Too Nice Not to Ride

Spring morning rides on the Vespa are electrifying.  A visual candy store of light and texture offers an available camera moments of photographic relaxation -- images captured to reignite memories later.

Scooters have emerged from garaged cocoons as riding butterflies -- simple, quiet, elegant machines of transport and joy.  Or so I see them.  Here as the sun neared the evening horizon I stood wondering who belonged to the other Vespas.

Ephemeral spring blossoms demonstrate the speed in which time passes. Organic reminders of the constant flow of life and the cycle of change. I don't think of these things often -- at times with a camera, on the scooter, or scratching out words on a page in my journal.

It's been too nice not to ride at all so I make the most of rides to work and short errands around town. Feeling the Vespa respond to the throttle, the air rushing through my helmet, the world flowing by in a visual river of light and color -- I can feel my heart beat and the thrill of being alive and in front of it all.

Yes, it's too nice not to ride.

First Things First

Last week thick with riding temptation.  Soaring temperatures, greening landscape, a rapid departure from winter.  I made this picture on the way home from work and recognizing the lengthening days and expanding windows to ride.  But first things first.

My Vespa is filthy and coated with the grime and grit of winter.  A responsible rider would tend to his machinery and perform all reasonable and required maintenance.  At least give the thing a bath.

Time for the Heidenau Snow Tex tires to come off as well.  No sense in wearing the soft, sticky, expensive rubber compound away on warm, dry roads.  The exhaust system should come off as well, be sandblasted and repainted.  And a few more mechanical feats should be undertaken.  First things first.

Our naturalized, woodland garden is coming to life and with it a wide array of trimming, transplanting, raking and digging.  I made a decision to do this work before any serious spring time rides.  And the house calls out for its share of attention as well.  First things first.

Junior the jungle dog peeks through the bamboo grove in our garden.  This running form of bamboo, Phyllostachys  aureosulcata, needs a close eye to keep it from taking over the world.  Spring time means some exploration with a shovel and removal of the aggressive runners.

And there is a lot more work to do.  So before any major Vespa adventures I need to tend to first things first...

$5.24

$5.24.  That's what I paid this morning to fill up the Vespa after 78 miles of back and forth to work -- $4.159 per gallon for 1.259 gallons or premium fuel.  Stops at the gas pump can be satisfying experiences.

Tapping on my iPhone calculator (I've ceased doing math in my head) reveals fuel consumption at 62mpg.  That's in the normal range for rides to work.  Slightly higher on trips.

A light rain was falling but the air was almost warm making for a pleasant ride.  Cost of that kind of ride -- priceless...

The Project Bike

Paul and I left for Bellefonte and a late breakfast on one of the balmy days last week.  No better way to burn a half day's vacation time from work. A BMW K1200 GT is an unlikely pairing with a Vespa -- I've witnessed demonstrations of the power advantage of the BMW as it fled from the scooter at a pace I could never hope to match.

During breakfast I was reminded of project bikes when an old neighbor and her daughter stopped by our table.  Her son, Cooper, has a project going in their basement with his Honda motorcycle completely dismantled and awaiting reassembly.  Cooper, if you read this, pay no attention to your sister's predictions that it will never run again.  She just doesn't understand the spiritual power of the mechanical journey you've undertaken.

That brings me to my own thoughts of a project bike.  A couple weeks ago I received an email from Paul instructing me to clear out the garage and gather some cash -- he found the perfect project bike for us -- a 1989 URAL.

After breakfast we paid a visit to the the machine in question.  As I neared I could feel my wallet try to leap from my pocket.  The smell of sulfur floated in the air as a cloud passed over the sun.  There, under a roof next to a garage sat the URAL.  Sat might be too strong.  There it existed might be better.

The registration tag on the license plate indicated 2005 as the last legal time it was on the road.  The earth was slowly absorbing the URAL and a sense of sadness permeated the air.  The odometer showed less than 2000 miles and was explained by the owner as resulting from problems with the bike when it was new and the dealer setting it up improperly.  Those actions led to the repeated fouling of sparkplugs at the 60 mile mark and he eventually grew tired of replacing them and of the URAL in general that he parked it and walked away.  That's 2000 miles in 16 years.  Sweet.

Mechanical projects called to me despite the general hatred I have for machines.  The puzzle, the challenge,  some hard to describe experience sings out and I feel vulnerable to bad decision making.  Experience has proved over and over that they are black holes for cash, money, and spirit.  And they likely will never be completed.  In my head plays a film of my construction of a dune buggy on a custom chassis utilizing an engine from a 1963 Corvair Spyder.  With thousands of dollars invested when I left for college by mother sold it to someone for $300 while I was away -- less than the price of the headers I put on the engine.

And there's the 1949 Willys Jeep pickup truck that my father and I completely dismantled and sandblasted with loving care.  The engine to a speed shop to be rebuilt, time and sweat and cash invested only to turn it over, unfinished, to the buyer when he sold his farm.

Staring at the black URAL I could see myself cleaning out the garage, organizing my tools for an assault, preparing for a mechanical siege worthy of at least two write-ups at GarageJournal.com. I could feel my head being pulled closer and closer to the engine by URAL forces, vision dimming, reason evaporating, Paul dancing a jig, the seller dangling the $1200 price tag in my face...

And then a flame flickered inside me, a soft voice slowly rose in my mind speaking clearly, "Ride, son, ride.  Don't clean, don't dismantle, fix or modify.  Abandon the search for parts, the need to weld or paint or modify.  Ride, and ride again.  Waste not a minute of your life on such a project..."

And so it has passed.  The URAL awaits another rider.

Happiness is Not a Destination...

There is a moment before I press the starter button on the Vespa when everything becomes simple.  Even on cold mornings that requires a frustrating amount of time to put on, the moment when the ride begins is a door into a simple place.

Gordon Harkins displays a found object at Saint's Cafe.

Happiness is a strange thing.  I've learned over the years that it's not a destination.  I've heard stories that it's a state of mind.  And others have postulated it to be nothing more than a chemical reaction in  our brains resulting in an emotional reaction we collectively label happiness.

Most instructive to me is Thoreau's pondering:


Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder...

The butterfly appears while riding, and I shed the worries of the world and am grounded in the moments flying by on the road.

The past week saw the last of the snow evaporate and temperatures climb close to 60F.  I won't be sad to see the cold weather behind and warmer rides the norm.  In a few weeks these farm fields will grow green and the winter tires will come off the scooter.

Evenings are still cool but don't limit riding like frigid, sub-freezing ones not so far off.  In winter sighting riders is an infrequent occurrence.  Standing on the concrete deck of the parking garage I think I saw a butterfly...