Niagara Falls Or Bust

I have mentioned previously on this page the group that I belong to call the Iron Butt Association, a sort of club whose membership requirements are simple but tough: ride a long distance in a limited time and do it safely. I did my firs in 2009 and covered 1000 miles in 21 hours on my Triumph Bonneville then I got ambition in 2010 and I rode 1500 miles in 35 hours and 45 minutes in October freezing myself half to death trying to reach Binghamton New York.That was much harder, the first ride was a boring piece of cake...Bonneville in the Catskills touring after the Iron Butt:

After Hurricane Irma put paid to the Bonneville last summer, and after a doctor told me I was developing arthritis in my left wrist I sold my geared Vespa P200 and bought an automatic scooter I had long had my eye on. One that should be great for commuting 25 miles along Highway One to my job in Key West where I answer 911 at night for a living, and have for the past 15 years. The Burgman 200 was described in the literature as lightweight and peppy and some journalists wondered why you might need a bulky 400? I am always a sucker for trying to do more with less and I liked a lot of the features of the Baby Burgman. I found one in Tampa lightly used for three grand I rode it home the long way, 900 miles around the state of Florida on my weekend off.

Great commuter, holds its own against cars, gets 75-80 mpg, comfortable easy well protected in the rain and so much storage no need of a top box. Perfect. Naturally me being the one who likes to push boundaries I started wondering...what if...an Iron Butt? Nah. 200 cc? Hmm, I wonder how it will do going up hill..? On I-95? MY wife who knows me shrugged and said be careful and I started measuring 1500 miles from my home in Cudjoe Key.  Hey!I've never seen the Niagara Falls, I guess this is my chance! Spoiler alert: I got there but did I do it in 36 hours as mandated by the Iron Butt people?

I am a believer in preparation and  doing as little as possible to modify the ride before I leave. I like to test everything so I don't have to think while riding. The only thing I didn't figure out ahead of time lies in pieces on the New York Thruway...  I bought a tail bag to carry useful extra stuff, snacks,camera man purse sweater and odds and ends with a little room left over in case I bought a sandwich or a can along the way. The Chase Harper 4000 cost around $70 fit perfectly and simply on the pillion part of the seat. It never budged never leaked and though described as rain resistant it is, in my book waterproof. Fantastic and I don't have to ride around with it like a topbox when I'm not traveling.

 Four built in bungees and there you are.

 I used a carabiner to secure a 30 ounce MSR bottle under the elastic on top of the Chase Harper and though I never used it, it gave me peace of mind the two times I tried to stretch the gas too far, once in the mountains of West Virginia and once in the Everglades coming home.

 To secure my phone I used the Quad Lock, completely unobtrusive and brilliant and in the worst potholes the phone never budged in 3404 miles.

 Funnily enough I would start hallucinating as I got closer to Niagara that the phone was slipping on its mounting but that was never the case. Just me being tired.

I ran a cord as needed from the 12 volt plug in the glove box up to the phone, a new iPhone 8 which has massive battery capacity. An inmate on ADVRider recommended this stuff (below) so in additon to an electric pump and flat repair plug kit (never used) I filled the tires with goop. Got no flats...had a power pack under the seat along with the recently removed old drive belt. The scooter got a massive tune up at JR Motorsports on Stock Island and I was ready the Friday before departure, set  for 10am Saturday 18th of August 2018.  The condemned man walked his dog one lwast time and ate a hearty breakfast.

There was no help for it, I left and stopped three miles up the road at the Shell station and got my first receipt. I didn't notice but the clerk gave me a receipt timed 20 minutes earlier than mine should have been. Not only was I riding a mere 200 cc engine, the gods were against me too.

Wallace Stevens

The Idea of Order at Key West

BY WALLACE STEVENS

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.   

The water never formed to mind or voice,   

Like a body wholly body, fluttering

Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion   

Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,   

That was not ours although we understood,   

Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.   

The song and water were not medleyed sound   

Even if what she sang was what she heard,   

Since what she sang was uttered word by word.

It may be that in all her phrases stirred   

The grinding water and the gasping wind;   

But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.   

The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea

Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.   

Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew   

It was the spirit that we sought and knew   

That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea   

That rose, or even colored by many waves;   

If it was only the outer voice of sky

And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,   

However clear, it would have been deep air,   

The heaving speech of air, a summer sound   

Repeated in a summer without end

And sound alone. But it was more than that,   

More even than her voice, and ours, among

The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,   

Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped   

On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres   

Of sky and sea.

                           It was her voice that made   

The sky acutest at its vanishing.   

She measured to the hour its solitude.   

She was the single artificer of the world

In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,   

Whatever self it had, became the self

That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,   

As we beheld her striding there alone,

Knew that there never was a world for her   

Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,   

Why, when the singing ended and we turned   

Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,   

The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,   

As the night descended, tilting in the air,   

Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,   

Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,   

Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,   

The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,   

Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,   

And of ourselves and of our origins,

In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at Key West” from Collected Poems. Copyright 1923, 1951, 1954 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

Source: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990)

Gyorgyi Voros

Stevens's sense of the American experience of the Nature / culture relation was that modern awareness of Nature--whether Nature be manifest as wilderness, as the human body, or as the human unconscious--had diminished dangerously. Stevens complained, "The material world, for all the assurances of the eye, has become immaterial. It has become an image in the mind." Human preconception had so blunted the human experience of and relation to nonhuman Nature, upon which the human rested, that indeed nothing but empty anthropocentric image remained. Stevens knew that a cancerous humanism diminishes human experience. "The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real," he asserted.

This interdependence of imagination and reality is, of course, the subject of "The Idea of Order at Key West." The poem's speaker, walking on the shore, listening to the singer, posing questions and propositions about the nature of art to his companion, posits a series of antinomies which can be reframed as usefully within the categories of Nature and culture and human and nonhuman as they can within reality and imagination. The speaker pits mind against Nature’s "body wholly body," singer's song against the "meaningless plungings of water and the wind," the glassy lights of the town against the darkness of the sea, and language against the "words of the sea." While he asserts the mutual influences between sea and song, he emphasizes an essential discontinuity between them and averts any suggestion of an easy synthesis: "The song and water were not medleyed sound / Even if what she sang was what she heard," he cautions and stresses that "it was she and not the sea we heard."

The poem's central question asks, "Whose spirit is this?" That is, what interface exists between human and Nature in song, the poem's metonym for art? The speaker has already shown that the singer's song fails as direct translation of the sea's "constant cry," nor can song effect a seamless identification between singer and natural elements. Is it then a production of individual vision against the spectacular stage set of Nature? After all, "she was the maker of the song she sang. /... [the] sea / Was merely a place by which she walked to sing."

The poem's final third is customarily read as an avowal of the romantic doctrine of the mind's ultimate superiority over Nature: after all, "It was her voice that made / The sky acutest at its vanishing" and the aftermath of her song that answers to the human "rage for order." In the resounding silence that follows the song, the lights of the fishing boats

Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Indeed, Helen Vendler's reading of this poem places it within the Wordsworthian mind / Nature dichotomy and reads it as asserting the romantics' sense of "the power of poetry over nature." Similarly, Harold Bloom writes that the poem "remains equivocal and perhaps impossible to interpret" because it simultaneously "affirms a transcendental poetic spirit yet cannot locate it, and the poem also remains uneasily wary about the veritable ocean, which will rise up against Stevens yet again."

Placing this poem too squarely within the romantic framework of mind over Nature, however, discounts the poem's true dynamic, which does not rest solely on the dichotomy between singer and song. The two listeners themselves engage in creation (song making) by attending to sea and singer. The stimuli around the speaker--singer, song, companion, "bronze shadows heaped / On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres / Of sky and sea," night descending, lights emerging--engender in him a flow of propositions, questions, and highly charged perceptual experiences. Rather than depicting the power of poetry over Nature, the poem depicts the power of the sum of perceptual experiences created by human and nonhuman components in the speaker, whose main role in the poem may be summarized as that of creative listener. . . .The night deepens after the song has ended; the resounding silence, as it were, heightens the effects of song and what might be regarded as the visual analogues to song, the lights, boats, town, and other human productions that order and "portion out" the natural scene. This difference--the juxtaposition and interface between before and after--is more significant than any element of the experience. It is finally the speaker, not the singer or the song, who effects the enchantment of the night.

From Notations of the Wild: Ecology in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens. University of Iowa Press.

Pictures From Home

While I'm away riding around I have a few memories whence I came and whence I  return, I hope.

 Gumbo Limbo.  The famous peeling tree, red like a sunburned tourist.

 Grass. I bring Rusty here because he doesn't get enough grass to romp on.He loves grass.

 Sunrise and a threat of thunderous  rain.

 Sunrise with  no threat of rain.

Making Progress

This is the article I quoted yesterday about how to make progress on a motorcycle in the UK. 

By Chris Cope - May 06, 2015

Categories: How To, Skills, Safety

 
 

There's a police officer behind me urging me to ride faster. I'm too dumb to figure this out just yet.

"Leaving a built-up area now," he says over the radio. "So, perform your checks... when it's safe to do so, we're away."

Just before a 60 mph sign, and as I learned in my initial rider training, I check both mirrors, glance over my shoulder, and roll the throttle. I reach 60 and peg it there.

"OK," says the voice in my ear. "Road ahead is clear. We're making progress..."

The voice belongs to Kevin, a motorcycle instructor for South Wales Police. He's following me as part of a BikeSafe course.

The British love red tape. Getting your license here ultimately requires that you take five tests –– more if you're under the age of 24. Many riders can't get enough, though. There are several levels of post-license training—all the way up to being certified at the level of police motorcyclists. And you have never seen someone ride as well as a British police officer. It's freaky. Not just slow-speed Shriner tricks, but ghost-like ability at bladder-loosening speed. To me, they are a high-vis Nazgûl from Lord of the Rings. You'll never outrun them.

BikeSafe is the first step toward achieving such prowess. I've been at it less than 10 minutes and I'm already doing something wrong.

"Road's clear," repeats Kevin. "So, let's make progress."

I know I should be doing something, but I can't figure out what that might be. My shoulders tense up and I can feel his Nazgûl stare from behind.

"Can you hear me alright on the radio?" he asks.

The gentle lilt of his South Wales accent has subtly crossed the line from "calm and reassuring" to "explaining things to an idiot." I nod my head to indicate I've heard him.

"Right," he sighs. "Why don't we pull up by here and have a little chat?"

By the time I cut my engine, he's already stomping toward me. A lot of Welsh cops play rugby in their spare time, and for a tiny moment, I fear Kevin is going to see how far he can throw me.

"You ride like this normally, do you?" he asks. "Like someone's granny?"

And here's where I begin to learn the primary lesson of the day, which is:

Use your brain box all the time

All the tips and techniques I'll learn today fall under this category. Ultimately, the goal is to achieve a state of constant mindfulness: Be fully aware of where you are, what you're doing, and how you're doing it.

This means analyzing each situation anew, and avoiding routines. In watching me check my mirrors, Kevin had seen me performing a routine, rather than an act intended to gather information about my surroundings.

"You had a cop up your arse, mate," he says, "but you didn't make much effort to find me in your mirrors. And what was behind me? Had there been a car there, how close would it have been to me? How close was I to you? Had you been forced to stop quickly, would I have had enough time to react? Would the driver behind me have had enough time, as well? Or would he bump me into you?"

On a single, seemingly insignificant action, Kevin is able to write an entire Choose Your Own Adventure novel. This is what I mean about using your brain box all the time. All the time. Constantly. For everything.

Breaking that down, my instructor offers a few specific areas of thought to focus on:

The tennis ball technique

Imagine a tennis ball attached to an infinitely long piece of string. Imagine throwing that tennis ball to the very limit of your vision and reeling it back in. Doing this over and over and over as you ride, the tennis ball is your line of sight. Your goal is to take in as much information as you possibly can, not just about what's in front of you, but what's way off in the distance.

Initially, my inclination in doing this is to stretch my vision to the furthest point in the road, but soon I realize this isn't enough.

"You see that cyclist?" Kevin observes as we ride. "When he catches up with that tractor, it's inevitably going to cause traffic to slow."

I nod my head but see neither a cyclist nor tractor. We ride over a hill and around two bends, then I see the cyclist. As I move closer, a tractor appears from further downhill.

I can't imagine how Kevin saw these things. I decide he may be a witch. Then I get worried, because Kevin can probably also read my mind.

Predict what you can't see

Beyond the information you're gathering with the tennis ball technique, you can take educated guesses about what might be even further down the road. This may come from your experiences or your knowledge of the area.

For example, in Britain, it's quite common to find a village every 10 miles or so. If you've been zipping along for nine miles, it's reasonable to expect you'll soon be hitting an area where traffic is slow, and perhaps additional vehicles will be joining your route from side roads.

If you're riding somewhere scenic, it's common for people to stop just beyond the crest of a hill so they can take pictures. It's possible cars will be pulling away slowly from this point, or that there will be people in the roadway.

And so on, and so on. Think about what might be several minutes ahead and consider how that could affect you sooner.

Make decisions early

Using the information gathered from the above, decide what you're going to do at a given point before you get there.

This is something Kevin identifies as a challenge for me. At roundabouts, I have a tendency to only begin to assess the situation after I've arrived. This means I'm slowing and treating them somewhat as I would a four-way stop in the United States. This is unnecessary. It's perfectly acceptable to zip through a roundabout if the situation allows, and on a motorcycle it's a lot of fun— instant twisties.

Additionally, by slowing too much I may run the risk of being rear-ended.

Kevin's constant "what if" scenarios teach me I should also come into situations with two or three back-up plans.

Ride with confidence

Once you've decided to do something, do it. In a riding scenario, one of the keys to ensuring a decision is the right one is committing to it. So, if I've approached that roundabout and I've decided I'm going to move through with pace, I need to commit to that decision.

The caveat to this is that you heed the old Marine Corps advice: "Don't fall in love with the plan." Even after making a decision, you should be constantly gathering information and reassessing your situation. Always be ready to implement the Plan B that you've already thought through.

Ride according to the actual conditions

Normally, when we see that sort of advice we think the obvious things: don't drag a knee in the rain; don't crack it WFO through rush-hour traffic. But this also applies when everything is lovely. The conditions on a public road are never right for you to pretend you're Guy Martin, but it's not necessarily bad to get your hustle on. Especially when doing so will create more distance between you and other road users.

Kevin stresses that he does not endorse speeding for the sake of going fast, and points out you're unlikely to find a judge who will see things your way if you get caught. But throughout the day, my instructor uses terms like "making progress" and "enjoy the acceleration" when I'm dogmatically sticking to the speed limit. He wants me to get going.

Eventually, I interpret this as emphasis on being a moving target.

This is especially true on fast-moving roads like motorways, freeways, and interstates. The less time you spend hanging out near someone's car, the less time you need to spend worrying about whether that driver sees you. As such, it may be the right call to give the throttle a quick twist if you find yourself riding even with traffic in another lane.

That's doubly true for large trucks. The odds are they can't see you. Plus, they're riding on tires pumped to upward of 100 PSI. If one of those things blows up next to you, it will definitely ruin your weekend plans.

Kevin spends all day suffering my riding on motorways, down country lanes, and through towns. We cover roughly 120 miles of Welsh terrain. Toward the end of the day he takes to saying, "Yeeha, Texas, yeeha," when he wants me to ride faster. The experience teaches me to put more faith in my bike and more faith in myself.

Finally, with the light fading, we pull over for a final chat. He identifies a few things for me to work on, mostly based around my incredible tendency to get lost in British cities. Then he issues me a very fancy certificate. I have earned a B grade. He encourages me to continue the process toward advanced rider certification, then speeds off.

On the motorway back to Cardiff, it feels as if the road is suddenly wider—that I am seeing more of it. With the dying sunset at my back, I take in everything around me, twist the throttle, and make progress into the night.
____

NOTE: For more ideas on improving your riding, it's worth it to hunt down a copy of Motorcycle Roadcraft: The Police Rider's Handbook. It's required reading for British police riders. Obviously, some aspects of the book will be UK-specific, but a lot of the advice translates regardless of what side of the road you're on.

---

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The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Rider

Tomorrow I take off for Niagara Falls on my Burgman scooter. I leave behind friends and family and of course my Rusty as I chart a 1500 mile journey by Interstate freeway to the Canadian border attempting to get there in 36 hours. By myself. 

Motorcyclists are an odd bunch, mostly because  they aren't a bunch at all but clumps of iconoclasts who stick together by style, brand or size of machine but not by common interest or for self preservation. People who ride motorcycles despise people who ride scooters. People who ride Harleys frequently can see nothing beyond the marque while youngsters on sports bikes think going slow is a death sentence when the opposite might very well be true. And then there are BMW  riders...

Naturally I cut across all these lines and artificial divisions because I rode scooters as a youngster and of course motorcycles as I got older but always had an eye on a Vespa or two in my life. I see the good in a Harley Davidson even though the foot forward style and short suspension on a 600+ pound motorcycle doesn't work for me. I grew up with European brands, exotic outside their home countries, but I have had my share of Japanese machines, derisively described as rice burners when they first appeared in the West. My motorcycles have always been useful things, machines that I enjoy riding but that will work as my daily transportation.  I prefer to ride than to drive.

Yet I ride alone mostly. Ask and I shall be delighted to offer a ride but I would never require anyone to sit on a motorcycle in traffic and face the world exposed as a potential meat crayon without their express desire. I have been lucky riding ever since 1970 that I haven't been hurt badly by my two wheelers. Beyond the luck I have gained tons of experience riding in the  hair raising flow of Italian cities, where two wheels are the only way to get around, and better  a scooter than a motorcycle:

In England I took advanced riding courses learning to anticipate traffic and understanding how to move ahead of the vehicles in the roadway to avoid unexpected turns. In the US most motorcyclists come to their two wheels from cars and perhaps its a matter of temperament but the notion of making progress is not clearly understood or deployed. I love this article from RideApart which explains perfectly how I was taught to ride:

Making Progress

It occurred to me a few years ago that the only place I feel graceful and in my element is on two wheels. My buddy Giovanni and I were riding the mountain roads of our childhood a few years ago and he coined a nickname for me; he said I was an architect as I drew perfect lines cornering through the Italian mountains. He is faster than me as he crosses the center line and ducks into hairpins braking too hard but I amuse myself by bend swinging in a more measured way without brakes, riding the gears and the gas only and cutting the apex of each corner at the exact right spot, if I can. We take our fun where we find it.

I discovered recently an old friend who was curious to take a ride and see what I see and I never made the offer to sit on my pillion. I often feel as though my pleasures are too abstruse to find any resonance and what I fear appears selfish is merely a misplaced attempt to respect other people's space. Offer a ride to someone who is fearful of two wheels, and many are, and you will find yourself exposing parts of people's psyche they do not want exposed. To me a motorcycle is a meditation, a magic carpet, a machine capable of turning the banal into a memory. I don't car if I'm riding a  scooter or an exotic brand, 15 or a hundred horsepower the mesmerizing effect of flight on the ground remains the same. For most people motorcycles are noisy smelly dangerous contraptions with no more raison d'etre than a guillotine. Why the hell would you put your head in one of those? Because I love the sensation of flying that's why.

By choosing these years in the Keys to explore small bore engines I have opened a whole new North American world of riding. I love using a small bike in a big bike role as I feel like I'm getting one over on the advertisers who tell us what we "need." Screw them, I'm fine on my little urban runabout. I go on a long distance ride to see what I can do with a plastic bodied Japanese gearless motorcycle. It would be too easy to rumble out on a full size touring motorcycle with all the bells and whistles and large fuel tank and cruise control and so forth. Where's the challenge?  I have a suspicion I shall have  a very fun ride if all goes remotely close to plan. But in any event it will be me alone for 36 hours, riding with my thoughts and hopes, pondering the meaning of life and my incompetent place in it.  

I hope that explains the why and wherefore, of me alone on the road without even my dog for company. Sometimes it just has to be done. I hope I shall be back in a week with stories to tell and joy in my heart. Always you need that joy that comes from roads like this and encounters along the way:

 I am the architect...says Giovanni scepticism writ large all over his face:

I don't always ride scooters. Sometimes I ride 170 hp behemoths. 

You decide which is more fun and which one you'd rather ride with me.

My Town

Swimming in the canal behind my house, still a rather bilious shade of green thanks to Hurricane Irma's passage eleven months ago I asked my wife if she thought Key West has changed in our two decades living and working here. She looked at me like I was an idiot. Of course it haS she said firmly. It isn't, I wondered out loud that we may have changed and what seemed fresh and new and interesting no longer is..?  She snorted in derision.

I came to Key West in 1981 and there was no doubt the place was different. I kept coming back, visiting friends, going sailing living the life of a tropical wharf rat in short bursts before returning to real life in California where I sailed in harsh seas under gray skies through cold summers and colder winters. California was dynamic and interesting and the weather sucked. But Key West was too isolated and remote in those pre-internet pre-Amazon days for young persons like me. And then time passed and I sailed into Key West with wife and dogs never to leave.

The litany of changes that have taken place this century, for us, consists mostly in the ways we amused ourselves back when we were in our forties. My wife reminded me we used to get cheap eats on the beach at the Sands as it was known, an informal buffet place right on the water and dog friendly. We watched al fresco movies at the Atlantic Shores, the resort that was pleased to describe itself as straight friendly. Movie nights saw me chomping free popcorn with my yellow Lab on the chaise longue between my legs snoozing and oblivious to the movie crowd. Who was it on stage that handed out raffle freebies? Super girl..? Wonder woman..?  Lots of laughter and not bad movies either under the stars.

Then we had access in those pre-digital photography days to the Botanical Garden, an overgrown under attended forest on Stock Island that later fell victim to the organizational drive of a woman from Up North who mended the fences and started charging a fee and labeling all the plants. We bought pizza with Robert and carried boxes and beers out to the two picnic tables under the Canary island date palms and had supper under the trees before retreating and leaving the place to become the bums' bedroom as it did nightly. We cleared our trash of course as well. We ate at Stick and Stein and played incompetent pool and spent very little money. Or there was the buffet at Winn Dixie and the weird vibes at the Hukilau much lamented when it was torn down, Polynesia in paradise...

Things have tightened up in Paradise, where street art, bumming  a drink and standing around weaving palm fronds have  become memories for the most part. The color that was Key West, the hippy town that time forgot and that visitors proudly adopted as their away from home vibe has been buried under an avalanche of money. There is some perverse notion in me that a cleaner tidier Key West will be nicer to live in, yet despite the influx of money we still have a malodorous Duval Street with dirt ground into the paint, but we don't have the pirates or the men in tutus wandering around giving cover to those of us that like to pass unnoticed. Gone are the days you could rent cheap digs, do a couple of low stress jobs and have time left over to go fish or play a guitar or watch a sunset. When small homes in Key West sell easily for a million dollars  frivolity gets pushed to the curb. Come to Key West, pay top prices for a hotel room and see the southernmost buoy which is known to locals by several unflattering nicknames.

I admire the seashell for hanging in for now. Youth Hostel, cheaper rooms and a bit of funk. I cherish it as long as it lasts...