Downpour

Summer is rainy season in the Keys when sudden thunderstorms sweep down and deposit buckets of water amid all the drama of heavy black clouds, sudden winds and rolling thunder. 

The temperature drops twenty degrees, landmarks disappear in the murk and half an hour later the only sign of the sudden disturbance is wet surfaces steaming in the reemerged sunshine.

So it was when I went into town for exercise as usual followed by a snap decision to cut my hair. I saw the black cloud lurking but I had my waterproofs and anyway, how bad could it be I asked myself. Pretty bad actually, as rain descended with ferocity and instant flooding followed.

I cowed under an awning for a while and made a transoceanic call to Florence in Italy, totally free on WhatsApp.  I am still amazed by technology and making free calls around the world blows me away. 

After that amusement passed and the rain eased a little I got going wrapped in plastic and picking my way through deeply flooded intersections wondering how the Burgman's belt drive would cope. Fine as it turned out but it was a test  as flood waters swirled around the floorboards.. 

 I wasn't alone on two wheels and others manged the streets with more aplomb than I:

 Oddly enough there wasn't enough wind to make the ocean boil o there was still boat traffic wandering around between squalls:

 The sudden weather onslaught brought it's own beauty:

I never bothered to take my helmet off as it was still raining. Imagine my surprise when it started to rain date palm fronds and one hit my head with a loud clunk. Lucky I was wearing my helmet as it turned out. 

I got home with feet soaked through but for the rest only mildly damp. ten miles from Key West skies were blue and sunny and there wasn't the slightest hint of the drama I had ridden through. So it is around here in summer.

Motorcycle Obsession

(I wrote this essay for an online publication and publish it today here in its original form on the first anniversary of my catastrophe). 

I was laying on my back looking up at the blue Florida sky, which wouldn't have been so bad had I found myself there by choice, but I was in the middle of Highway One and I found I couldn't move. My right leg felt spongy and out of place and it occurred to me I might perhaps have amputated it after I flew across the hood (the bonnet) of the car that cut me off. People were gathering around my prone form and I started to feel like Kafka's beetle, a metamorphosis was apparent and it was obvious death was coming for me. I felt strangely at peace, annoyed I was out of time, but quite warm and comfortable as though wrapped in a healing blanket, drifting off to my appointment with the hereafter.

That I didn't die last August 31st was thanks to the remarkable medical care I received, paid for almost entirely by my excellent municipal health care plan offered by my employers, the City of Key West where I dispatch police and fire for a living. It seemed grossly unfair to me that I was cut down while traveling serenely to my night shift, in a line of cars tooling along at a perfectly legal 45 mph. My Suzuki Burgman 200 was totaled in the wreck and I spent twelve days in Intensive Care l where my pelvis was rebuilt with rebar and metal plates, my right thigh was reset where it was twice broken, not amputated,  and then two months in a rehab hospital in Miami where my right knee and left shoulder were allowed to heal on their own and I slowly learned to move and eventually walk again. I lay in my hospital bed with too much time to think and all I could move was my right arm. It's not easy posting to Facebook flat on your back with IVs in both arms, a tube up your nose and only your right hand to hold the phone and tap the keyboard. 

On August 18th 2018, at ten o'clock in the morning of a Saturday I rode away from my home and took off up the Keys aiming for Niagara Falls, New York 1500 miles away.  I had a mad idea I could try to complete the ride in less than 36 hours and add another timed long distance ride to the two I had already accomplished on my previous bike, a 2007 Triumph Bonneville 865. In 2008 I had managed a one thousand mile "Iron Butt" ride followed in 2010 by a "Bun Burner" 1500 mile ride on my Bonneville.This time to make it interesting I was going to give it a shot on a 200cc scooter, the smallest Burgman sold in the United States. My doctor had diagnosed arthritis creeping into my left wrist so when Hurricane Irma flooded and wrecked my Bonneville, ten years old with a hundred thousand very happy trouble-free miles on the clock from new, it was time to consider riding an automatic. 

I have been riding continuously since  1970 when my Italian mother bought me a Vespa 50 in the hope I would grow up to love motorcycles. She died shortly thereafter but the seed was sown and I have spent the 50 intervening yeas riding and traveling as much as I can. I have always had a mixture of motorcycles and Vespas in my life and I have never made a distinction between my first full sized bike an MV Agusta 350, and my scooters. Since then I have owned a Gold Wing, rented Harleys, and Indians trying out the cruiser lifestyle which never suited me.  I have toured on BMWs and assorted singles and four cylinder Universal Japanese Motorcycles but the best trip I ever took was a ride across the US and Mexico in 1981 on a brand new Vespa P200. I spent six months on the rode inspired by the movie Easy Rider yet drawn to the simplicity dependability and ease of use of the humble Vespa. At the time the US was restricted to a national 55 mph speed limit so the  63 mph scooter fit in with traffic flows just fine. I have tried to recreate that era by buying another P200 and found it to be too slow with terrible brakes and poor reaction times in modern traffic. 

Testing Eric's P200 in Virginia. Great fun but very old fashioned.

The Burgman 200 was my first Japanese "banana boat" scooter and it blew me away with it's mixture of performance, comfort, economy and dependable low maintenance operation. Of course if you are young and looking for thrills and a chance to get laid a modest 200cc scooter will cramp your style, and even though the Baby Burgman will just about touch 80 GPS miles per hour it is not a thrill ride for those seeking absolute acceleration and performance obviously.  You need to stick to Gixxers in Suzuki's range for that. But if you are an old foge looking to extend your riding years and recreate the seat-of-our-pants riding style of our youth when we pressed into service whatever unsuitable ride we owned for a summer touring vacation (holiday) then the Baby Burgman is the pick of the litter in my opinion. 

I tell you I took off that August morning with no real expectation of making it to Niagara Falls in time to complete the Iron Butt "Bun Burner" 36-hour ride. But I was going to do my best on my 200cc banana boat. It was a revelation as we cruised up I-95 on the Florida East coast at 71 GPS miles per hour. Fuel mileage dropped to 65 miles per US gallon (add ten percent for Imperial gallons) and the ride was perfectly comfortable holding my own with traffic in the two right lanes occasionally passing a slow poke. As night fell rain came on and the Burgman cut through the night with impressive headlights and great wind protection keeping me comfortable through South Carolina and most of North Carolina. I rode up Fancy Gap in Virginia, a seriously steep incline, fast enough no car caught up to me and when I plateaued at the top it was dawn on Sunday and I was 500 miles from Niagara Falls with 16 hours to meet my deadline. Piece of cake (piss).

The mountains of West Virginia were a trail - 75 mph downhill, slingshotting onto the long uphills where my speed dropped to 60 or even 55 on really long stretches. It was here I wished I had a T-Max or a Burgman 650, which would be necessary if I lived among the mountains but in my home state of Flatistan especially commuting the slow paced Keys my 200 was plenty, I concluded. I rolled smoothly along the south shore of Lake Erie and made my way past parks filled with sunbathers in Buffalo until I reached my hotel 1550 miles from my home. I did it in 32 hours and the Burgman was running fine. It burned not one drop of oil and the only casualty was the baffling inside the muffler (silencer) that blew out in a specially deep West Virginia pot hole. Now my modest ride sounded embarrassingly like a Harley wannabe. That problem solved itself in the wreck two weeks later when the bike was pretzled and written off along with the rotten muffler (silencer).

Before the ride I had told my wife not to worry as I was statistically much more likely to wreck on my commute close to home. I should never have said anything of course as I managed to jinx myself pretty badly. The good news is I've found another 2014 Burgman 200 with just 400 miles on the clock, as apparently not everyone loves to ride this crazy machine. As soon as I can walk properly, in a few weeks I hope, I'll be back in the saddle and this summer when I set off for Montauk, New York (1550 miles from my home) on my next Iron Butt I have a pretty good idea I'll get there in plenty of time. No more wrecks for a while though, I am quite enjoying every day I am alive; it's gift to be able to walk even with a cane and the prospect of riding, even a modest Baby Burgman, is quite the boost. I am ready.

1400 words.  Michael Beattie. Cudjoe Key, Florida.

Photos 

August 31st, 2018:

What I expected to be my last self portrait. I forgot to smile.

Helicopter ride:

Wytheville, Virginia 19th August, dawn and not warm.

Pennsylvania, cold and wet. NOT Florida.

Touch and go

Getting Better

Today:

Scooter Delivery

Eric called me from the road and said there was a problem. Oh dear I thought, the scooter has blown up. Never mind, I bought it pretty damned cheap with a credit card, no huge loss as I haven't even seen it yet! Eric had found it on Cycletrader offered by a  BMW dealer in Houston who clearly had no desire to hold on to this stupid scooter with only 400 miles on the clock... so Eric said he would fly from Virginia to Texas and ride it from Texas 1400 miles to my home...and now there was a problem on the road. "A man at a gas station pulled a knife on me," he said. 

That was a bit over the top dramatic for me. The day before Eric's biggest problem had been riding out of the dealership in a rainstorm that blew up minutes after he got the bike from the salesman (below, road pictures by Eric the Virginian). He got rained on along much of the trip to Florida but he did avoid the big freeze that hit a week later and dropped temperatures from 65 to 35  degrees. So there was that.

 And as he rode Eric sent me pictures of his various stops along the Interstate. His encounter with the would-be robber ended well as Eric, six feet tall and fully armored in his riding gear convinced the robber to back off and Eric rode away in one piece. That encounter could have gone much worse and its after effect was to give me anxiety about what else could have gone wrong that week. I don't think I will do this sort of third party thing again. If I can't ride it I won't buy it. I'm not risking someone else for my passion.

However there is no doubt Eric's enthusiasm for the purchase and his volunteering to use his own airline miles to make the round trip has been a huge morale boost for my crippled self and even if I can't ride for a few more weeks the Burgman 200 is here, under the house and ready to go. Just like the one that got wrecked last August.

The funny thing about this whole mad exercise is that I am now well known in scooter circles as the guy who likes the little appreciated Suzuki Burgman 200. In a country that reveres size over all things and Harley Davidsons are the stodgy mainstay of the riders who go with the fashionable pack, a modest little scooter seems an eccentric choice of ride. Indeed scooters are so under appreciated the community of riders across this country is only a  handful of enthusiasts compared to the legions of identically attired riders of "American Iron." So when Eric noticed this grossly undervalued Suzuki he knew who would in North America would appreciate it: Me! 

He made it of course after meeting up with some other scooterists in Central Florida, and finally finding sun and heat. After we had greeted each other, and it had been half a year since we last met up at his place in Spotsylvania, we talked about the little scooter that could. Eric too has been converted by riding the 200. He said it handled his size admirably and easily kept up with freeway traffic above 70 mph without having to go flat out. At speeds under 45 mph he was getting 90 miles to the gallon while the weather protection served him as well as it does me and I'm half a foot shorter than him. 

I was delighted to see my scooter at home now with just 2,000 miles on the clock and still brand new. Good job Eric!

With a weekend ahead of us, before his Monday flight home to Virginia, it was time to show Eric the Keys, a place not known to him. And luckily I was off work, so I had the time to be a guide. We sketched out a few plans lounging on the deck at my house.

As it was snowing in Virginia - ha ha!- we first went to the beach. For a while Eric tried to convince me I should enjoy seasons as he does each year. Chopping wood, sitting by the fireplace etc etc...But I know myself and I like summer heat and Virginia in summer is lovely for about three months. The Keys are lovely year round if you don't mind the heat and can afford air conditioning.

This picture below I took for him to send to those wishing it were summer: 

 Smathers Beach was looking perfect for a snow refugee:

"Yes," Eric muttered. "I could live here" and he probably could as his work is portable but I'm not at all sure the off beat aspects of life in the Keys quite struck home. I did try to explain to him how that works but he had a dreamy look in his eye and a beer in his hand. Who among us has not at some point dreamed of settling down in a place we went on vacation?

Hogfish I thought expressed the Keys state of mind nicely but Eric worried his shrimp might be frozen. I pointed over my shoulder at the shrimp boats in Safe Harbor fifty yards away but he was unconvinced until he finally tasted them and pronounced them the best shrimp he'd ever had. 

 They were very good of course:

I chose the hogfish (also not frozen of course!), a sandwich eccentrically served with melted cheese and mushrooms in some peculiar form of surf and turf lunch.

Naturally the reef Conch Cruiser was sitting outside all ready to blow Eric's brains and his camera lense. Clearly he was no longer in Kansas -  or rather Virginia.

Eric likes to use his Vespa 946 scooter to check out historic sites around his state which has plenty of such attractions. It seemed to me the Key West Cemetery might be of interest and I showed him the plot dedicated to the sailors blown up in the USS Maine. He spent a  fair bit of time checking it out:

Eric is a community oriented dude and has been working on plans in his hometown to build a scholarship program for needy youngsters so I knew exactly who he had to talk to. We arranged to meet at Cuban Coffee Queen downtown. 

Chuck manages a very successful scholarship program in Monroe County so the two of them got chatting away. Wayne and I caught up on the daily details of life...

 ...and I wielded my iPhone to record the moment when I was surrounded by men in red shirts.

At home Eric pondered life and his work load while I took a nap with my dog who never misses a walk even when I have guests. 

 I don't think Eric, as much as he missed his wife and dogs missed the  snow at that moment:

And the scooter really was secure downstairs, and not a figment of my imagination.