After lunch with the temperatures blazing just as they were yesterday I decided to ride the couch for a while rather than the scooter. I'd grilled our lunch in the backyard and the heat drained the energy right out of me. I got up around 3:30 and was sufficiently cool and awake, enough to head out for a moderate ride. I rolled southwest toward Nanticoke, about seven miles away and the home of Luzerne County Community College or "LCC" as the not too bright who can't count the number of C's call it. I'd stopped to get a liter of Diet Pepsi at a mini-mart and parked next to a gazebo on campus so I could enjoy a few sips in the shade.
There was a motorcycle safety course being conducted in one of the college's parking lots. I could see some of the riders through the trees from the gazebo and was content to watch them go through their paces from the shade, and didn't want to get any closer lest I distract one of the riders. Though I completed the advanced riders' course on the scooter to get the motorcycle endorsement on my license, at some point I plan to enroll in the basic riders' course to learn to operate a motorcycle.
I talk on the phone quite a bit when I'm out riding and when I can I usually pull over to gab. Many of the roads out here, of the type that I prefer to travel on, have nothing but gravel on the two foot wide shoulders and they don't make for a comfortable stop and sit. I don't like riding over gravel at all and avoid stopping on it at all costs. When I was expecting a call this afternoon I was able to find a nice shady spot beside a supermarket loading dock and during my stop I noticed that I could see one of the mirrors on the scooter in the other. Of course this called for a picture...
I like being in my own photos, but more often than not whether you see me in one of the pictures here depends on if there's some free standing structure on which I can plop the camera so as to aim it at myself and the cycle. I carry a tripod on the back of the the scooter, but unless I see a shot that I absolutely have to have I don't typically bother to set it up. As I chatted away (using the wired headset) I set the camera on the concrete base of a light pole to get this shot.
Yes, I've become one of those pathetic looking middle aged guys who rides a scooter with a plastic crate on the back. I took the crate on the road for a few days and after running various errands around town I decided that it's just too handy not to keep. If I want to ride somebody behind me it detaches easily and quickly and it flips up just as effortlessly when I need to get under the seat. I took accordion lessons for seven years, played the tuba in the high school band, and I always carry an umbrella when it rains. I don't think a crate on the rear end of my scooter is going to spoil my image.
3 comments:
There is something eminently practical about the plastic milk carton on the back of any kind of two wheeled vehicle. I know of a bicyclist that uses one all the time. Also on my regular commute I frequently see a parked motorcycle that has one. The motorcyclist takes it a step further and he has a wooden sign attached to the back of the crate that says "My SUV". I giggle a bit every time I see that. I also have a plastic crate, but I haven't used it on the scooter yet, but have frequently thought how useful it can be, someday.
I have a C-clamp type of camera mount and have just received my GorillaPOD which I was going to carry on my scoot. I have regular sized tripods but there is nowhere to secure it and I was afraid that it would "walk" away.
I think your plastic crate has a lot of utility. Most crates I see mounted are from Dairy companies.
bob
bobskoot: wet coast scootin
Both the plastic crate and yourself look good and not pathetic at all..!!
Very practical. I have a permanent one attached to my wife's scooter on a rack mounted behind the back seat.
Cheers
Post a Comment