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.  

Iron Butt Bun Burner

It is the fate of all of us to end up on the scrap heap, one way or another, whether we be machinery or  people. That thought was reinforced when I came across a new piece of trash on one of my dog walks, someone's formerly treasured ride in the mangroves. I wondered why anyone would disassemble a scooter and toss out the carcass as though it were merely a fish skeleton but I took this as an Awful Warning and reminded myself I am not ready to go out to pasture jut  yet. Thanks to good genes and lately tons of sweaty exercise I am feeling quite well thank you, strong and surprisingly fit which is as well as I plan to ride to Canada next week. Unlike this poor scooter which is never to be ridden again:

You can check out their web page for details but the Iron Butt Association is one of those groups that I was pleased to join despite the fact they were quite willing to have me for a member. I made a couple of rides a decade ago and enjoy membership number 39,523 in an organization that now boasts more than 60,000 riders. The idea is to cover a long distance in limited time and do it safely all while recording each step of the way to prove you did it. Then you get  a licence plate holder "Toughest Rider In The World" (very funny) and a certificate, but only when you have satisfied their volunteer examiners that  you completed the ride you claimed. Everything is documented by the rider during the ride as you can see I was ready for my 2010 ride to the Catskill Mountains of New York. I carried my paperwork  in the top box and signed off each stop during the 36 hours I spent in the saddle:

I put the gas station receipts and any restaurant or store receipts in the envelope and numbered them with each stop to prove I was there. This is the extract from my first ride, a 1000 mile "Saddlesore" in 24 hours the basic Iron Butt qualifier to Lake City and back, completed in a leisurely 21 hours:

That was on my 900cc Triumph Bonneville and now I want to try completing 1500 miles in 36 hours all the way to Niagara Falls.  I plan to leave Saturday morning at ten and arrive in Niagara, New York (not Canada!) before ten pm Sunday. This time I won't be riding my late lamented Triumph but instead  my new to me 200 cc Burgman scooter. Which fact makes this trip an adventure on a machine viewed as a beginner bike or merely a city commuter. I want to see how well the scooter performs on freeways and in hills and how much I enjoy riding what has turned out to be in fact my perfect commuter bike. In the land where cubic capacity rules all choices, and size makes a man manly, my choice of ride may seem eccentric or effete, but it is in a  sense a quest to seek out my motorcycling origins. The Burgman is actually a sensible machine, with a wind tunnel tested windshield, large seat, easy controls, ample storage and long foot boards in  a  seating position protected from the weather. What it has in common  with my first rides forty years ago is it has a small engine .

My first two motorcycles in the mid 70s were fire engine red Italian 350cc sportbikes and I rode them all over Europe and North Africa with luggage lashed to them and me crouched over them full of youthful bravado and joy. These days I see solid citizens riding huge machines with all the latest technology disdainful of  "small" motorcycles never mind scooters which are beneath consideration as travel machines. Yet when I was a youngster when motorcycle touring was becoming popular among the middle classes everyone  rode what they had and they had fun. A modern rider would look at my 1974 MV Agusta 350, a push rod air cooled twin with drum brakes and  ask themselves who in their right mind would go touring on this? I did, happily! I knew no better...and it cost me less than half a million lire lightly used.

The question becomes why do an Iron Butt at all? For me the answer is simple: I like a challenge and this effort pushes me far out of the Keys and in a hurry. I leave Saturday morning and by Sunday night I'm peering into Canada I hope. Great, right? Well, think of it as kinetic energy with the Iron Butt ride hauling me in a  hurry to the top of a very steep slide. After I get to the top all I have to do is let go and slide gracefully back down to Key West...and I plan to take four days touring to do that part of the program! Monday morning with the Iron Butt complete, the paperwork and receipts properly mailed in the stamped envelope I took with me, I have no more obligations to the world or anyone else. I ride for me and me alone. There I am: let loose on North America with all 18 horsepower of  Suzuki bliss with no one to answer to. That's worth an Iron Butt right there. With any luck I will have decent weather in August and so I have planned a zig zag ride home visiting friends as I go. 

I have bought a  mounting kit for my new iPhone 8 because even though the Iron Butt ride up is all Interstates necessary to maintain a high average speed,and easy to track, the way back will require me to insert the "Avoid Highways" option in my Google maps. I plan a meandering ride across Pennsylvania to see Steve and Virginia to meet Eric  and then South Carolina to make an overnight stop Wednesday in Savannah before returning to Florida Thursday for lunch with Bill in Jacksonville. I am really hoping this will be a fun way to explore the Burgman's capacity for all sorts of touring, fast and slow, mountainous and not. The phone will make touring easy, I use it in the car on all trips, but on the Burgman it will ride on this unobtrusive clip showing me the way.

All of this riding involves getting ready, making the scooter a tourer and me a long distance rider. I am confident I have put in enough miles since March to learn the scooter's foibles which are: none. So now I am busy checking the few additions I have purchased specifically for the ride.  The phone holder was a big one as I have never previously had a navigator mounted on the bike. God knows why not, they are brilliant devices. The Quad Lock is sleek and clean and comes with a waterproof cover for the phone. $100. ka-ching!

Tire sealer to reduce the chance of a flat. $12, and there is enough in one bottle for two applications.  I should ride with this stuff all the time, so this is another reason to appreciate the Iron Butt program as it forces you to make sensible preparation decisions good for daily riding. ADVRider forum members who ride off road swear by this stuff. I will also carry a puncture repair kit and an electric air pump, just in case.

In my cavernous under seat storage I will carry my waterproof Frogg Toggs and a bag of street clothes as you have  to look respectable when you are out in the world. Nowaays self standing underwear is a memory of ill laundered youth so I feel an obligation to carry some spares. 

I also bought a tail bag ($70 ka-ching!) to put my camera and my man purse and some water and some snacks and make them easily accessible...

 ...because the bag straps on with four built in bungees and lifts with the seat. Like it was made for the Burgman. Yay!

When I park the scooter I can easily unstrap it, take it by the handle and walk into the hotel with it. Its said to be rain resistant but I will line it with a garbage bag to keep the contents extra dry.

In addition the bag has some bungees on top and I'm thinking of carrying a peace-of-mind bottle of gas there. Sometimes on these Iron Butt rides you are tempted to push just a little bit further before stopping (unless you are in pee agony...) and this 30 oz bottle will give me an extra 20 miles with careful riding if I run the 2.8 gallon scooter tank dry. I ran the Bonneville dry on my first Iron Butt and it took some quick thinking and sloshing the fuel tank to get the engine started and into a gas station.

So that's the plan: leave from home just before ten, get my first gas receipt up the road which will give me my official start time and then ride to the Turnpike as fast as I can, where I shall settle in to ride I-95 from Fort Pierce, I-26 from Charleston, I-77 through Columbia and Charlotte to Wytheville, Virginia. Then US Highway 19 at Beckley West Virginia, then take I-79 to Pittsburgh and Erie, and I-90 to Buffalo and I-190 to Niagara. Piece of cake...Hoping for few road works and no accidents...I am a funny guy, because there will be all sorts of unexpected nonsense along the way and I know it already.My friend Webb who intelligently limits himself to driving sailboats says he's worried for me dealing with other drivers. He has a point, but like him on the water I shall rely on my experience and common sense and hope for the best. The thing is I am looking forward to this madness as much as Webb is looking forward to casting off and going sailing on the dangerous deep blue sea. Weird people, we are considering we could stay home and watch Netflix..

It will be a break from work, and hauling my lunch box  back and forth across the Keys...

 And most miserably a break from Rusty. I shall miss him terribly.

I shall come home a better man.

For an opposing view there is this essay by a rather splendid American writer who lives in Wales, one Chris Cope. He's a pretty good novelist and I support his motorcycle page with money, but he is an idiot when it comes to the Iron Butt, he rode in the cold and rain and fog of a Scottish summer:
Doing an Iron Butt Ride was Utterly Pointless.

Suzuki Burgman 200

Why I ask myself am I the only rider in North America who thinks the Baby Burgman motor scooter is the ideal ride? Perhaps it is because of where I live, in a land of 55 mph speed limits and ample free scooter parking. The Burgman 200 copes very well with both:

 In the world of motorcycling the US stands apart, a place of vast distances connected by amazing freeways, huge mountainous amphitheaters and desert landscapes all contained in one country that uses the same language, the same currency and by-and-large the same habits and customs with modest regional variations. It is I suppose hardly surprising that the motorcycling community has adopted the mantra that there is "no substitute for cubic inches" which, in a nation that firmly rejects metrification is a way of saying big is best. My Burgman at 200 cubic centimeters rates a mere twelve  cubic inches, laughably small in the land of Harley Davidson! But change is in the wind.

Just this month one of the last traditionally styled paper motorcycling monthlies, Rider has a review of three small adventure bikes, under Japanese Indian and German labels but all built in factories in the Far East where these types of bikes are just now coming into their own as toys for the emerging middle classes. Funnily enough they are also starting to appeal to rider sin the US  which brings me right back to my 360 pound 18 horsepower scooter.

I think in the land that developed the above mentioned theory that there is no substitute for cubic inches a modest 200 cc engine doesn't rate for those bad ass bikers. Indeed my scooter was originally purchased by a wife who wanted to ride with her husband until she lost her nerve. Lucky for me she did as I got a $5,000 scooter for just three grand. As I grow older I find myself more and more intrigued by the miniaturization of our world. Technology makes it possible to compress machinery and tools that used to be vast into smaller and smaller packages. As much as that is true of the silicon chip it is also true for motorcycles. Look at me, I was very happy with a 500 pound 900 cc Triumph which I rode for a decade and a hundred thousand miles:

So perhaps I am on the cutting edge of the go small movement? I don't think it's that, I think the pool of riders is just getting smaller and older. Harley Davidson sales are plummeting and their attempts to attract younger riders aren't working real well. Motorcycling is viewed as dangerous and not enough of us make it sound fun adventurous and exciting. Young people aren't driving and they certainly aren't riding and as we old guys age smaller bikes keep us on the road so it seems like geezers are still powering the market. Rider a long time advocate of small bikes, makes a point of saying in the article that these are not beginner's bikes, the fatal label that makes strong men afraid to ride small capacity bikes, these are capable touring machines.

So for someone like me who cares not one jot for fashion or hipness the Burgman is a severely practical answer to the mobility issues I live with. I am 23 miles from work (and play) in a year round mild climate and 75 to 80 miles per gallon on a scooter that is easy to ride and fun makes too much sense. I don't miss shifting gears especially as my arthritis in my left wrist won't go away and using a motorcycle clutch just aggravated it. I wasn't even riding the Triumph Bonneville much before Irma flooded my downstairs at home and wrecked the bike.

While I appreciate the economy and ease of riding and the practical storage on the Burgman it is also a whole load of fun. It's fast enough to put me out of the misery of slow poke cock-blocking drivers who think you can't pass on US One. It keeps up with freeway traffic so I am looking to make some long mainland trips on it when I can tear myself away from Rusty (my wife is much more obliging and likes her space). It is secure and relatively comfortable in heavy rain and I enjoy riding the thing. Check out the underseat trunk, so huge I don't yet find a need for a bulky rear top case:

With this scooter there comes an identity crisis. Am I a motorcyclist any more? I think I am because unlike most Americans I am not a fair weather weekend warrior, I would rather be riding than driving any day of the week. The way you look for the car keys when transport is called for is how I check for the scooter keys when I have to go somewhere. The only time I drive is when Rusty or my wife are involved. Perhaps I'm not a motorcyclist exactly but a rider. I don't even know if I will ever go back to a traditional motorcycle with gears and everything. There are scooters that are every bit as powerful as big motorcycles and more useful. However the Burgman can never be as sexy and appealing as a traditional Vespa. I still have one of those!

Unlike American riders I grew up on a mixture of motorcycles and Vespas like most European riders. Scooters were just another riding choice and these days of immense traffic congestion European riders are as much frustrated car drivers as motorcyclists. It's only in the US that scooters are objects of derision.

Perhaps I should have joined the crowd and gone for a small capacity motorcycle and many of them appeal to me. But for me the ease of use the practicality and low maintenance of the Burgman 200 combined with a  top speed of 80 mph which I rarely feel the need to exceed, makes me a very happy camper. Former motorcyclists perhaps? Whatever!

New Adventures

Life happens, as they say and sometimes life happens in ways you don't expect. I never expected to find myself owning a weird plastic covered Japanese scooter styled after a feet forward cruiser motorcycle. But here we are, my new ride the Suzuki Burgman 200 in a photo found on the web.It seems a heavy burden to lay on this 360 pound 18 horsepower scooter but the idea is to inject a little travel uncertainty into my life, which is decidedly too filled with routine. 

 I first saw the  Suzuki in New York in a dealership after reading about it and I was struck by the proportions and the well designed lines of the usually bulky plastic bodywork (known as "tupperware" to contemptuous motorcyclists). The seat is vast and apparently comfortable and low to the ground and every review reports a decent turn of speed topping out around 80 mph. Yet my heart has always been with Italian Vespas. When I owned a 2007 Vespa 250 it left me stranded too often to count. It recently appeared rather tired looking at Jiri's shop, running but rusty and careworn:

It was a comfortable fast ride when it worked but I was not willing to go back to the uncertainty of a non starting non running temperamental travel companion. My Vespa 150 as much as I love it can only just keep up with traffic and I have grown weary of defending myself from aggressive car drivers who resent being passed by a hairy old hobbit on a moped, even when they are distracted and driving excessively slowly. Furthermore I don't feel as though attempting even modest trips to the mainland is possible on a 60mph 150cc scooter. To do so once on a  dare or as part of some stunt would be entirely possible but to take my camera to routinely explore the Everglades is not within my grasp right now unless I take the car which is hardly an adventure. Hence the appearance of a larger more capable ride in my life.

Jiri my mechanic thinks I should ride a 400cc scooter like his Yamaha in lovely shiny blue, complete with carrier for his small dog...I went for a test ride and he has a point but these are massive beasts easily able to achieve 100 mph but crippled by bulk when it comes to parking or maneuvering 500 pounds of scooter through torturous Key West lanes. My idea was to have a small capable commuter that remains the essence of a scooter capable of occasional long distance trips for fun. Hence the relatively inexpensive Burgman I found lightly used in Tampa. I'd rather it be white but you can't have everything and I will going to pick it up on St Patrick's day chauffeured by my wife who will follow me as I ride it home.

 I am in no hurry to abandon my dog but I have been feeling rather trapped in my daily routines and I think my wife has noticed because she pushed me to make the change. Her argument is I need to go off with my camera and enjoy some solitude which is true. Rusty will always get his walks but a day spent riding and photographing at my pace would be pleasant and a good way to vary my rare days off. The reason I have not looked at motorcycles after my Bonneville drowned is principally because my arthritic left wrist makes changing gears painful.  I was coming to terms with this limitation wondering what to do when Irma drowned my dilemma in seven feet of angry salt water. I expect that in the not too distant future I will have to let a surgeon loose on my wrist and hopefully using a motorcycle clutch will again be a daily feature of my life. So far exercise and an automatic scooter have kept my wrist in only modest discomfort. 

So all things considered change is good, life is good and learning to ride a weird cruiser scooter will be a new and I trust enjoyable challenge. Old age need not diminish us nor alter our essential natures.

My next painful task is to list this little beauty for  sale. I am in no hurry though my wife is correct - three scooters is far too many. She is so unsentimental and practical, lucky for me.