"The Ghost of Scootertrash Past"

The Ghost of Scootertrash Past – Memories & Rants of a Longrider by Mark "Tiger" Edmonds

 “Tiger” Edmonds is at it again. True be told, this one is my favorite, so far. Tiger reminds me of a biker version of Baxter Black. His musings on riding and "the road" are obviously heart felt as well as thought and emotion provoking. 

Scootertrash is his second book and it is a random collection of Edmonds' stories from the road. He writes in a unique style. He is profane at times. He has no respect for political correctness, so if you're easily offended, this may not be the book for you. Parts of this book are poetic and deserve to be read aloud.

Here is one such poetic excerpt where Tiger is talking to a young lady. They have very different ideas about being on the road: 
“She giggled and asked about the sunshine and unfrozen rivers and flowers and birds and butterflies in the air. She asked about alligators and the Southern Cross and the Spanish moss. And she wanted to know about manatees.
But I told her about the heat and the cold, about just getting' old, and about thousand mile days. I tried to tell her about border towns and local citizens' frowns and about how the highway will wear you down out there between the Mohawk Valley and Tampa Bay.”
This exchange goes on for several "stanzas" and sounds great when read aloud.

Here's to being on the road less travelled

Other parts are humorous in the way he chooses to describe something. Here is Tiger talking about tunnels: “Way I figure it, you got to have a lot of gopher in you to be comfortable riding into a hole in the ground. The trouble is that riding a motorcycle is basically an outdoor activity, and tunnels are seriously indoors. It’s one of them things, like eating oysters,that makes you wonder who was the first guy tried it, and what the hell was he thinking?”

Riding through an old rail tunnel at the Scoot NM rally

Some of his thoughts on "super-slabs": "Interstate highways permit the inept to drive. Hell, they encourage the incompetent to travel cross country. .... It's a real mindless activity, and it can be done by the mentally deficient." (Remember what I said about those who are easily offended?)

I love this book and give it 5 stars. (I hate using "stars" as my rating symbol. Does anyone have an idea about a scooter-appropriate symbol? If so, please leave your suggestion in your comment.)

On days the weather or something else keeps you from riding, find a great book like this. It helps.

Howard

Review: Life is a Road, the Soul is a Motorcycle

Life is a Road, the Soul is a Motorcycle by Daniel Bryan Meyer is a free Kindle book which I highly recommend. The first thing that drew me to it is that it has the word "motorcycle" in the title. The second thing is that it said "free" next to the cost. I will say that it is worth paying for, though. It is a great read.

Not my pic, but this is a Valkyrie. Beautiful bike!

According to the bio at the end of this book, Daniel Meyer is a "six-foot, three-hundred pound, blue-eyed
Texan, supremely confident and strong as an ox, though I don't usually smell like one." He rides a bike suitable for a big man; an Honda F6 Valkyrie.

I knew I was going to like this book by the end of the first paragraph of the introduction by Mr Meyer. He was just preparing to pull out of a gas station when a bike, it's rider and a passenger pull in. "Memories stirred as I watched a father and his young son dismounting their motorcycle in the parking lot of a nearby restaurant. As the boy removed his helmet, the grin I knew would surely be there shone brightly for the entire world to see." As a kid, I never got to ride with my dad or any other family member, but as an adult, I have gotten to see that "grin" under the helmet as I have given my grandchildren rides. It is, indeed, a treat for me and something, I hope, that they remember doing with me after I am gone. I knew I would like a book written by a rider who recognized that riding joy.

Life is a Road, according to the author, is the result of him recalling his many travels, the sights seen, people met and the magic experienced. Each chapter is a short story which describes a ride and/or incident in Mr meyer's motorcycling life. As it happens, he is a very good story teller.

My favorite chapter is called "Valkyrie Magic" and is Daniel giving a ride to a naked woman he find along a deserted stretch of highway. He describes the conversation that goes on between 4 parts of his brain when he first spots the woman. The Analytic Brain, the Motorcyclist, the Texan and the Male:

"Analytical: Whoa guys, get off the brake, get your hand back on the gas. Something is wrong here.
Motorcyclist: Somebody is standing beside the road. She may be in trouble.
Texan: She needs help. Let's stop.
Male: There is a naked woman beside the road. We're stopping.
Analytical: All I'm saying is that something is up. We should go on. People just do not step out into the road. This could be a trap.
Motorcyclist: There is no sign of an accident, and we have not passed any broken down cars. there are no houses anywhere near here. Maybe he's right. Something is up.
Texan: She needs help. Let's stop.
Male: Did you guys not hear me? There's a naked woman beside the road!"

What would The Duke do?

This continues in a predictable, but hilarious manner. As a male and a rider myself, I fully understand the conversation as well as its inevitable outcome.

If you read through the Kindle reviews of this book, you will see that a number or people doubt the veracity of Daniel's stories. I thought, too, that some of them may have stretched the truth a bit. However, when I got ready to do this review, I noticed two little words at the bottom of the cover page: "a novel." I believe that the basis for all these stories is authentic. I also believe that Mr Meyer added a few things to the stories, when needed, to make them a bit more fun. It's called artistic license.

This book is self published, and it shows. It could use some professional editing to clean up typos and errors in grammar, but the book is still well worth the read. Do yourself a favor and download this book.

Ride on my friends,

Howard

Review: The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing

The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing - Long Distance Motorcycle's Endless Road by Melissa Holbrook Pierson

Ms Pierson is an excellent writer with a fluid, easy to read and understand style. I also read her first book, The Perfect Vehicle: What is it about Motorcycles? That book was good, but she has improved a lot and The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing is really super.

The Iron Butt Association: who are they and what possess them to ride extreme distances? (like 1000+ miles a day for 10 or more days in a row) Who does someone who has ridden through all of the lower 48 states in 6.6 days (Mike Kneebone & Fran Crane) look up to? What does it take to make your own butt into Iron? What are the risks and benefits of this kind of riding?

Ms Pierson answers all of these questions and a lot more. She is a lifelong motorcycle rider and it shows in her writing. She spends most of the book talking about Iron Butt riders and events, but there is also a section where she describes her own attempts at endurance riding while preparing to write this book. There is a lot more to it than just hopping on the bike and twisting the throttle.

I really enjoy endurance riding, so reading this was easy and delightful for me. However, I think that anyone who rides, even if it is just for a couple of hours on the occasional weekend, will enjoy it too.

The man most of this book is about, John Ryan, is a true man who stops at nothing. His exploits are nothing short of legendary. Unfortunately, because he rides a motorcycle, rather than flies an airplane or drives a stock car, he will never be heard of by 99% of Americans. This fact is probably okay with Ryan, because he doesn't ride for fame or to win events, he rides for the love of it.

Book I of The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing is about the Iron Butt Association (IBA) in general and about John Ryan, specifically. There are wonderful comparisons between endurance riders and fighter pilots in one part and to cowboys of the old west in another. You learn about people in other disciplines who have done extreme things (like running 350 miles without sleep.)

In Book II, Ms Pierson gives her personal perspective of doing a Saddle Sore 1000 accompanied by none other than John Ryan.

The "hump" on top of the fuel tank, is actually the tank. Mr Ryan's bike has a fuel capacity of about 10 gallons.

Book III is my favorite. It gives an account of what may be John Ryan's most amazing ride. One of the IBA's sanctioned rides in the 50CC. The "CC" stands for Coast to Coast and the "50" means that you must complete the ride in less than 50 hours. One variant of this is the UCC or Ultimate Coast to Coast. It means that you must ride more than 5600 miles between Key West, FL and Prudhoe Bay, AK. In June of 2005, Mr Ryan left from Prudhoe Bay in an attempt to break the record time of 96 hours. After a couple of delays, he finally sets out and shatters the mark by almost 10 hours. Amazing!

Incase you are new to my blog, I, too, rode a Saddle Sore 1000 in 2010 (Has it been that long already?) If you are interesting in reading my account, you can find it HERE

Another Review: Scooters - Red Eyes, White Walls & Blue Smoke

I first saw Scooters - Red Eyes, White Walls and Blue Smoke at my local scooter shop, Scoot Over. It sat on the table near the chairs for people to read as they were waiting for service to be done, sales person to be available, etc. It is filled with great pictures of great scooters and people doing great scooter stuff. When my wife asked me what she should put on my Christmas list, this was one of the first books that came to mind.

Scooters is written by Colin Shattuck. He has an easy going, easy to understand writing style and clearly, he knows about scooters and those who love them. This book covers the American scooter scene from its beginnings in 1915 to the present. I really enjoyed the first two sentences of the Foreword: "Let's get one thing straight from the get-go. If we have to explain the wonder and allure and coolness of motorscooters, you simply won't understand." by Michael and Eric Dregni

Scooters is only 136 pages long, with plenty of photos, but even so, it covers a lot of ground. The first chapter, The Evolution of a Revolution starts with the 1915 American Motoped through the Suzuki Burgman and even touches on fuel cell, electric and hybrid bikes. Naturally, most of the print talks about Piaggio/Vespa and Innocenti/Lambretta, however, British, German, Japanese and Chinese scooters get covered as well. Don't worry, the two biggest American scooter manufacturers (Cushman and Salisbury) get their share  as well. If you want a succinct history of motor scooters, Red Eyes.... is THE place to get it.

A beautiful Heinkel that I photographed at High Rollers in 2011

Chapter 2 is called Scooter Breeds. This chapter not only talks about "modern" vs "vintage" scooters but some of the other ways out bikes are categorized. There are commuters, sport, mid-sized and maxi-scooters on the one hand. Vintage bikes are broken down into unrestored originals, restorations, customs, radical customs, racers, choppers, rat bikes and mods. There is also a nice section titled "Step by Step: A Restoration Guide which gives a simplified look at the stages of scooter restoration.

A Radical Custom as seen at Friki Tiki 2010

Chapter 3: Can You See the Real Me discusses the different kinds of people who ride scooters. He talks about the stereotypes as well. Some of the scooterists portrayed are the Mod, the Racer, Scooter Girls, Scooter Boys, the Old Man, and New School. The second half of chapter 3 is called "Join the Club." it gives a list an small description of a small sampling of scooter clubs around the US, divided by region. While I found this section interesting, I'll probably catch some flak for this, but I also found it a bit disturbing. I find it a bit bothersome that so many clubs find their identity in alcohol, mayhem, hooliganism and other immature behavior. I suppose I'm just getting old.

Gratuitous promotion of my own club

Chapter 4: Runs, Rallies, Raids... Mayhem is the final chapter. Since I have helped organize a number of rallies in the Tucson area, this was the first chapter I read. I wanted to see what other were doing and see what I could integrate into our rallies. The first part of this chapter talks about European rallies. (The 1984 Isle of Wight Rally had 12,000 people in attendance!) Then is returns to the states with a quick description of the elements of a rally then moves to cover (as with the scooter clubs) a variety of rallies broken down by region. I was thrilled to see that our own Tucson/Nogales Fall Classic is included.

Camp Scoot 2010

High Rollers 2012

Tucson/Nogales Falls Classic 2009

For A Few CC's III 2013

Scooters - Red Eyes, White Walls & Blue Smoke is an excellent primer on scooters and scooter culture in America. If you are new to scooters and want to what you may have gotten yourself in to, I would start with this book. It is informative, quick, down and dirty. For those with ADD, it has lots and lots of great photos.

Ride On!

Howard

Trying it Again . . . . with a review

I have missed writing. (Although, with a year and 8 month absence, that is probably a little difficult to believe.) For what it's worth, I have written a very few entries on the Sky Island Riders site. As we all know, "life happens" and priorities change, as does the amount of time one has to write on a blog.

One thing I have had a bit of time to do is read. I was watching a bit of television (usually NetFlix) most nights before I went to sleep. I realized that I had several books about scooter and motorcycle riding, that my loving bride had bought for me, laying around and that watching the tube was a poor way to show my appreciation for those gifts. I started spending some time reading most evenings. I have read some really good books, some average and some below average books over the past few months.

I have been feeling bad about not posting here and was trying to think of a good way to break back into the habit. Something quick and relatively easy to write sounded good. Then it occurred to me that I could start writing reviews of the books I have been reading. Some of the people I know may discover a good book or two, after all, the books I have been reading are not "high profile" and while some are very good, i don't think any have made the Billboard charts (with one exception, although I haven't decided for sure if I am going to review that one.)

Let's get one with it, shall we?

Long Rider - A tale of just passin' through by Mark Tiger Edmonds

. From the back cover: "Take a BMW motorcycle, one million miles and Mark Edmonds. Distill for 35 years. Result?You get an insightful, compassionate (and passionate) view of America and what it means to all of us who, after all, are "just passin' through."...Mr Edmonds' assessment of this country and the changes it's undergone remains as unswerving as his assessment of himself as he rides his own pilgrimage, just passin' through."

Tiger Edmonds is a motorcycle riding, poetry writing professor at a college in Florida. He writes like he talks and he talks like a biker. If you are offended by profanity and use of the "f-word" books by Mr Edmonds are not for you. For those who can appreciate passion, even if you don't agree with its author, you may love reading Edmonds' work as much as I do.

Longrider is Edmonds' first book. It is not his best, in my opinion, but it is still very good. As mentioned above, mark has more than a million miles on motorcycles. He has a poet's heart and a painter's eye and he writes and passionately about what he sees and experiences on his rides. I will review some of his other books soon, I hope.

I think, no, I KNOW, that my favorite chapter of Longrider is called Roadsongs. In this chapter Edmonds explains that "different roads have different songs." He describes different roads he has been on and that many roads have "songs" that they sing to you as you ride. A road in West Virginia along the Tug Fork "sounds more like "Amazing Grace" than anything I ever heard." Another road between Austin and Abilene, he says, sings "a slow polka with a pretty heavy oompah beat to it." Personally, I had noticed that different roads have given me different feelings (other than the differences in pavement/asphalt) but when I read this chapter I had an "Ahah!" moment. Now I am more attuned to the songs that various roads sing to me.

This road has a different song to sing.....

than this one. Don't you think?

Chapter Eleven is another favorite. In addition to amusing roadside repairs, there is a section about signs. I have a tendency to notice and take photos of interesting and/or humorous signs I see. I was glad to see someone else who has similar observations about such signs as I do.

Sorry for the poor quality, but this was taken with my cell phone, through the drive thru window at a local burrito shop.

Other things he muses about in Longrider include Dead Animals, Savior Waitresses, Ex-Wives, Winnebagos (he hates them)Zen, Truckers and the Girl with the Paisley Paint Job and many others.

There's Somethin' About a Sidecar

I've been riding riding scooter for 3 and a half years now. For most of that time I've been fascinated by sidecars, also known as "hacks" or "rigs." Who isn't? Right? Sure, I had people tell me that they're not all they're cracked up to be, but my interest continued.

Here's the Stella after I had ridden her to the rally.

My interest hasn't always remained high, though. I had the opportunity to ride/drive one about 20 miles in May of 2010. We were having a scooter rally and my friend Meta, who has a 2005 Stella with a sidecar, and I traded scooters so she could ride unhindered in one of the rides. I had been jonesing to ride one, so I didn't hesitate to let her take my Stella on the ride, so I could take the sidecar across town to the next rally location.

I was underwhelmed, to say the least. I had no idea it took so much work to control one of these things! Because there is no brake on the sidecar, every time I came to an intersection, the whole rig would swing violently to the left. Because the sidecar isn't powered, every time I would accelerate at any rate harder than a snail on quaaludes, the hack swung hard to the right. It was all I could do to stay between the lines.

Argh! Beware of the corners!

Cornering? "Fuhget abowd it!" I made a left onto a street with three lanes for cars and one for bikes and still almost ran over the curb! Right hand turns were nightmarish as well. I don't think that the sidecar actually went into the air on any of turns, but I have seen enough YouTube videos that I felt like it was going to. I think I made every turn at 5mph or less. I never knew how much roads sloped in one direction or another, until I was on that rig. That was yet another disturbing sensation. By the time I arrived at my destination, my arms were limp with the exhaustion of fighting the scooter.

My SIL, Raoul, my eldest grandson, Zak, and I on the hack.

Now that I had ridden a sidecar 20 miles or so and was, therefor, an "expert" I told some of my friends how I foolishly wanted one before I had piloted one, but now I knew better and would never get one. I knew those foolish sidecar fantasies would plague me no longer.

My daughter, one of the grand twins and I on the rig.

Apparently, sidecar fantasies are not easily eliminated. Time went by and my thoughts about them ceased being as negative. I have a daughter, son-in-law and grandson who all live in Cape Town, South Africa. When we first learned, in May, that they were going to come and visit, my wife mentioned, in passing, that sidecars and grand kids would make a pretty good combination. I wasn't too sure about that idea but it fell into one of the many lesser used parts of my brain and began to germinate.

My other daughter, mother of the grand twins, my other grand twin and I

Before I knew it, I was thinking a lot about sidecars again. I was googling them. I was watching YouTube videos. I even started following a blog about Hubert Kriegel, who travels the world on a Ural Sidecar Rig. I began think "What better way to transfer my love for scooters and riding on 2-wheels is there than taking them for a ride in a sidecar?"

As the time for the South African contingent's visit got closer, I asked Meta about borrowing her hack for the visit. She never hesitated a moment and said I could have Stella and "the Rocket" (her sidecar) for as long as I wanted them. In the end, we actually traded rides. Meta took my RV-250 and I took her Stella w/sidecar.

Zak loved all the scooters.

The kids were actually in town before we managed to make the trade. I met Meta at Scoot Over (Tucson's finest scooter source) and rode home. This was the same rig I had ridden 18 months earlier, but I didn't have quite as many problems with it riding to my house. Perhaps it was because there weren't as many turns. I also was real easy on the brake and accelerator.

I got home fine, but knew I had to practice a bit lest I scare to bejeebers out of my 2 year grandson. As I was sitting there on the bike, up drives a car with California plates. My daughter and SIL were expecting some friends from CA who wanted to see them now that they were in the states.

Here, dear friends, is the allure of the sidecar. I had never seen these folks before in my life. They stepped out of their car and I called over:

"You must be the Dunlaps. Want to take a ride in my sidecar?"

To which Kendra replied: "Are you kidding?"

"Nope." I said, and she jumped in.

It's great for picking up pizza, too!

I did advise her, once we were out of sight of the house, that she was the first person i had ever ridden in the sidecar. We zipped around the block and when we pulled up to my driveway, it was clear that Justin was ready for his ride. I took him around the block and when we got back to the house, I took them in the house to introduce them to the family. People will take off with total strangers, if it means they get to ride in a sidecar.

For the next ten days, I gave rides in that hack almost every day. I learned to anticipate what the scooter would do on take off and with braking. I learned to slide my butt off the side of the seat in the turns. I learned that even "cool" high school boys, smoking cigarettes, will point and shout "Look at that!" when I rode by. The more I rode, the more I enjoyed this scooter.

Smiles before & during each ride, tears afterward.

If the fact that Zak, my grandson, cried every time he got out of the Rocket is any indication, I would say he really liked it. Additionally, everyone else in the family liked it too. I am pretty sure that I don't want a Stella with a sidecar, though. I think it's a little much to expect a 150cc bike to pull the extra mass associated with a sidecar much less a passenger.

What is NOT to love about this?

I am finding myself attracted to the Ural. The fact that the Ural looks just like the hacks you see in the old movie about WWII kind of cements it in my head. I will be looking at scooter and various motorcycle w/sidecar combos over the coming months. I don't know how I'll ever afford one, but we'll wait and see how that goes.

I went for a ride a couple of days ago and took my Go-Pro along. I was on my RV-250. This ride was listed in Arizona Highways Magazine, so I decided to go out and try some dirt road again.

I think my starter failing during that other ride was a coincidence.

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