It's certainly starting to feel real now

At this time a week from now I'll just be setting out on the first leg of my trip.  Holy shit.

I've gotten most of my gear and stuff squared away.  I'm carrying enough spare parts to cover anything basic that goes wrong along the way.  If there's anything catastrophic that happens, well...game over.  The bike goes on a support truck and I ride shotgun the rest of the way.  But that won't happen, so I've just got ten days of long rides ahead of me.

For anyone reading who frequents Modern Vespa you'll know some of the cast of characters I'm about to encounter.  Bill Dog is flying into Dulles from the UK next Tuesday, where I will collect him and bring him to my place.  We'll have a day to finish prepping our rides and ourselves before we leave on Thursday.  We'll travel west from Richmond to meet up with Jim and Kristin (JimC and Ivana Tinkle) and spend the next two days riding down the Blue Ridge Parkway and southeast to Savannah.  We'll have one full day to enjoy the city and meet up with all of the other crazy bastards doing this thing.  At some point during that day I also hope to ride down to the shore and dip my front wheel in the Atlantic.

And then...eat, drink, sleep (I hope), and leave just after dawn the following day.  Let the games begin.

Counting down

The six weeks since I last posted have felt more like six months.  We closed on our new place, packed our stuff, moved in two phases over the course of a couple of weeks, and now we're getting settled in.  Compacted into one, short sentence it doesn't really sound like much but it's been a bitch.  And I learned something important along the way: DO NOT buy a house and move just weeks before you're supposed to leave on an epic, 3,000-mile scooter trip.

In less than two weeks I'm going to hit the road for Savannah and on the 22nd we set out from there for San Diego.  I've been following the preparations of my fellow riders online with some interest and more than a little dread.  As they've all been doing maintenance and modifications to their scooters, I've been dealing with things that have kept me from even thinking about my scooter, let alone tinkering with it.  I feel like I'm running a bit behind and that's not where I was hoping to be at this point on the calendar.

Thank goodness I started my Cannonball obsession months ago.  What seemed premature back in the fall now seems prescient and wise.  I started writing lists of gear and parts and things to do back when I had the time and luxury of thinking things through.  I ordered parts and marked up maps and entered routes into my GPS long enough ago that it seemed foolish to be giving it so much thought then.  But if I hadn't done all of that I believe I'd be in such a state of panic now that I'd consider scrapping the whole thing and waiting for 2014 to ride.  This morning I was able to finally begin to use those lists to bring some order to my scooter chaos.

I began by clearing a large spot in the middle of the garage floor and laying out a tarp.  I've been unpacking the boxes that I'd been careful to mark and set aside during the move, placing things in several different piles.  There are the things that I need to carry with me on my scooter and those that I will put on a support vehicle.  I'm only part way into it and already the mounds are growing large enough that I'm a little concerned.  By the time I've got it all spread out it's going to look like enough stuff for a small army.  How and what I winnow out will be an interesting exercise.

Time to stop blabbering and get back to it.  I'll try to get some photos as I go to begin documenting the madness.

Two months to go

I've been quiet for the past few weeks and actually thinking very little about Cannonball.  We are in the middle of buying a house and every step of the way has been ridiculously difficult.  We have our closing scheduled a week from today and literally do not know if the deal is still going to go through.  The moments of high drama, stress and worry have not only sucked the joy out of what should be a fairly happy event, but it's kept me from thinking about this whole cross-country thing that's coming up soon.

The Cannonball riders - all 62 of us - will set out from Savannah two months from today.  After obsessing over this for nearly two years it's hard to believe the time has just about come.  I think I'm supposed to be fretting over what's in my tool kit and making sure I've got the spare parts I need but instead I'm undergoing a financial colonoscopy from the mortgage company and wondering if we're going to have a place to move to or have to start over from square one.  With any luck this will all be over soon and my worry over buying the house will be displaced by worry over getting packed and moved in the month prior to Cannonball.  I know things are going to work out one way or another.


I want to give a shout-out to David Masse.  I was away over the weekend and when I got home I found a package from Canada waiting for me.  David decided to send me a couple of turtle lights for my scooter.  They are small LED lights that are super bright, have long battery life, and can be used in either steady or flashing mode.  He sent a white one and a red one.  I can hang or mount them fore and aft on my scooter to make myself more visible.  I don't think a driver could fail to spot me with these things on.  Thank you, David, for your thoughtful gift.  It's a great addition to my kit.

Home sweet home

Right here, right now, in the middle of all of my pre-Cannonball planning, my wife and I are buying a new house.  We went under contract this week after some nerve-wracking negotiations with a crusty old bastard who by all appearances didn't really care whether the house sold or not.  We got it done - well, at least the first part - and we set an aggressive timeline by insisting on a Feb. 29 closing - yes, that's now less than three weeks away.

In many ways there couldn't be a worse time for Cannonball to be happening.  I'm supposed to be saving money, not shoveling it out the door on things like spare tires and riding gear and plane tickets.  I'm supposed to be packing my belongings, not spreading them out and cataloging them and deciding what will fit on the scooter and what stays behind.  Conversely, I have moments of thinking, "hey, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be doing scooter maintenance and route planning, not scheduling home inspections and radon tests and filling out mortgage applications."

I'm glad that I have Cannonball to think about because it's a pleasant distraction.  And I hate that I have Cannonball to think about because I'm already stressed out and the upcoming ride adds to it at times.

I suspect I'll look back on this in the not-too-distant future and get a chuckle out of it.  Of all the problems in the world to have, being stressed over buying a new home and doing a scooter ride of a lifetime are not all that bad.

seeking support

I knew there was no way to do Cannonball on the cheap.  Even if you showed up at the starting line with just the clothes on your back you'd have a week and a half of hotels, meals, beer, gasoline, etc.  to pay for.  And I'm showing up with much more than that - a spare tire, belt and rollers, exhaust header and gaskets, tools, riding gear for all climates and on and on.  Oh, and I have to ship my bike back to Virginia when it's done and hop on a plane to get myself home.  I haven't dared to do more than a back-of-the-envelope calculation of what it's all going to cost but it's probably going to be at least $2,500.  Nope, not cheap.

But I knew this going in and decided that it was worth it.  It hadn't really crossed my mind to ask other people to help since this is a personal endeavor, but I've been watching some of my fellow riders ask for support and see lots of people happily stepping up to pitch in.  So here I am.


I've been working in professional fundraising for over 15 years.  I've asked people for 6-figure gifts.  You'd think I'd know how to do this but I'm discovering that it isn't as easy to do when you're asking for yourself rather than a cause.

I've set up a fundraising page at GoFundMe.com to make it easy.  Half of everything I get is going to charity so it's funding more than my crazy ride.  Cheers.

This is Cooper

, a photo by kyoty58 on Flickr.

I'm linking my various accounts and Cooper is my test photo from Flickr. That is all.

Getting connected

I'm an early riser, always have been.  I generally wake up on my own somewhere around 5:00.  I'm not one of those perky, jump-right-out-of-bed sorts but I also don't spend much time lolling around before I decide to get up.  My first thoughts of the day are generally things like, "Huh?" or "I don't want to work today" or "Where am I?", but yesterday when I woke up I realized I was already thinking in full sentences and probably had been for awhile.  And what I was thinking was, "What sorts of electrical connectors and how many of them should I pack for Cannonball?"

My minimalist approach to gearing up is beginning to give way to concern that I'm going to forget to bring some crucial little piece of something that I discover I need only when I've broken down on a Forest Service road in Arizona that's many, many miles from nowhere.  One reaction to that, I suppose, would be to think of and then pack all of those crucial bits of something, which is apparently what I was doing yesterday when I woke up.

Butt connectors?  Male and female spade connectors?  Good lord, what is happening to me?