...with no particular place to go...

Some classic Chuck Berry to play while your reading.

Now it's a lovely day, the sun is shining but the heat not struck us yet.  The humidity is low.  What a great day to simply go...somewhere.   Anywhere.
I got some 20 to 25 years left in my working life, but I've always said that when that time came I was going to climb aboard a RV and avoid the highways.  See what's down that dirt lane to the left and find out if their really is a waterfall down "Waterfall lane."  Perhaps part of the reason I wanted a bike like was Burgie was to get a look at that life.

To "retire" a bit early.  Touring was always in the back of my mind.

I did have a bit of a agenda on my ride though.   I wanted some pictures of some of the places I found while on my Zuma.  For some reason the camera phone would not download the photos.  This time, I brought the camera.

I was curious to know if the larger Burgie would lose speed up one the steepest, toughest hills in all of Pasco county, Florida.  So I gunned it up to the legal speed limit and.......
                 

the ride up was really disappointing.  My Burgie did the climb like it was nothing.  Let me tell you, nothing prepares you for how cold and windy being a total of TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL truly is.

I swear I saw a hungry penguin checking me out for dinner.

All joking aside though, I can see why people tour on a motorcycle.  It's a slower pace of sorts, your more connected to the road and without the distractions of music, cell phones and air conditioning...you are left to your thoughts.  The bike becomes a part of your body, leaning into a curve just so...the smell of flowers and oranges on the side of the road.   The simple joy of driving through a old canopy of trees with the Spanish moss hanging ghost like.

Stopping to take in a view because you can.  Not because someone built a concrete slab into the side of a hill.   Finding that out of the way cafe or winery.   They say the cyclists "SEE" all the time.  I know that's not just not for safety but for the soul.  Where as cars are built for the highways and to get us from point A to B.   Life on two wheels feeds the soul.

A historical marker on the side of the road can not be read at 55 mph very well.  It needs you to pull over and take a moment to actually read.   The idea of a town full of freed slaves making their way in the Deep South is an interesting story...one that this rider would have never have known about unless he stopped.

So yea, stopping for a moment in this fast paced Internet driven world where time is not measured so much in minutes anymore but Megabits per second...seems like a radical idea.  It's worth it though.

I'm starting to understand why people ride, and it's not always for gas savings.   I'm wanting to get out again, to just ride in a direction...to chase the sunset or just go to the left.  All roads lead somewhere.

I did pass one lawn sign in someones yard, I wanted to get the bike next to it for a good photo...but I did not wish to ruin their yard by parking my bike in it even for a moment.   I read the sign and smiled..."Not right now there isn't.  This is a perfect moment."

Not when your riding there's not.   

Random thoughts on rainy days.

The girlfriend woke softly to the same sounds of rain drumming on the roof that I awoke to moments before.  She placed a warm soft hand on my chest and snuggled her naked body even closer to mine.

"I guess you're not riding today."

I grunted, enjoying her closeness.  Closing my eye and drifting off to the sound of her breathing mixed with the soft random thuds of rain on my roof.

Over the last two days here in West Central Florida we have been battered by the remnants of tropical storm Lee which has made the humidity, which is always high, even higher and the temperatures climb.  Rain continues to threaten to was over us.  The day before yesterday I did not ride into work due to the threat of rain, only to have the afternoon be bone dry.  Yesterday the skies opened and it rained; hard and fast and constant, the wind blowing wild.

It was not a fit night for man or beast to ride in.

Nelson-Rig SR-6000 Rainsuit

I don't have proper rain gear yet.  All I have is a plastic poncho which I think would be more of a hindrance than a help.  I've been lucky in that I've only been caught out in the rain once; I was riding my original Zuma 125 on the back roads of Pasco county when the storm caught up to me.  The rain felt like a pellet gun hitting me at a 40 mile an hour pace, I suppose the rain would feel like a shotgun blast at closer to highway speeds.

Being exposed to the weather is one of the drawbacks of riding.  The sun beats down on you, your going to get wet.  These are givens.   As a new rider I have to balance my comfort with safety.   My full face helmet is great to protect me in case of accident and from wind buffering, but is also heavy and a bit hot.

I wear a "highlighter" yellow jacket (not pictured) which makes me a bit more visible I hope, but also a bit warmer as well.  I admit to wearing short sleeve shirts and even shorts at times for the shorter jaunts I've taken.

The first weekend of October I'll be taking my endorsement class for my motorcycle license.  I'll be required to have the following:

• Long sleeve shirt or jacket
• Denim jeans or heavy pants (not excessively baggy, long or with holes or frayed edges)
• Over the ankle boots covering the ankle bone (not tennis shoes or fashion boots with heels)
• Full-fingered leather gloves
• Shatter resistant sunglasses or safety glasses
• Sunscreen and lip protection

I'll need the boots and gloves.  I was also told a rain suit was in order as well.  Now it comes down to simple research.   The boots are not an issue, I just need to find something comfortable with non slip oil resistant soles that are water resistant.  The gloves are easy as well although I wonder why one pair is $9.99 and another is $199.99.  Is there that big of a difference?


I want a rain suit as well, but again...what is best and affordable?  I would rather pay for quality and have it last than buy cheap.   But I can not justify spending a few hundred dollars on it either.

So why a name change?

First of all there is the much better written Life on two wheels, the scooter commute.  This blog has been around for some time as well and I felt like I was stealing the name.

I am smart enough to know that my reasons for getting a bike; part greed, saving money is always good.  Partly environmental, using less gas and putting out less greenhouse gasses are good.   Partly because I've been to the islands where all you see is scooters.   I've been to parts of Asia and you see more scooters than cars.   I've been to parts of Europe and you see scooters everywhere.  It's a cheap easy way to get about and these trips put the idea into my mind that "Yea, maybe owning a Scooter ain't so bad."

It's also fun.


In a way I believe that America's future lies in 2 wheels.  Not that I expect to see a street scene out of China anytime soon.

But we have to be honest with ourselves.  America is going to become more urbanized in the future, partly because of the budgets local communities face, and ever growing gas prices.  Partly because people realize that living closer to where they actually work makes sense.  Scooters, bikes and motorcycles are smaller, cheaper and "fit" better in a more urbanized society.

I don't want this to turn into a political blog, although I am a dyed in the wool Democrat, I consider myself a realist as well.  We need to change our way of thinking and doing things in order to thrive in the future.   My little contribution towards that effort is this blog.

I'm still planning on writing about what I'm going through as a new rider but I think it's a bit foolish not to be just a little bit political.  Their are going to be things that affect me, as a rider and a person, that I feel need discussed.   So yea, I'm putting on the advocacy hat and painting my sign.   I'm a "biker" now (what ever the hell that means), a concerned citizen and I truly do believe that getting people - even one person - to look at something differently is a good thing.

So "Scooter Revolution!"   Why the hell not?

Speedy Delivery

I consider myself a road warrior of sorts.

With the exception of the big rigs I've logged a lot of miles in my day.  Partly because I've had jobs where I been required to drive from site to site, or to make customer service calls in person or just to get from point A to point B.  I enjoy driving, although frankly I don't think I could do it for a living.

So I find it a bit funny that I'm a subcontractor for a publications company.  I work for them two days out of the week and two additional days out of the month on top of that.   In doing so I earn an additional $225 - $320 a week.  I also get to deduct mileage, tires, oil changes and what not on my car.

I invest this money into my house and into my stock portfolio.  

Why am I telling you this?  Because yesterday I was running late for work and the wonderful woman I call the Girlfriend had to finish the route for me.

I knew that I would be running past a few of the more remote stores on my commute into work, so we filled up the unseat storage space on my Burgie with the books and off I went!

Its not the first time a scooter, maxi or other wise, has been used to deliver things.  Down the street from where I used to work there is a restaurant famed for it's corned beef but also for making deliveries on little 49cc scooters.  When I asked the driver about it one day he laughed and said it was the owners way of avoiding insurance and gas costs.

Food in the back, drinks up front.  :)

"They are also a lot of fun to drive."

While I don't see the streets of (insert a major city here) filled with scooters anytime soon, I just can't help but wonder how long it will be before other companies copy this idea?  Or before delivery boys and girls do something to save a dime or two and invest in a scoot?

I have to admit that if it wasn't for the getting off the bike, opening the storage compartment and then restarting the bike only to do it all over again, I've considered using my maxi-scoot for deliveries.   Sadly a little 49cc won't do it.  Right now I don't have the money to consider something like this.

We will just wait and see if it's going to be something I might expand upon in the future (I don't do pizza's but magazines) and would it be worth it to me?  Or perhaps there is a business opportunity here?

Right now I'm more interested in just riding and enjoying myself than I am anything else, but in the back of my mind there is that idea that eventually I'm going to replace my car full time with my Burgman.  So this is an idea that will always be filed in the back of my mind.

A little bit of fun with a Harley rider.

The other night I am sitting at a light and in the other lane a Harley rider pulls up.  He looks over at me and just shakes his head "No."

The light goes green and it's a straight shot up the road to the next light, about 1/4 to a half mile up the road.   I should have resisted...but I opened her up.

As he pulls up to the next light I just look over at him and shake my head..."Yes."

You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I feel stupid.

I feel worse than stupid.

I am downright mad at myself.

I went down yesterday.  Not hard, not in traffic and in fact if your going to go down it was in the best place possible.   I went down outside my driveway.

Somehow, I'm not sure how, as I was pulling out of the driveway on the way to work I lost control.   I think the throttle stuck some or I hit a lip, but I could not regain control, hit my neighbor's stone border on their flower garden and down I went.

I'm more angry over the fact that my pure and beautiful bike is now scratched up.  The chrome on the the muffler is scuffed, a bit of cracked plastic in the front.  I know damn well it could have been worse, all I have is a minor scrape on my arm and a scraped knee...I've had worse chasing the girlfriend naked around the house.

No, what bothers me is that I didn't check things first.  Did I have enough clearance?  Was their something n the way?   What did I do that caused me to go down in a heap?

I know that every biker goes down at least once.   It's what you learn from it that counts.  I would rather go down from being stupid in my driveway than being stupid at 70 mph in the middle of a highway.

The question in my mind is now, what can I do to repair the damage and make the bike look newer?  What did I learn from this?

Oh yea, I rode in.  Nervous as hell, but I rode into work.  I'm not going to let a little bump scare me off of riding.   But I will let myself learn from this.  I will be just a tad more careful.

Rain, Rain Go Away...

If the television was to be believed then their was a 50% chance of rain yesterday.   It is going to happen eventually I know, where I have no choice but to drive through a thunderstorm or get caught out in a torrential rainstorm.

Growing up I was told that it rained every day in Florida, and although I now know that was an old wives tale, a storm can come up out of no where.  It can last 5 minutes or all day.  So before taking off for work today I checked weather.com and saw showers at 3 PM and at 9 PM.  Unlike the TV, weather.com allows for a much more localized forecast.

It take me just under an hour to get to work, I start at 4 PM, and would be driving directly into the belly of the beast.

Normally I would not ride in the rain, I'm still a "newbi" and know enough to avoid putting myself into a potential dangerous situation.  For what ever reason though I decided to go.   I don't have a rain suit, although I do have a poncho.

I kept riding, riding, riding into the darkness ahead.   My Burgman has a ambient air  temperature gauge, which I kept an eye on as well.  I figured that if the temperature started to fall drastically that I would be heading into the rain.

It never did rain, the ride was uneventful.  At 9 PM the rain started to come down and I moved the bike from the parking lot to a covered area to keep it dry.

Today I have to ride into work again.  I have a 50% chance of getting rained on when I leave for work.   A 30% chance on the way home.  So do I roll the dice again?  Or play it safe?