Crazy plans

At the end of May I will find myself in the Tuscan hills, just a tad to the south of the midieval walled city of Lucca.  Forty kilometers due south is Pontedera.  It's an industrial manufacturing centre dominated by a massive factory complex.  No tourist in her right mind would go there.

But... there are three considerations at play that tip the balance in Pontedera's favour, if only for a tourist with a peculiar bent.  Like me.

The sprawling plant sits on Viale Rinaldo Piaggio, so-named for the founder of Piaggio & Co. SpA, an aircraft manufacturer that re-invented itself in post-war Italy by giving the world the iconic Vespa.  My Vespa came from that plant.

That's consideration number one.

Consideration number two, is that Piaggio offers a museum largely, though not entirely, devoted to Vespas.  That museum is a major draw for Vespa owners all over the world.

The third consideration is that there is at least one outfit in Pontedera where you can rent a Vespa for the day.

Picture exploring the museum, maybe picking up some Vespa swag in the museum shop, then setting off on a modern Vespa to explore the environs, going roughly north and west, following the banks of the river Arno, to Pisa and its eponymous tower.

Mark Twain did a grand tour of Europe, the Middle East and Egypt in the late nineteenth century that he documented in Innocents Abroad, which incidentally is free and can be downloaded to an e-reader.  If you haven't read it, I encourage you to.  You won't regret it for a moment.  It's delightful fun from cover to cover.  In a long rant complaining about the never-ending attribution of all Italian art forms to Michelangelo, he took a pot shot at the tower.

"In Pisa he designed every thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular".

From Pisa, you can continue northwest for another 30-40 kms until you hit the Italian riviera.  One could toodle along there, heading up the coast, grab some lunch at an outdoor venue with a view of the Mediterranean, and then loop back to the east and towards the south, through the olive groves and hills of Tuscany, before dropping off the bike in Pontedera.

There is much to ponder, plot and plan before this little escapade transits from fantasy to reality.  But... it could happen.

New Lid!!

It's official!

I ordered a new Nolan N-104 helmet and a Sena SMH10 headset to go with it.

When I tried it on I fell instantly in love with it.  It's the latest iteration of Nolan's modular helmet and will replace my Nolan N-102 in daily use.

I don't want to say too much about it.  I won't get my hands on it for another three weeks or so, and I plan to do a much more detailed blog post then, including how well I do installing the Sena headset on it.  Richard has the same helmet and headset combination and has a very helpful post that will guide me in the installation.  Click here to get there.

Hear, hear!

To ride is a blessing, but it can be a surprisingly loud one.

I can hear the incredulous voices rising from many quarters "Dude, you ride a friggin' Vespa! What noise?"

Well... to you I say, get on my Vespa, get out on the highway, wind it up to 120 km/h, and then we'll talk about noise.  Motorcycle helmets get noisy, very noisy.  I love my Nolan, but it's not by any means near the top of the list of quietest helmets.

I discovered the solution when I cut the windscreen on my LX150 to mid height and was shocked at the turbulent buffetting I had.  You get an idea of what that is when someone opens one of the back windows of the car at highway speeds.

I already knew that many riders advocated ear plugs, but I didn't really get it until that moment.

For the last couple of years I've been wearing orange silicone ear plugs I picked up in the tool department at the local Sears store.  They've done the trick.  I never ride without ear plugs anymore. If you can believe it, my Sena headset sounds better with the earplugs.  And yes, I can still hear the traffic around me, and emergency vehicle sirens, almost as well as when I am driving Susan's BMW X3 with the windows up, the air on, and the radio belting tunes.

The orange ear plugs could stand to be replaced.  They certainly don't owe me anything.

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the most recent Aerostitch catalogue <drools>.  That's when I saw that they offer an assortment of 10 different permanent ear plugs for US$28.  This morning I put in an order.  US$38 with delivery.  Not necessarily cheap, but certainly a cheap thrill (I ordered something from the Aerostitch catalogue... pinch me!)

Now I have a little something to look forward to.

Transitions, without a net

With a brutal winter having its way with us, there's not even the glimmer of a chance of riding.  The time I might have spent riding, I spend thinking.  That's a mixed blessing at best.

When you're a kid, important transitions happen in pretty quick succession.  I don't remember planning for them in any real way.  They just happened to me, and I moved on.

I guess it's in part my nature, in part because few kids plan much beyond a few days.  Maybe when Christmas looms kids can spend months planning for the gifts they want.  But that seems, at least for me when I was a kid, to be about it.

Things sure do change.

Retirement is the transition that looms large.  It has been that way for the past 26 years.  I began to save as soon as I realized the enormity of the challenge.  Lone provider, three kids, a job with no pension... it all adds up to a daunting biological clock ticking away mercilessly.   It seemed hopeless in the beginning.  I joked about retiring to a trailer park.

Now that retirement is single digits away, my boyish brown hair has shifted to gray, and the kids are on their own, retirement is really looming quite large.  It's been like rowing a boat on a dead calm sea towards an island that's a spot in the distance.  The island is now dominating the view.  I take stock often, and am more concerned with the vagaries of the markets than ever before.

I now think that we'll be OK.  There won't be a trailer park, unless it's by choice and it's my RV in a campground on the Florida coast. My financial planner said she's proud of me, that I've done better than some, and that's a comforting thought.  But I'm a worrier.  I wasn't an easy-going smiler in my youth, and there's less of that in me now.  Husband, father, breadwinner.  Done well, these things take a toll.  I am the polar opposite of Owen Wilson and Woody Allen would be best cast to play me in a movie.  OK, now I'm being too hard on myself.  I admire Woody.  He has the guts to say things out loud that most of us wouldn't dare utter.

I'm looking forward to having fewer cares, less stress.  I have to learn to smile, relax.  I've never been a dancer.  Dances make me shrink like a violet.  Maybe we'll take dancing lessons.  I'd like to be more like Paul Ruby.  I like Paul.

Hey Paul! Please leave Italy as you found it!  I'll be there in May and I'm looking forward to finding it as I last left it.

First step in a long project

It doesn't look like much, but that knob sitting between my two 12 volt outlets is the control for the Warm & Safe Heat-Troller® solid state control that will eventually control the Oxford Heaterz heated grips that will be installed in the coming weeks on my Vespa GTS.

As in the past, I will eventually post a detailed project report so that anyone with cold hands and an inclination to fiddle with their bike can have heated grips.

Earned my wings

Thanks to Peter's generosity, I have a really nice Vespa patch. I posted about this last September.

Thanks to time off during the holiday season, my wings are now permanently and prominently displayed on my summer riding jacket.  All it took was a little hot glue to hold the patch in place temporarily, and then a few tedious hours of sewing to make sure that the patch looks its best.

This emblem really strikes a chord. Many riders on Modern Vespa and on their blogs have said that their Vespas give them wings. My Vespa really did let me earn my wings, both figuratively and literally.

Thanks again Peter, my wings patch is very much appreciated.

Unfortunately, for the time being, my jacket and helmet spend the short days of winter languishing in my closet.

Pairings for wishes, not fishes

I confess that I altered the supermarket's display to take this picture. But it's their fault for offering cutesy-pie bottles of wine.

Some of my wishes for 2014 are modest. Others are extravagant. The extravagant wishes are a precious few. The remaining wishes are modest, and the modest ones are mine to realize. By this I mean that I can make them come true with some effort and a little commitment.

For instance, I began the year at a hefty 209 pounds. My wish is to whittle myself down to 185 pounds. It's doable, but requires both a short term change in lifestyle, and a long term change in lifestyle. Now that I've gone public with this wish, we'll see how I do with it.

Another modest wish is to live simply, and happily. I think that happiness is 80% state of mind, and 20% circumstance, with state of mind having pride of place. Time passes so swiftly, it's easy to let routine blend the days into a stream of trivial, if painless, sameness. My life would be better if I made the time really count.

I guess the big challenge is taking off the excess weight and keeping it off.  There is no doubt that the biggest contribution to my well-being begins and ends there.

So here we go, another year begins.  My very best wishes to all of you for a healthy, happy and fulfilling year.

The outlook for 2014

There's no better way to prepare for the new year than by doing something totally crazy.

And here it is, the post that blows past the 100-post-self-imposed blog limit.

What's new?  2014 is showing signs of being an awesome year in the life of your host.  Some things that are on the horizon, the things that will be truly life-altering, can't be uttered out loud.

I think I'll just stick to some of the minor awesome things.  Like the recent past, for instance.

The Christmas holidays have been a blessing.  Jonathan, Lauren and Andrew shared our roof, as did Vicky, Jonathan's girlfriend.  We celebrated Susan's birthday with a gourmet dinner at one of the city's very best restaurants, Club Chasse et Pêche, in Old Montreal.  Bob, do you remember where we parked our bikes in the old city, right on a corner, and then went for a stroll?  Well, two or three doors up that street is where the restaurant is.  A slice of heaven on earth, truly.

Photo to jog Bob's memory

See how Bob got here

Before that, we celebrated Christmas, but on the 27th, not the 25th.  Vicky couldn't get away from Toronto until the 26th at the end of the day, so we held our gift giving and receiving desires in check until she was able to join us.

And what did Santa have in store for me?  I'm glad I asked.

Among many other things too numerous to mention, I got a state of the art Cuisinart Grind and Brew coffee maker.  The new model with the bur grinder.  Our old Grind and Brew quit on us a few days before Christmas, after more than ten years of loyal service.  A doohickey on the grinder bit that is vital to the operation of the whole machine broke off, rendering the entire thing utterly useless.  For those who are coffee lovers, the Grind and Brew is, in my not-so-humble opinion,  the very best drip coffee maker in the world.

Did I get anything that made my rider's heart skip a beat?  You betcha!

Lauren drew me in the family-only secret Santa draw and gave me Oxford Heaterz heated grips, and a Warm-N-Safe Heat Troller.  There will be much fiddling to install them on the GTS, including the obligatory self-imposed project report.  Some dremelling has already been done, and there is more to do before the deed is done.  Thank you, thank you, thank you Lauren!!!

And there you have it folks.  The 101st blog post.  So much for arbitrary limits and self-imposed constraints.  I am a rebel at heart anyway.  It suits me better than the alternative.  I guess this means that there is no way of telling how many blog posts will happen in 2014 now is there?

One Hundred

This is the one hundredth Scootcommute blog post for 2013.

This is a blog post stew, a potpourri of random thoughts. Read on, you'll eventually understand.

 
      The bitter end     

On Sunday, November 24th, I put the Vespa into hibernation.

I checked the oil, checked and topped up the coolant level, checked the tire pressure, put in gasoline stabilizer, gave the bike a sponge bath, went to the gas station for a top-up, rolled the bike into position in the alcove at the back of the garage, put the cover on it, plugged in the battery tender, put away all the gear, and that was it.

The ride to get gas was very, very cold, especially on my legs because I was only wearing jeans. The odometer read 34,100 kilometers. The bike had 25,000 kilometers when I got it in March. That means just over 9,000 happy kilometers or 5,500 happy miles for the 2013 season. It should have been more. My moto tour consumed 3,000 km all by itself. But it's the commuting that really packs on the miles, and between March and November there was a lot of out of town travel and inclement weather that chewed into the commuting.

If anyone is counting, I know I am, that's 20,500 miles in the Vespa saddle for me. And I've only just begun. The 10,000 mile patch on my Corazzo jacket now feels inadequate. The next one is a 50K patch. I'm not even half way there.

 
      Not for the superstitious     

On Friday, December 13th, that's right, Friday the Thirteenth, I had tooth #18 (top right wisdom tooth, for the non-dental professionals among you) evicted.

My dentist had been recommending the eviction for years now. But, a tooth, is a tooth, is a tooth, no matter how unwelcome and useless it might be. I had done my level best to save it (actually to have my dentist save it). But in October it started acting out. And Stan did some creative work on it, against his better judgment. He said his last ditch effort "could last a week, a month, or a year" but he repeated his advice "it's time for that troublesome tooth to go".

Push came to yank when the on-and-off pain became distracting. When I went to see Stan fresh from a weekend of throbbing, he said "ready to get rid of it?" Sadly, I was.

The only appointment at the dental surgeon was for Friday the 13th. No surprise there. The fact that I leaped gleefully at the opportunity, tells you how meddlesome #18 had become. Other events had made me select the same day as the record date for all my company's year-end filings with securities authorities here and in the U.S. Now, if I were superstitious, that would have been the fate-tempting decision of all time. Adding a little tooth extraction was only putting one more dicey egg in that trouble-inviting date-basket.

As I write this on Saturday morning, it looks like I dodged the fate bullet. Friday the thirteenth, bah humbug to you! Hello Saturday the 14th! I'm under Susan's orders to lie low. She doesn't want my head to blow up. Fourteen hours post-op, and I'm feeling semi-human. But my mouth feels like Vancouver fourteen hours after the 2011 NHL riot.

 
      WTF - (Why the fuss?)     

It's now Wednesday, December 18.

I think I'll make this the last 2013 post, and cross my fingers that nothing crops up that begs to be shared between now and the very end of the year. Uh-Oh! What if Santa delivers Gerbing gloves on the 25th? What if I figure out how to make a four-way flasher circuit for the Vespa? What if Santa gets me new armored pants...?

If something does crop up, I think I may fiddle with this post to add to it, and in that way keep the Scootcommute to 100 posts for 2013. Ok, ok, that's kind of cheating, I know.

But 100 is such a nice round number. It's also a fairly ambitious undertaking. Just under two posts a week, on average. After all, I don't think I want to hold myself accountable for producing more than 100 posts in 2014. I certainly don't want this to become a chore. Something that makes a negative contribution to my life. And if I do blow past 100 posts, I'll never get to another decent, respectable target or cap. The next semi-worthy stop is 150, and that's a lousy cap. It's like one-and-a-half. 125 is worse, that's like one-and-a-quarter. Like some small ingredient in a recipe. Like cornstarch, or cream of tartar, or baking powder.

I enjoy writing blog posts. I never once thought I'd commit so much 'ink' to any topic. At least not to the Scootcommute. I did begin to write a spy novel. I haven't touched it in about five years, it seems. I tell myself that it's like wine in an oak cask. It's maturing. I'll come back to it when I get myself down to one day-job. I'll have a fresh perspective then. A better sense of my narrator's voice.

The Scootcommute has given me a little more confidence, at least as a writer. How pretentious does that sound? A while back I was in a cute little shop, full of cute little stuff. One thing was a small book of insults. One insult that comes to mind was suitable for a book reviewer. "That's not writing, that's typing!" Ouch!

If you're into insults, but you're already immersed in the spirit of the holidays, have a listen to You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch!. The version I have is off the Glee! Christmas album of a few years back, sung by K.D. Lang and Matthew Morrison. I don't want to spoil it too much for you if you haven't heard it, but "Your brain is full of spiders" is a personal favorite. Now Dr. Seuss, he was a writer.

Well, that's enough musing for one last post, if you ask me. Besides, there's an even chance I'll have to return and dump in more stuff to keep the total down to one hundred.

Time will surely tell.

Thanksgiving

Here we are in the midst of a temporary and all too short reprieve for North American turkeys.  Somewhere on the calendar between Canadian and US Thanksgiving.

That certainly doesn't mean that there is nothing to be thankful for, far from it.

Bob (yes that Bob) took up the production of a modest, little, and oh so exclusive, clothing line.  The production run was microscopic by normal fashion industry standards.

What the garments lack in runway finesse, they more than make up for in the exquisite and refined beauty of the micro-limited-edition artwork.  I may have to keep mine under lock and key.

Hopefully Karen, or Steve or Bob may one day put one up in a Sotheby's auction and the rest of us (or our lucky estates) will be able to watch the price get driven to stratospheric levels.  But not me... I'm holding on to mine.

Let us all give thanks to Bob.

Thanks Bob!

Amen.

Let the shopping begin

This is a post for the trendy jet-setters among you.

Now that the Vespa riding season has closed, it's open season on Christmas shopping.

Ogilvy's has a Vespa LX50, skinned in the store's iconic tartan, front and centre in one of its Ste-Catherine street windows.

Ogilvy's windows, and particularly its Christmas displays, make even the grinchiest scrooge want to shop till he drops.  As you can see, the bike is laden with undoubtedly expensive chi-chi gifts suitable for the most discerning trophy wife or trophy husband.

This baby makes its appearance every few years or so in the holiday windows at Ogilvy's.  By the look of this bike it spends its substantial idle time between appearances safely stored in the store's prop department, because it bears not a single sign of wear or tear.

It's a fitting tribute to Vespas everywhere.  Vespas are perhaps, just perhaps, the bikes that best evoke that free-spirited, carefree, upscale, totally cool, yet eco-friendly urban lifestyle that the store feels will lure the fancy-pants crowd to spend, and spend.

For those who have the means to make a trip to Montreal just to do their money-is-no-object holiday shopping, the two city blocks  between Sherbrooke to the north, Ste-Catherine to the south, Mountain to the east, and Crescent to the west, are home to the toniest, most exclusive, and most expensive shopping Montreal has to offer.  Ogilvy's anchors the south-east corner.  The flagship Apple store is two doors west.  Holt Renfrew anchors the entire north end on Sherbrooke street.  In between you will find boutiques offering the nec plus ultra for Christmas, from Cartier, to Louis Vuiton, to Rolex, to Louboutin, to Jimmy Choo, and beyond.  Sadly, there are no Vespas for sale there, notwithstanding the promise Ogilvy's vitrine seems to make.

I suggest you book a suite at the Ritz Carlton right now.  While you<re at it, better make some reservations at Maison Boulud in the hotel, because that place will be hopping with hungry and wealthy holiday shoppers.  Snooze and you lose.  It may already be too late.

The gold diggers among you who aspire to become trophy wives should be able to find a suitable perch at Chef Daniel Boulud's bar where you'll be able to angle for a suitably wealthy sugar daddy.

I can almost hear the sleigh bells.

The thrill is gone...

... the thrill is gone away, the thrill is gone baby...

'Cause the snow has come, the snow has come my way...

Yes indeed, B.B. King and the weather has me singing the blues.

So long black Vespa...

Hello black Honda.

Think big, not small - thoughts on Quebec's charter of values

If there is a season or time of the year for thinking, it has to be November.

University students have exams looming and they have to be thinking.  Remembrance Day is this coming Monday, and that invariably gets me thinking.

This morning I set out for the office on my Vespa.  I had to think about that quite carefully.  The exquisite calculus of low temperatures and the probability of icy precipitation is more art than science.

The year is ending and my work requires me to be thinking, mostly about compliance filings and satisfying the myriad requirements of securities regulators and investors.  Christmas is also on the horizon. I need to think about gifts, holiday plans, and Susan's birthday.

Some thoughts are somber however.

Remembrance day brings my grandfather to mind.  He was a World War I veteran.  I only knew him through my grandmother's voice and her eyes, how tenderly and reverently she spoke of him.  Those are thoughts of loss, of pain.  You get to a point when you seem to know more people who have left this good earth than those who walk it still.  There are people in my iPhone address book who have left us.  Telephone numbers that only evoke memories, that either lead elsewhere, or nowhere, but that used to lead to the well known tones of peoples' voices.  I can hear them now.  "Hello!"  That simple word with the many lilts and intonations.  My mom, my grandmother, my mother in law, father in law, aunts, uncles, colleagues, acquaintances, neighbors, mentors.

When it comes to thinking, bigger is better than smaller.  Higher, is better than lower.  Anything that gets us to think, really think, is better than the alternative.  Life presents many opportunities to resist thought.  It takes guts to think.  Thinking leads us to the boundaries of our knowledge.  To where the fear of the unknown lurks in the shadows.

There are those, intellectually speaking, who prefer the comfort of the known.  The small circle of friends and family, the familial and familiar.  People who prefer simple explanations.  Sometimes, perhaps often, the comfort of simple explanations and familiar surroundings can best be found by walling out aspects of life, aspects of our humanity, that challenge the simplicity and comfort of our smaller, simpler lives.

I find that many people who succumb to the temptation to live simple, neat and tidy lives, in the midst of simple, neat and tidy surroundings, are small-minded.  They think simple low thoughts.  Often they get their comfort at best by exclusion, at worst by oppression.  This is how ghettos happen.  These are the headwaters of xenophobia, prejudice, biggotry, and racism.

This thinking season, there are stark choices facing those of us who live here, in the Province of Quebec.

A bill has been tabled in our legislature.  We like numbers here.  We especially like numbers when as a society we embark upon the politics of exclusion and oppression.  It's simpler, more comfortable, and invites less thought, when we use a number instead of a name.  Bill 22, Bill 101, Bill 60, now what's not to like?  It's certainly much better for the mover of low-brow, simple thoughts, to give the thing a number than to call it by its rightful name, like The Suppression of Other Cultures Act (Quebec).  It's easier to pretend you aren't a bigot when you promote Bill 60.  Isn't it?  To encourage people to use the number, you give the draft legislation a name that no one can manage in a single breath, much less commit to memory: Charte affirmant les valeurs de laïcité et de neutralité religieuse de l’État ainsi que d’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes et encadrant les demandes d’accommodement.  It even has the words égalité and charte - "equality" and "charter".  How bad can it be?

What better way to protect our culture, to make it shine brightly, than moving other cultures, different from ours, out of the light, into the shadows, towards darkness, and out of sight.  We can stand tall if we march onto the bowed backs of our minority neighbors, can't we?

Bill 60 is the latest and most odious example of institutional, government-sanctioned biggotry.  It's state of the art exclusionary politics of the worst kind.  It's the heavy leaden hand of the state, preparing to take a hefty swing at the usual suspects, all in the name of the mother culture.

To protect our culture we must take deadly aim at the virus that threatens us.  Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs.  Unless they hide their identities, mask their differences, become white like us, we will drum them out of public office, herd them out of public service, banish them from our government offices, schools, hospitals, municipal offices, recreation centres, remove them from our police and fire departments.  Heck, we don't even want them collecting our garbage.

Torontonians are hanging their heads in shame, wringing their hands, and squirming uncomfortably in the glare of world opinion because they have a mayor who is by all accounts failing as a mayor, and failing as a human being on many levels.

I would prefer every Quebec municipality to have its very own Rob Ford if it meant that Bill 60 simply vanished.

As a Quebecker, I feel anger, and deep, deep shame.  I also fear the inevitable consequences of the vile politics of exclusion.  This will get much worse before it gets better.

Those are my November thoughts for now.

Late October commute

It seems like just a short time ago that I went to a dealership north of the city to pick up my Vespa GTS.  That was the beginning of the 2013 season back in March.

Here I sit, looking at the dismal weather outside my office window.  The same diet of rain and fog is in store for the coming days. I know I won't be riding.  The temperatures are already dipping into sub-freezing digits; there has been frost on my Civic in the morning; I spotted a significant patch of ice mid-morning on the street outside the office earlier in the week.

None of these things bode well for commuting to work on a Vespa.

It's not that there isn't any joy in commuting in weather that's this cold.  Last night's commute was thoroughly enjoyable.

I sped westbound in the left lane along Autoroute 20.  It was 7:15 and the sun had set. The cold air blasted at my jacket, rippling the fabric along my arms.  I could feel the chill settling in, bit by bit.  Curious, I touched the button on my helmet communicator "Siri, what's the temperature?"  I said.  "It's currently four degrees Celsius" Siri replied.

The swing playlist resumed as I executed a little S swerve in my lane:  my way of expressing the joy of riding.  It's difficult for a non-rider to understand.  It's also a little routine that goes way back.  I remember doing the same thing and feeling pretty much the same satisfaction on my bicycle when I was a kid.

But now it's different.  There I was last night, cruising along at 110 km/h, listening to the Cherry Poppin Daddies' rendition of Dr. Bones, checking my mirrors, leaning into the turn as the highway veered left away from the airport exit.  It was just above freezing, I wasn't cold, I was chillin'.  I was rocking my Vespa home.  The GPS glowed brightly.  I didn't need it, it's just there so that I can tell how fast I'm really going.  I like the map shifting along as I ride.  It showed me the lake that was out of sight a mile or so to my left.

The ride ended, twenty-five minutes or so after it began.  One of the advantages of working late is that the traffic thins out.  As I rounded the corner I hit the button on the remote control dangling below the ignition.  The garage door rolled up.  I entered, glided to a stop, and hit the kill switch.

This could have been the last commute of 2013.

Rider profile: David Masse

Name: David Masse
Find me on Earth: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Find me Online: life2wheels.com, masse.org, Motorcycle Men Podcast interview, Life on two wheels YouTube channel
Interview Date: July 29, 2013
Interview Location: Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada

Scootcommute: When did you start riding, how old were you?

David: It had to be 1974. I was 22.

Scootcommute: How many motorbikes have you owned?

David: Just three. A black 1974 49cc Solex moped, a 2006 dragon red Vespa LX 150, and a 2010 black on black Vespa GTS 300 Super i.e. (Ed. - 2015: add to that a 2003 Honda Shadow VT750 ACE)

Scootcommute: What is your current bike, and is the current bike your favorite?

David: I still have the Vespa LX 150 but it's for sale (ed.: now sold), which means the GTS is really my current bike, and it's far and away my favorite.

Scootcommute: Talk to me about the most challenging riding skill you learned.

David: Without a doubt, that would be counter-steering.  There's a single paragraph about it in the Quebec guide for those applying for a motorcycle license.  It just seemed nuts to me.  That to turn right, you steer left? Come on, it must be a test to weed out the feeble-minded.

And yet it's amazingly and counter-intuitively true.  And the faster you ride, the truer it is.  On the highway on the GTS, cruising at 110 kilometers an hour, changing lanes is all counter-steering.  Press right to go right, press left to go left.  It's amazing.  I owe learning to counter-steer to David Hough's excellent Proficient Motorcycling.

Scootcommute: Are you a moto-commuter, a tourer, or a fair weather rider?

David:  That's easy.  I'm definitely a commuter.  Commuting and touring place the most significant demands on the rider.  In both cases you have to be committed to the ride.  You can wait out really foul weather, but generally you need to be prepared to ride in wet weather, cold weather, and my personal favourite, wet and cold weather.  It takes preparation, good gear, and a well-equipped bike.

Scootcommute: Are you a solitary rider? How about riding in a group?

David:  I am generally a solitary rider, and I really enjoy riding alone.  Roughly half of my 2013 Blogger to Blogger Tour was solo riding, the other half was in the company of two much more accomplished riders.  I learned a lot about riding in a small group on the Tour, and that means I learned from mistakes that no doubt strained my companions' patience at times.

I also did a large group ride with the local scooter club the first year I returned to riding.  That was an interesting experience.  It was a motley crew, everything from a few kids on mopeds through a couple of maxi-scoots, and everything in between.  Riding rules resembled more those of a flock than a squadron. There were a lot of two-stroke scoots along.  As much fun as it was, and it was definitely fun, at the end of the day I felt like I had mowed lawns from dawn to dusk, and my clothes reeked of two-stroke exhaust fumes.

Scootcommute: I dare you to share an awkward or embarassing riding moment.

David:  It was a tiny incident, that took a few micro-seconds, but grew to embarrassing proportions.

Following the example of many motor bike owners before me, and inspired by what I had learned on the Modern Vespa forum, I replaced the stock horn on my Vespa LX with a Stebel air horn.  I was my first ambitious modification.  I had read some isolated reports of Stebel horn failures, and my wiring was initially a little wrong.  I loved the horn, but kind of expected that it could fail for some reason.

I pulled up to the garage at the office after a lunch time jaunt, and the door was closed.  In an effort to get the attendant's attention, I honked.  All I got was a pathetic whirring sound.  Damn! The Stebel's quit, I thought.  I imagined that the whirring sound I heard was the horn compressor barely spinning and managing only a faint hiss.

Certain I had a horn failure on my hands, I promptly sought help from the Modern Vespa forum.  Yikes!  In no time I was accused of being a troll (what the heck??) and of irresponsibly denigrating Stebel horns that were obviously akin to the holy grail of the MV inner circle.  I might as well have kicked a Harley at a biker bar.  The tempest eventually abated and I escaped relatively unscathed.

Initially I felt somewhat wronged.  The deep embarrassment descended upon me in private when it slowly dawned on me, weeks later, after a similar incident, that I had hit the starter button, not the horn button.   There never was a Stebel horn failure, and that horn is now in its second Vespa, and has still never failed.

Scootcommute: What is the best place your bike has taken you?

David:  That's a tough one.  Almost every ride is filled with pleasure, and some rides are truly blissful.  In that sense, the best place my bike takes me is to a state of mind.  In terms of physical places, the best places have been the places I rode in Bob's company to meet up with Dave Dixon and Sonja and Roland Mager (Coquitlam BC) and Steve Williams (Bellefonte, PA, and State College, PA).   Steve and Dave, more than any others, inspired me to take up riding a Vespa.  I am sure neither of them realizes the important role they played.

Scootcommute: Tell me why you ride.

David: I always wanted to own and ride a Vespa motor scooter.  The desire was born in high school where I spent many a lunch break admiring the motor scooters that some of the college kids rode to school.  The closest I came back then was when I was in college and got a Solex moped for my birthday.  My mother was not prepared to let me ride anything more motorcycle-like than that.  I managed to wring a lot of happiness out of that little bike.

I only graduated to an actual Vespa in 2010, very recently.  I'm in my fourth season.  All I can say is that if I had even suspected the pleasure I have had riding my Vespas, I would have begun this adventure years and years earlier.

Scootcommute: If I could grant you one riding wish, what would it be?

David: Never to become complacent, always to be aware and vigilant when I ride.  That, and one day to coax my darling wife onto the passenger saddle for modest little rides along the lake shore for coffee or ice cream.

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