy for Halloween one year.

My parents tolerated my friends bringing small displacement motorcycles over and "tuning" them in their garage. Mini bikes, two stroke enduros. Harley Sprints. Seemed like any given week would find something under four hundred cc's with a story to tell, somewhat torn apart in my parents' garage. We learned about points. We learned about a lot of motorcycle oriented mechanicals by stumbling through trial and error. Sometimes it was frustrating but it was always worth it in the end.

I write this because I did the belt and rollers on the LX150 this morning. Normal maintenance, yet in some way it feels like more than should be necessary. Its a bit of a job to do an auto transmission on these modern bikes. Still a little foreign feeling to me. Odd.

Granted I had the bike up to about 50mph on the country lanes outside my neighborhood , but it wasn't far. Everything feels as it should. Still, I wouldn't mind a four stroke shifty scooter. Only because after years of wishing for one, Genuine Scooter Co. is going to have one out later this year. Less maintenance. Or an excuse to get something new?

I must be in that mode or something. You know the one. You have some unyet unspoken desire to have something new but you just don't know what.

So I visited the Honda motorcycles site and noticed they're releasing a machine that almost made me fall out of my chair when the page opened up. A 700cc liquid cooled V twin with shaft final drive. Built in saddle bags. Its a mid sized touring bike. Honda quality throughout.

So I'm torn. Another scooter, albeit something I would really like and that I could easily afford versus something which could take me out of scooters in an instant if it delivers the way Honda always seems to. The Stella would be less than half the cost of the Honda NT 700.

But I want the Honda more.

Need to find a way to get there from here.

Harv

Bruno's Basket

The names have been changed in this post, not because the innocent need protection, but because often times, posting on the internet leaves room to be creative. There isn't a BigStickBob who claims some government position, where revealing his identity would risk the safety of thousands in a beaurocratic pyramid of files and personal data. No Warehouse 13, whose propriators secretly engage in protecting the world's most precious artifacts from amoral power mongers but really wish they had the time to ride scooters.

Nope. This is about friends and the coolest little dog you ever saw. Bruno.

Bruno is the buddy of a rider who goes by the moniker Tomcat. A big fellow with a natural calm about him. Sometimes he'll show up at the Wednesday night rides on his olive Stella and other times its an '81 red and white Honda CT70.

There's a basket where a human passenger would normally sit. This is Bruno's place. A milk crate.. sort of. Well it resembles a milk crate but not entirely. Elongated. You get the idea. Bruno is the same make and model as the dog on Frasier. (wink)

There's Prisonprincess. No, she not there for "conjugal visits". She's a nurse at the local state penn. Had a Honda 250 and just bought a Burgman 400. She pickes it up Friday and we're all exited to see her new baby. She's been coming to the coffee house even though she's been between bikes for a little while. I wish more folks felt that way. That they would know they're welcome for the simple reason they like scooters. Or simply because they like to ride.

Zumascoot. This is her first season on a scooter and she's got the bug. She grew up riding mini and dirt bikes. You have to love a girl like Zuma'. Like the sister I never had.

Chauncy comes into the evening ride a bit later. But that's because I spotted him cruising to Byerly's for a caramel apple midnight snack. Chaunc' rides a black Genuine Buddy.

The ride

We meet at a coffee house outside the local mall. Sometimes people ask us questions about our scooters. Sometimes, like last week, we meet people like a local photographer named Josh, riding his '75 BMW R6.

I was early and Prisonprincess appeared by car. She told me the good news and and just beamed. You could not avoid that twinkle in her eyes. She was so elated she bought me a coffee!

Zuma rolled up and the three of us talked about bikes and then came Tomcat with Bruno in his his crate. Smiling as only a dog can. We talked for a bit in case anyone might be late in coming and then headed to Dairy Queen. We met someone Tomcat used to know, riding a big displacement Honda cruiser. Hello, nice to meet you, see you again some time. Then it was off to ride the river road through St Cloud. We stopped at Wilson park. The sun had long gone to bed and we looked at the light from the Hospital shimmering on the gentle current of the Mississippi. Off again. North. Construction made us detour but we came back to it and Tomcat mentioned his niece works at a local fast food joint. And we had to stop because she will often ride a Honda Hobbit.

Well you have to see things like that even if the chances are small. As luck would have it, Frodo or one of his relatives must have been using it. She had her car. Nice kid. A lot like her uncle. We talked a while, snapped a few pics and "doodled" around the back streets of St cloud. I caught Chauncy riding to Byerly's and Tomcat and Zuma took off after him. We talked for a bit and could see how tired the old boy was. We bid him good night and hung out in the lot, just enjoying a great night of commeraderie and riding.

Oh, and Bruno? By the end of the night he let himself doze off in his basket, assured I guess, that we were alright.

I think he approved of us.

Harv