Lean On, Me!

The comma in the subject of this post takes it beyond a seeming quote from a Bill Withers song and makes it an important note to self. For the past week or so I've made a huge adjustment to my riding style because of something posted by a fellow blogger, and to him I'm truly grateful for the suggestion.

It was at The Great Motorcycle Pizza Tour where our gracious host, Lucky, penned the following:

Minimize Your Chicken Strips - In day to day riding, it's best to have a margin of safety, so you shouldn't be riding at the limits of your bike or ability. On the other hand, it is important to know how to handle your bike at extreme angles. You should be able to ride better than you usually need to so you can handle unusual circumstances. So find a safe place and wear down the edges of your tires now and then. It's fun.

Reading that was a eureka moment for me because before I'd even finished reading it I came to realize something that had been lacking in my riding style since I started scootering four years ago. I remembered leaving the lot of Team Effort Cycle in May of 2007 with my little Piaggio Fly 50 and hearing the salesman reminding me, "Don't lean too far until you're comfortable with it!" And I realized when I read Lucky's advice that I'd never moved beyond that "don't lean" mindset. For four years, even after the upgrade to the BV 250, I'd been slowing way too much when going into turns and corners, and watching the cars behind me crawling up my rear end as I was nearing intersections at which I needed to change course. I'd never gotten comfortable with leaning adequately because I'd never really tried it, and so I braked more than I needed to at every turn.

Practicing my turns with more lean and heeding the lesson from the cycle safety course that taught that the bike will go where the eye leads it has made a remarkable difference! You can teach an old dog new tricks - even when you're the dog!

Thanks, Lucky! I hope you find that ultimate pizza someday!

Three Years of This

The anniversary of Scootin' da Valley passed quietly yesterday without fanfare nor celebration. It was a busy day with seeing my daughter off to California and attending a birthday party for a cousin, but even if it hadn't been there'd have been no horn blowing nor confetti throwing on this account. Except for a single precious soul, nobody in my "real life" knows about this blog at all. Only last week my younger daughter confessed that she and her older sister make fun of me in text messages when I'm in the same room with them. I won't be giving them any additional fodder to get them through the dry spells by letting them think that I fancy myself a writer of some sort. Neither would I want family, friends, nor acquaintances reading into any of the things I put here and thinking they've figured me out to any degree because they'd be bound to be wrong.

To be certain, those of us who blog, especially over the course of multiple years, could be thought to be a pretentious lot, and particularly so when the comments left in response to our writings are few and far between. Pretense aside, though, I continue to write here in spite of the frugal feedback and nothing to jump up and down about in the statistics counter, which bolsters my belief that essentially I write here for myself. Somehow sending the old thoughts down to the fingertips and then out into cyberspace fulfills some vague need in me. When I started this venture in June of '08 I didn't believe I'd last this long, and while I'm glad I stuck it out, I couldn't begin to tell you why I am.

I ride a scooter. Although I enjoy reading the blogs of the real bikers, and often find gems of helpful advice (I have a quote from one of them on my desk at school.) and important safety tips in their writings, I don't have anything by way of enlightenment to return.

I don't change my own oil and swap out scooter parts. You'll never find here one of those tutorials complete with photos that demonstrate how to replace a whatsahoozit or the proper way to fix one's own bobamadinkler.

I'm mildly funny, once or twice, on a good day, and only to certain persons. I savor the writings of guys like Riepe (who's every bit as good as O'Rourke et al in The National Lampoon in the late '70's), but I could never make somebody nearly spit out a cigar or mouthful of Jack Daniels with anything I pen.

I take pictures and lots of them, and the lucky shots I show here, but they're like photos in a family album taken by mommies quickly firing off those growing up moments and not well composed and demonstrative of masterful technique like the photographs of one of my favorite blog writing and scooter riding heroes, Steve Williams.

A local blog writing group has a link to me, but even there I don't quite fit in. They're highly political and have writing agendas driven by local politics. I vote somewhat reluctantly and the only politician about whom I was ever fired up was Richard Nixon - when I was in the sixth grade. And look at what my support got him!

So, I flounder at best in my efforts here, trying to carve out a niche in corundum with a plastic butter knife, but that's okay. And I truly mean it. This is not a pathetic attempt to get anybody to comment, "There, there, Joe. We love your blog!" It's just more of the same soul searching that I do on the scooter that somehow extends into what I write here. And maybe that's the tie-in that makes this a scooter blog to me when I'm not specifically writing about the BV or my experiences on it - pondering that one essence of self. Riding the bike and writing something here give me the same introspective satisfaction and there's nobody to please but me!

Will I be here in three more years? Probably. Will this have evolved into some profound showcase of amazing ability? Heck no! It'll be what it always has been, and is - I just don't know quite what that IS yet.

Riding not Writing

Yes, I'm riding like crazy, every chance I get - in between the days of scattered thunderstorms and isolated thunderstorms which seem to be alternating with days of partly cloudy and mostly cloudy. Of course none of them preclude the possibility of HOT which it has also been just about daily for the most part. I've been taking the BV to work most days - very nice starts to the mornings, and even though it's a little chilly then I've been riding in just short sleeves because I'm still hot from my shower when I hit the saddle.

I'm always on the lookout for photo ops, but either they've become more scarce, my eye has been off, or I've gotten more lazy in terms of dismounting to grab a Fuji moment. A scoot out to Dallas on Memorial Day got this pic of the bike next to a giant coffee cup. It suits me 'cause there's coffee flowing freely through me till about 1:30 PM most days. The only difference is that I run on generic rather than Dunkin'. A good cup of the latter is hard to beat, but unfortunately the price isn't.

..

It was perhaps a few years ago when I got a cool picture like the next one in front of a similarly decorated market in Duryea, Pa. When I saw this storefront in Nanticoke yesterday, (and I couldn't have missed it if I'd tried), I knew I had to get a snap. Luckily it was Sunday afternoon and the town square was mostly deserted, so the weird feeling of conspicuousness that I usually feel when I'm taking pictures of my own little scooter didn't bother me much.

Nanticoke's often the perfect choice when I don't want to ride too far but want to get at least a few good miles between my house and the terminus of my ride. One of my uncles grew up there, and it was where we based the polka band that I was in back in college, so it kind of feels a little bit like home itself there. The folks are friendly and the place itself always feels welcoming.

I doubled back for the next glimpse of life here in the valley and wondered how far from here a "PIGGY DINNER" would be understood for what it actually is - a ground beef, pork, and rice mixture wrapped in a cabbage leaf and slow cooked in sauerkraut or tomato sauce or both. (And I'd originally typed "ground beer" in that last sentence. Do I have summer vacation on the brain?)

And speaking of summer vacation it's still not till the middle of the month that it starts. I know, I shouldn't much complain because of all the people who are already unsympathetic toward teachers for anything, but I remember fondly a time when we started back in early September and got out in the first week of June. Now it seems to go by in the blink of an eye, but rest assured that I'll put some good miles on the Piaggio before it's over again.