9/9/16

First scooter ride since November, 2014. First scooter ride in Washington. 2003 Honda Ruckus. Yes, I'm a heart patient, and I ride.

Scootnashville Saturday Social Scramble

Glorious morning, feeling more like September in Nashville than August!  75°F upon leaving Smyrna @ ~9:50 a.m., and little to no humidity! This is odd. Above: Ed and Dan converse al fresca at Eighth and Roast.

Ross welcomes all, and explains the lack of a route, and the non-lack of ride rules.

Ed is The Man.

These ladies are also The Mans.

"Git yer helmets on, effers!"

Bomber art on a modern Vespa.

The coots pull into a spot across from the Percy Warner Golf Course, to receive n00b instructions from Rossifer.

Ancient Mayan architecture. Left by aliens. From space.

I like stone walls.

Wanda, with Nashville down in the hole behind her. Luke Lea Overlook, in Percy Warner Park.

The well-stocked Wanda.

1P1P: Awesome Young Babes & Tommy Chong

Tommy buys vinyl here, a lot. Or rolling trays. It's all good.

So many hotties and hipsters, almost all under 30, flow through this corridor on 8th Ave S.  Two beautiful, astounding young ladies (college shoppers?) asked me if a cafe next door was open. One of my scooter coots spoke up, saying it was a bar (I didn't know!). They then asked for suggestions, so I sidled up and recommended Cafe Coco, if they wanted eclectic yet inexpensive fare, and awesome people-watching. They liked that idea, so I gave directions.

1P1P: Breakfast

From Eighth and Roast. Best coffee in Nashville, IMO, and I've tried most.

This beauty is a turkey snausage and egg buiscit. I think the biscuit is a multi- or whole-grain type, as it's... well, not southern.  :)  Very good. A bit steep compared to McD's, but probably free-range, gluten free and all that hipster shit, right?  Worth the meager price.

1P1P: Eighth and Roast

scootnashville's Saturday morning coffee fix. Hey, Brad!  Thanks for the $1 off!

Next Year, Bring Beer, Watch For Free!

Smyrna has an air show every June -- a political sop to the 1971 closing of Sewart Air Force Base. I have a prime viewing location at the farmhouse, being less than a mile from the airfield where the show is held, and an unobstructed view to the west from the backyard, looking towards the airfield.

Ed & Michele pull in -- my first visitors from Nashville to the farmhouse!

U.S. Navy Blue Angels in their F/A-18 Hornets, doing what they are paid to do.

Tight, tight, tight!  One has to admire this skills involved to fly 18" off the next wing.

Blue Angels' C-130.

An amazing stunt. Should have gotten video, as this is preceded by mock dogfighting with insanely close head-on passes between the fighters, mainly flying sideways and upside down.

Beautiful day for a cookout in the yard!

Long Time

Yes -- I live in the sticks, right now.

Tuesday, I'm moving into Smyrna. NissanTown.

Y'all gotta come have a beer.

When Animals Attack!

Yes, I was very nearly mauled by a rabid, wild turkey. A tom. As I was riding home, tonight.

He was on the sidewalk on Harding Place, in front of Frugal McDoogal's (dunno why -- this is a mile from the airport). He saw me moving slowly in heavy traffic on the scoot, and just copped a major attitude. Damn, I wish someone would have videoed it. He stepped right off the sidewalk and made a beeline for me. Traffic moved just fast enough to keep me out of weapons range, but I started to worry that I might slam into the back of that white Dodge Caliber in front of me while watching this fowl beast running after me, right up the middle of the right, westbound lane of Harding Place @ I-24. Again, LMFAO, all the while.

No, silly -- I know birds can't carry rabies... do you think I'm a total dumbass? Still, this shit happened, and I LMFAO. One for the books, I tell ya.

UPDATE: Believe it.



Which leads me to want to play a joke on my scootnashville pals, just to see which of them reads this here blog. Next time you greet me, you better say, "gobble, gobble!"

Thanks, Obama!

Tonight's commute. Now we know which runway Air Force One uses to takeoff from BNA. It's the one that spans Murfreesboro Road.

I Forgot About It Being Seven Years

... since I went scooter-only. So I missed that by a couple of weeks.

That Ymoto Vortec 150 was, of course, a monumental cluster, but it led to smaller, then bigger and always better thangs.

It'd be pretty tough to find a worse scooter than this one for people who need reliable transportation, anyway. Thanks, China!

Anyway, here we are in shitty, cold weather again. Whoo-hoo. Here's something I've done to Wanda to make that more bearable for me.

Those li'l "bark busters" really help keep the hands warm, let me tell ya.

Bear Minimum

The bear, mentioned in my "geo-cache" challenge, is inside the radius of this green circle overlay. Now you know where NOT to look.  :)

One Year, Tomorrow

I recall the lady at the dealer setting me up with my insurance, and asking how much I would be riding, per year. "15,000 miles," was my reply after some quick, in-head estimating.

Saturday @ Marathon Village

Troy Olive. Geez.

Friday Night

'Za Night

Another fine time had by all at the Pizza Perfect on 21st.

I brought a quiz, with the winner winning a rally scooter raffle ticket. The quiz was too hard (no one got more than two right), so I will have to randomly draw. The quiz:

1.) Honda recently announced a slightly-sub-300cc scooter for the U.S. market that takes design cues from the PCX. What is the name of this new scooter?

2.) Vespa's new 946 model was so dubbed owing to the 1946 model Vespa, and was available only by pre-order until 4/30/2013. The model's name may have something to do with the answer to this question. What was Vespa's U.S. MSRP for the Vespa 946?

3.) One of our scootnashville folks works on a current television program that airs on ABC, and it has just been renewed for a second season. What is the name of that show?

(that was a gimme)

Saturday, we play a Glympse game! There will be blogging...

Social

Just a catch-up on what's going on in the Nashville scooter scene, for those interested...

The photo at right (courtesy Jason) is from Saturday's (5/11) coffee klatch, held this week @ Frothy Monkey II, next door to Grimey's Too on 8th Avenue. The coffee was good, the smell of the new cedar tables was welcome and Glympse helped reassure all of us we were Not Alone prior to meeting up.  :)

Forward to this evening, where I had volunteered to distribute some Blue vs. Grey II flyers at a monthly scooter event at Sloan's in Murfreesboro (no, that's not misspelled, and that IS where I bought Wanda). We were all  hoping for some  kind of turnout, but the only non-scootnashville people there were the Sloan's employee leading the ride, and his SO. Needless to say, not many flyers were issued. :-/

We finished up that ride in time for me to make it back to Pizza Perfect to hang with the gang for a few minutes. I left my keys in Wanda so that Ross could do something silly -- tonight, he rode Wanda across 21st Avenue and left her in the Suntrust parking lot. He's easily entertained.  :)

Sunday Scooterrification

Time: 13:30. Destination: Shelby Park.

Route: Down Charlotte Ave. to Centennial Park, to meet other riders. Park was cordoned off by every cop on the planet (Music City Marathon!).

PLAN B: Head to Doctor & Mister Willy's. Drink beer. Wait for communications. Communications were ongoing as I arrived.

PLAN B.2: Find Willy's nitrile gloves. Drink more beer. Hand tools to Willy. Drink beer. Chat about the rally. Get old Vespa running. Drink beer. Ride around the neighborhood, watch old Vespa stall out a half-dozen times, & nearly lose its flywheel. 40MPH, Ma!  Top of the world!  Drink more beer.

Time: 15:25. En Route: Shelby Park. Okay, furilla. Arrived Shelby Park ~16:05. Cornhole in progress! Additional beer!  Hot dogs!  DOGS!

Time: 18:00. Leave Shelby Park, head to ESS in Exile. Hang out with James, the boys, Josephine, the goggies, the kitteh (who loves me almost as much as food!) & Mr. Bobby. Pick up crazy modular helmet for Ivy's son. Drink more beer w/James at Beyond The Edge. Talk sensible winger politics.  :)

Time: 20:47. Home. Kittehs happy.

Nashville Cash

Meet up with us in an hour @ Centennial Park (by the cement pond, across from the Parthenon), or ride over to Shelby Park in East Nasty, and bring yo' $20 bill!

If you can't make it, click on Abe above to register online with PayPal. Or just send me $20 in quarters. I need to do laundry.

Suck It, Ken Burns

Now, go register!

Only Because That Other Site Are Being Exclusionary Douchebags

... so shall I also be!  :)

I love 2strokebuzz, I really do; it's a very informative site. I love old scooters... old, Italian, metal-bodied scooters, even. Old, Italian, metal-bodied scooters that can only be reliably ridden in hours-per-year that you can count on one hand, even.

But this exclusionary "cold weather challenge"?  Where ONLY  shifty, 2-stroke scooters can qualify?  I call bullshit. 

We all know the real Cryo-Commandos are people like me, who ride every  day to work, on reliable, modern CVT-equipped scooters. Most of these "vintage" guys have to ride around the neighborhood multiple times in cold weather to get to their nearest latté and fulfill the minimum 10-mile requirement of 2sb's challenge. This, as they say, Shall Not Stand.

So!  My counter-challenge: Longest ride over 20 miles, on any 4-stroke, CVT-equipped, plastic-bodied scooter (yes, Chinese junk included) of 150cc or less in the lowest temperature will have their choice of either the ironic prize offering of a model of a 1955 Vespa 150 GS (pictured above), or a pair of Northern Safety's N-Specs® Venom Riders clear lens foam-lined protective eyewear, which are completely awesome for cold weather riding (or nighttime riding at any temperature). Second Place gets the prize not chosen by the First Place winner.

Enter in comments, on this post, including location, scooter make, model and displacement, starting temperature, and distance. A Google Maps route would be nice, but not required. Please be prepared to back up your claim from TWC historical data. Otherwise, I trust you to do the right thang. Contest ends February 28th, 2013. Winners will be announced here.