Jersey Biker Takes Me Riding

The day started out looking rather bleak to me 40 degrees and foggy in the mountains over Asheville. Not my kind of perfect day for a motorcycle ride. Keep reading.

Jersey Biker and I exchanged comments on my preferred motorcycle website, ADVrider, and we had a couple of things in common. We are older riders, I have my family connection to Jersey Rider's adopted home town and we like motorcycles and scooters. I showed up at our rendezvous in my car, he was much cooler:

Breakfast was in hip West Asheville and we had biscuits the size of cat heads...I had mine with eggs, grits and local pork sausage. Beat that! I also had Ethiopian goat coffee which was better than it sounds.

Look at that ridiculous Russian contraption. 750cc of 70mph three wheeled weirdness.

Jersey Biker has his up for sale. I guess his figured out how to ride it and it's lost it's glamour. Or something. My wife thinks it's cute, but not cute enough to follow us home. I rode it round the parking lot and it was a blast. It's challenging and slightly scary so of course it's a skill I will need to master before I die.

In the sidecar I look like a more than usually crumpled circus bear.

What a grotesque view of the road. This thing is in my future. It will be a while but one day...

On a more traditional note I rode the bike that came into Jersey Biker's life almost by accident. I really enjoyed the Street 500, Harley's attempt to lure new, younger and female riders to their marque. They should have done this year's ago instead of mucking up Sportsters by cutting their suspension and making them overweight with rubber mounting to kill vibrations. This bike is small, vibration-free and oddly cramped. It wasn't uncomfortable but I felt perched on it with not enough room for my short legs. I found the rev limiter once and I wasn't going fast and the gearbox needs to be used to keep it in the power band. But the controls are light, the gearbox is smooth and running the corners is enormous fun. This machine would make a great all round ride customizable with all those Harley accessories. I like this bike, it's not expensive and it will do a lot of touring commuting and carefree riding for no cost and lots of fun. Harley know what they are doing, and it's retro competition for the Bonneville, especially in the 750cc version.

Then I tried the dreaded maxi scooter, which is like a recumbent bicycle with a 600cc engine and total weather protection.

Jersey Biker loves his Honda Silver Wing scooter, he's had three and they are his favorite ride. He has the world's best riding country in his back yard. I've ridden in lots of places and Appalachia and the Blue Ridge are fantastic. It's a mix of farmland, hill ridges, woods, rivers, villages, no traffic no people and extraordinary roads and views. We were riding not photographing so you'll have to take my word for it. This is a man with a great retirement plan:

I stopped us to grab a few pictures as we approached the Parkway. A sport bike approached and stopped. A young man said he was breaking in his new tires and brake pads and we chatted a bit before he took off.

Had I had a Honda 600 when I was 26... He did say he had fallen off once but he was still out riding. Good man.

We stopped at the top and talked about life and motorcycles and everything. For me, after 18 months of not riding the mountains here or in Italy, this two hour meander was a breath of fresh air clearing my head and my heart. I was laughing most of the way.

The Silver Wing. Much more capable than it looks. Comfortable, planted and with an excellent transmission with no lag at all. I only ride it a few miles but I got into it. I'm not yet ready to give up a geared motorcycle for the comfort and convenience of a maxi scooter but I'm glad I got a taste.

That little Harley, the minx! Windshield, saddle bags, time off and money. California here I come! Who needs a thousand pound monster to roll coast-to-coast?

What a great day.

Thank you Jersey Biker, till next time.

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Key West Rides

I went by the old Lemonade Stand art studio on my lunch break and posed the Vespa for some pictures.

It was goofy sticking my old Vespa into the painted Bahama Village street scene but I enjoyed playing around for a bit with my new-to-me iPhone camera. A young kid with a delivery moped pulled in alongside and started asking me about the Vespa, joking about me selling it to him. Hell no I said it's taken me too long to get it sorted out. At which point the damned thing refused to start...so I pulled the plug and found it oily after riding around town at low rpm so I cleaned it and adjusted the air/fuel mixture screw. Which skills and the sight of a tool kit must have persuaded the modern youth that I was half a mechanic because he asked me to look at an oil leak on his scooter.

Like the t-shirt says, I'm no gynecologist but I'll take a look...I poked around and diagnosed a split oil tank and told him not to overfill it but make sure he has oil in the tank or he'll seize. And take it to Andy's for a proper diagnosis. It's weird how people trust strangers with no visible qualifications.

It was, after that encounter a silent and empty village, so I stopped in the middle of the road for a picture. Why I appreciate Key West: old architecture, dim street lights, and at this hour no one ( else) to bother me.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, an over quoted thought but when I stopped for some pre-work caffeine and some people watching from the deli bench on Whitehead Street I noticed this green thing was believed to be an object of beauty:

The "island chopper" seat, the extended forks, all bright green and the ironic tag, appealed to passrsby. In my head the tag referred more to the style, as factory stock Harleys are actually quite sturdy useful tourers as long as you don't want to lean over too far. But this expensive exercise in styling seems like a waste of a good bike to me.

I was in a minority opinion though. Can you imagine the expense, beyond the basic $20,000 bike? And all its good for is going to the Green Parrot?

Well, anyway, there it is.

And then I had another human interaction over my antique Vespa. Parking was crowded and I gave up my spot to a waiting Yamaha Vino 50 whose rider it turns out lives not far from me up the Keys. He was surprised I commuted from Cudjoe on my antique. I told him owning an old scooter is like being a secret society member, a whole world of parts suppliers mechanics and owners out of public view but connected by the Internet and a weird need to own Old where New will do. I could see the wheels in his mind turning.

Driving up the turnpike I had a "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" moment. He was older wearing a helmet and shorts in suitably casual style, his passenger was younger and the bike was an 80s Honda with a rectangular headlight.

You don't often see old Universal Japanese Motorcycles cruising the Turnpike at 70 miles per hour and I wondered what they were doing.

There has to be a motorcycle sub culture in Miami that isn't old farts on Harleys or young kids on sport bikes. Perhaps this is evidence of something else?

What do I know. It was my turn to be a zombie in a car. Sigh.

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Spring Morning, Veteran's Park

All I know is that it's getting warm, not hot because I still find the morning ride home rather cool. But they say Spring is here officially so they must be right. It looked like Soring the other morning with enough humidity in the sky to make dawn spectacular.

Let me say straight up it was nothing to do with me. I just wanted to test Camera+ said to be an easy and good quality application for my new iPhone and I wanted to test it. So I drove to my favorite east facing beach with my dog after work one morning. The sky did not disappoint either me or the dog lovers in a rental car who were also up early at Veteran's.

I had no idea the eastern sky would be on fire over Marathon at the northern end of the Seven Mile Bridge.

 

It was cool enough even by seven in the morning for Cheyenne to enjoy stumping back and forth sniffing and rooting around the trash cans. I have a higher aesthetic so I looked east and enjoyed the show.

The wind had died down at last and all was still.

The "noir" effect in the iPhone looks rather good I think. I love my iPad and I am coming to terms with the iPhone. I loved the heft of my HTC Android and the camera was great so now I just have to re-learn some skills. And as I am a stick-in-the-mud I hate change.

 

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Sunday Ephemera

A collection of pictures...some appeared on my Facebook some in motorcycle fora I frequent, some just got left behind in my Picasa account as they didn't fit with any essay I was writing. Some of them aren't necessarily great pictures in the technical sense but they all speak to me at some level.

Obviously I have been enjoying my old scooter and that involves lots of night riding and I've enjoyed that too. Playing with scooter and camera...

This one I took from the car stuck in traffic on the Cow Key Bridge. Getting stuck in traffic lines has been a feature of Spring Break this year, so I was kind of jealous of the cyclists streaming by on the bridge bike path. Then I saw the local dude with headscarf and luggage juxtaposed with the carefree, luggage-free tourist.

Spring Break. I know I should have gone to the beach but I figure there's plenty of bikini clad young women online. Go find 'em.

Older folks there are aplenty, as always.

I stopped by Sandy's as a I do from time to time and I got myself a styrofoam cup full of Cuban espresso coffee. I guess I am man enough to sink a colada. I wasn't so tired after I dealt with that caffeine bomb.

I found myself in Marathon for reasons I cannot recall and I met my wife at her one room school house. It's really a three room schoolhouse but the concept is that of one teacher for many students, in this case adults. And one stranger gingerly picking his way across the lawn keeping a wary eye on the lion in the grass.

The deli next to the Marathon post office offers a remarkable selection of wines cheese and liquor and they also make sandwiches offering a place to sit on the porch out front. Unfortunately they also store empty boxes out front which my wife loves as she knows where to getboxes when she needs them...the things that matter!

And while I was there I spotted a motorcycle that wasn't a Harley for once, but a small Yamaha single cylinder bike in urgent need of luggage. I loved how it sounded and that he was making maximum use of the bike to carry stuff but what a pain it is to ride with a backpack...

This is me picking up my brand new Stella, an Indian built scooter, from the Miami dealer. Long ago I longed for a two stroke Vespa and I believed the advertising thinking this thing would fill the void in my life. I rode it home 130 miles from Miami and 2800 miles later the oil pump broke and the engine was scrap. Great quality machine, slow and constantly losing parts.

Amid great rejoicing I wonder if I might not have found at last a truly waterproof boot for less than a hundred bucks. Designed for hikers and said to be totally waterproof I am excited about riding through summer with dry feet. Of course they are also said to be quite warm in a hot climate so I may need to be prepared to have back up footwear available...$80 delivered and a pair of loafers in my locker at work. Not bad.

I saw this guy watching the young spring breaker come out of Dions and head to her Jeep. Nothing malicious, just youthful longing. And I thought of the old man behind him with a Coke and a camera and an old scooter.

Sunrise from Niles Channel Bridge, Mile Marker 26, taking Cheyenne for a walk.

I was lounging in my beach chair reading, my snoring dog next to me when a young woman came up and asked me to take her picture. She addressed me as "sir" which I thought was exactly how I'd like to be addressed by everybody from here on, but in the event the mark of respect unwedged me from my chair and I walked over to handle their phone for them. Then I dug mine out and took my own memento of these two young people who missed their flight home to Savannah and decided on the spurof the moment to buy a brand new Jeep and drive home. My kind of adventurers.

My pink iPhone matches my pink IPad which matches my Crocs. You have to be a manly man to pull off certain things.

I love my dog and sometimes I watch her stump up the stairs carefully and deliberately one by one. I get this overwhelming feeling of tenderness when I hear her thump-thumping slowly and steadily up to the house. Sometimes she accepts my offer of a lift and I carry her 108 pounds up to the top in an undignified lump in my arms but her tail wags when I put her down next to the potted plants at the top.

Buying the iPhone was a bit traumatic for me as I don't like change but it had to be done for business reasons plus the fact that Verizon can't get me a decent signal inside my house. AT&T has a much stronger signal over the Keys.

From Facebook this picture of Jack Riepe from 1975. I posted a. Comment to the effect "so promising- so tragic." He threatened to write about me in retaliation.

The picture below was taken a little later, our Christmas postcard from 1999 taken in the waters off Panama's Isla Contadora before we tackled the canal. Our dogs Emma and Debs ride with us all the way to Key West from San Francisco; they had fun but put up with a lot

That's it for this set of random pictures.

Enjoy your Sunday!

 

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