So, there flew the gauntlet, right off the page of
Skootin Old Skool, in remarking on a recent post in
A Scooter in Turkey, which looked at working scooters,and very picturesque they are too. The Seattle based Old Skool Orin said something to the effect that there is nowhere in the US that would see such examples of working scooters. I felt this was a challenge that needed to be answered.
Key West is full of working scooters, like the examples above,one ridden by a man who anywhere else in the US wouldn't be seen dead scooting to the office, and below that a little Yamaha Jazz, worse for wear but fully functional and obviously used as a daily rider. This gent casually skipped off the scooter, not even bothering to park it properly and sauntered off into Albertson's grocery store:
And Key Plaza, in New Town, has set aside lots of scooter only parking for customers. This sun worn sign shows the parking has been around for a while:
As has this daily rider with his 250cc Honda Nighthawk complete with saddlebags, drum brakes and flowing beard:
Because this is America a lot of what one sees here doesn't look as exotic as one might find in Turkey, in the mysterious and seductive Levant, but the same principles apply. A Tomos two stroke moped might be hard to find on US city streets if one isn't in Key West, where this Slovenian work horse finds favor with the large Slavic migrant population:
Baskets are a feature of mopeds, scooters and bicycles that are used around town to haul anything and everything.
Imagine my chagrin when I spotted a man riding away from Home Depot with four bags of potting soil wedged on his scooter between his legs...and my camera was not to hand! He elicited no attention as that sort of scooter transport is normal around here. Saddlebags show up all over the place too, on motorcycles...
...and Yamaha's ugliest scooter ever, the 250cc Morphous which a lot of people thought looked really cool, before they stopped importing it:
On the more traditional front we can see Honda Elites in various cubic capacities, this one, possibly a 125cc on the Boulevard with two riders, most likely snowbirds (the matching helmets are the giveaway, a not very local touch) out shopping:
In Florida helmets are optional for riders over 21 years of age with medical insurance, and the state also issues motorcycle tags with the notation "under 21" for youngsters. I didn't see the tag on these two joyriders on North Roosevelt Boulevard ("The Boulevard") but I expect they are over 21:
And when one is driving down the street in a car one shouldn't be surprised if one is accosted by a wizened man old enough to be one's grandfather puttering along on a scooter:
It may not be Turkey but I don't think there are too many men like him riding scooters around their home towns. As for actual working scooters deliveries are frequently made on two wheels around town. These vehicles typically use ice chests:
Or my favorite 50cc ride, the Honda Metropolitan (known, confusingly enough in Canada as a Jazz):
And then there is the factory designed delivery vehicle from TGB, which comes in two models, a 50cc (pictured here at Jenna's deli) or the 150cc 4 stroke, both with built in delivery boxes on the back. I fancy the 150 as a touring vehicle if I get the urge to see America slowly, as I did in 1981 on my Vespa 200:
Aside from getting 100 miles per gallon (40 kilometers to the liter), scooters also offer the bonus of easy parking which in Key West's congested Old Town gets critical in winter when tourist season is at it's height. The city offers lots of parking spots for two wheelers, though scooter riders do get creative as well, while some riders just dump their vehicles in automobile spots treating them as though they were cars:
Chinese scooters have made huge inroads into the Key West with their low prices but Kymcos, Yamahas and Hondas still compete. There are a few Italians, some Aprilias a very few Vespas and Victor the Honda dealer on Southard Street is now also a Genuine dealer so a few of those have showed up. Of classics there aren't too many. This sad Vespa sidecar doesn't run and the Sebago employee who staffs it on Duval street told me that if it were running it would be complex and expensive to park it as an advertising tool. I have no idea why but it is something very bureaucratic so he is reduced to pushing it home, ignominiously at day's end:
I also came across this delightful Honda CB125 on the Boulevard at Napa Auto parts. It had just shy of 7,000 miles (12,000 kms) on the clock and it looked great:
On the subject of classics this home in New Town has been slowly working on restoring a couple of Honda Fours from the 1970's here flanked by an older model Yamaha Zuma one of the most popular scooters in town, now also available as a 125cc:
The Chinese scooters like to look cool by using Italian names like this Taiwan Golden Bee,
fast motorcycles in Italian:
Or this TGB model called the
Key West, named for the town that lives and breathes scooters:
Then again the fashionable home will want to have a scooter that matches the front door. Cool huh?
And if you live in the city you will start to recognize vehicles and their parking spots. I like this Harley Road King on White Street:
Or there's this one, a BMW 650 Dakar that I've seen around town ridden by a guy who may even be older then me.I saw the bike at Jiri's motorcycle shop on Stock Island and he said the owner rides all the time, a bit like me I suppose:
My own Bonneville I photographed at an uncharacteristic distance, at the Big Pine Shopping Center. The Triumph usually looms so large in my life I thought it looked funny dwarfed by the vast expanses of cement in the rear of the shopping center:
For those not equipped with their own working scooters rentals are widely available. These of course are usually enjoyed by tourists so they are true working scooters:
John in Turkey challenged me to find a working scooter with three people riding, which I failed to do, not least because that would be illegal, no doubt. However I did manage to find this particular pair riding happily (and illegally) down Duck Avenue:
Certainly Key West doesn't look much like anywhere I've seen in Scooter in Turkey, and the two wheelers won't look as exotic or unusual as those photographed by John, but Key West, by any standards, has a healthy and vibrant population of working scooters.
Suddenly the tire was sinking and it was all I could do to force the pedals round to keep my balance. I found another patch of rock, paused, gave it up for a bad job and rolled back through the mud, watching great clods of clay stick to the pedals, the frame, the wheels, and fall onto the hubs. I stayed upright:
I cleaned up as best I could riding hard and using bits of dried grass to wipe the bike down. The next day I was parking the car at the police station prior to unloading the bike for a ride around town when one of the senior detectives came by. She paused and stared at my bicycle perched on the car rack. "Hmm," she murmured, "I recognize this stuff," she picked a piece of dried clay off the side of the tire and tested it between her fingers. I watched her wondering what on earth she was thinking. "Reminds me of when I was a kid," Brenda said smiling at the happy memories. "I used to play in this stuff all the time." And she walked off. Really I need to get used to working around people with guns. I have no skeletons in my closet. 
I admit it: this is the time of year I tend to get cranky and it's got nothing to do with hallmark holidays. Its the visitors on the roadways. They are everywhere, crowding out the city of Key West jamming Highway One, dithering at intersections and slowing down on the bridges to admire the views. Getting around is getting impossible, and this happens every year and every year I struggle to maintain my equanimity in the face of driving stupidity. For a start, why do snowbirds and tourists who have no schedule to keep, get on the roads during commute hours and clog everything. This is North Roosevelt Boulevard at 5pm at Salt Run Creek:
Looking at this picture one has to wonder why lane splitting isn't allowed in Florida...And while I'm on the subject of lane control check this next sequence out. I took these pictures in the car just after crossing Cow Key Bridge into the City of Key West. The first sign reads, Right Lane Go At All Times, which is a simple enough instruction you'd think. But at the triangle where Highway One joins North and South Roosevelt Boulevards, traffic making a right into the city stalls. This makes me crazy because the right lane merging with North Roosevelt gets its own lane. Barring pedestrians at the crosswalk, there is no need to stop! Just take the corner carefully and stay rigidly in your own lane.
Instead just about here visitors lose their nerve and come to a dead stop backing up traffic all over the place... when the mantra should be right lane, Go at all times...
Because once through the pedestrian crosswalk the road into the city is wide open, and the lane to the left of the white line is for traffic coming up from South Roosevelt from behind, and that's what unnerves visitors. Your lane is for you alone no matter who is coming up behind:
I can fulminate all I want and I know it won't get better so I am desperately trying to bear myself in patience until they all go home again...leaving lots of money behind we hope. However the crowding isn't all bad, and there are lots of new motorcycles on the streets for me to ogle. I saw a maroon Vespa 250 in the meadows and it made my heart go pitter patter as it looked just like mine:
That is one way to go in the Keys, this is another, trim compact and ready to ride fast:
But if you want to wander the streets of Key West checking out the contents of the garbage cans a good old fashioned pedal tricycle may be just the thing:
I prefer my Bonneville all the same:
Which would be the large one to the right, in the picture, not the silver Yamaha scooter.
I don't molest anything much, certainly not traps. If you do, and you get caught the fine can be $10,000 which in our debased currency is still real money. Plus you lose all your friends and neighbors who previously trusted you will no longer be inclined to do so. This next sign is a simple explanation...
...of why your animal should have a tag attached to the collar. Much less stress all round. Which brings me to the next one which encourages...what? Ho hum, the little dears must be off their meds.
________________________
I am clearly not a businessman, nor am I an artist, but it seems to me the world would be just fine for a little while if artists stuck to art and businessmen to commerce. "Body wash" (whatever that is) has nothing to do with marine art, that I do know. No matter how prettily it is wrapped.
And that's all she wrote today.
We got a call from Mrs Sailorman saying they had dropped anchor in Key West on their way north to a consulting job and did we want to do lunch? This is a couple we had a passing aquaintance with when we lived briefly in Ft Myers on our boat. They call when they are in Key West and we have had a couple of lunches with them in the past and this year it seems the tradition was to be maintained. My wife and I don't have much of a world view in common with them but one listens and tries to learn. So there we were at the Shrimp Shack of a sunny winter afternoon ordering grouper sandwiches for us and shrimp and fries for them.
I find these kinds of encounters instructive because I get to hear how the world works form a different point of view, even though the point of view itself frequently leaves my head spinning. Sailorman is one of those people I like to describe as having a bluff exterior masking a bluff interior. He pontificates on subjects with a no holds barred attitude that is refreshing and somewhat confusing as he expects me to share those opinions. The "ladies" were inside placing the orders and we were outside holding down a table in a crowded seating area, and lacking sports for common ground economic bailouts were the opening conversational gambit. There at least we could share some scepticism, as clearly our first modest $700 million "bailout" has done bugger all good for anybody, except the jerks pocketing the bonuses. Though I would cautiously welcome a recovery plan that might hope to do some good, Sailorman thinks government stinks in every way at every level. He is one of those people who believes that government can do nothing right. And the autoworkers...well, of course they want too much money to raise their families. A whole $27 an hour i was quick to point out the famously incorrect $80 figure includes costs that are paid out to former employees in pensions and health care benefits ( damn those benefits!).
And the fact that I work for the government, in my albeit modest capacity gets overlooked in the smirking runt of the conversation that relegates government to a level of incompetence worthy only of disgust. This from a man living off a buy out from AT&T, his steady employer for decades, that gave him a large sum of money to quit which which he bought a home and took to a life of pottering about and sailing. Not exactly government but god knows government-like when one remembers American Telephone and Telegraph's monopoly that enabled him to work and retire on such generous terms. The irony of his fulminations against car workers seeking similar compensation packages was completely lost on him.
