It's Fishtail Parka Season

I'm convinced that the seasons want to zoom right past Fall and get Winter started NOW! As I looked at the weather map to see that pretty much everyone in our little blog neighborhood, with the exception of Orin, is enjoying temperatures anywhere from the 60's through the 80's, our day started out at 37 degrees. This is a tad bit cold for early October friends, but not too cold to keep old Billy Boy from a nice putt on Ol' Blue.

Even though this is my day off, I had to make an appearance at work this morning. So I rode my Big Ruckus out early, and after getting home again, I still wanted to ride. I had been looking at some rally photo's on Scoot.net last night, and was jonesin' to get out on the Vespa. Today I got my fix. I'll tell you what too, this type of day was made for wearing a fishtail parka. I know some of you cats know what I'm talking about, but for those of you who don't...do some research on this piece of scooter history, and look into why this article of clothing is not only very warm and functional, but also how it ranks on the scale of scooter cool. My parka is the M65 model with the detachable wool hood with the synthetic fur ruff. The M51 has the attached hood that came with real wolf's fur ruff. I hope that Santa wears one to my house this Christmas and leaves it under the tree for me.

The photo above shows the jacket on the seat. I know that everyone isn't into military surplus clothing, and prefer body armor with their riding wear, but there is something about owning a vintage scooter that keeps me wanting to follow tradition, and the Mod's were pretty good about figuring what worked best for poor riding conditions back in "the day."

Another thing about riding my Vespa had me thinking of Orin O'Neill over at Scootin' Old Skool. When Orin travels, he has to deal with traffic moving at speeds much faster than his PX150, so that pretty much keeps him toward the fogline. As I rode today at speeds even slower than what Orin can do, I too had to stay to the far right of my lane to allow cars to pass. I'm used to rolling at the speed of traffic on my Sportster and my BR, so when you're not used to having cars pass you in your own lane, it feels a little funky at first. But every time I take the GT125 out, I think of how cool it would be to test its limits and go on some kind of road trip. Maybe this Winter my Geezer cronies and I will come up with some kind of plan to do something this Spring. We will definitely find our way to some rallies for sure. Our plans of hitting the rally scene this past Summer went down the turd hopper since we had just moved into a new store, and our level of business went from busy to really, really busy. Now hopefully the bugs have been worked out and we can find our stride again. When you miss out on your leisure time in the name of "work," you end up feeling like you are giving up a bit too much. And for a scooter bum that wants to get out and do more than just commute, giving up too much ain't gonna work.

I'm hoping that this goofy speed trip into Winter will bring continued dedicated riding and planning for next season. JayBee is moving forward with his plan to get the Allstate shipped off to Scooterworks in Chicago, and I'm going to haul my scoot to the Emerald City to get a once over before the real crap weather sets in. Then I'll start pondering if I want to keep it in its pristine condition, or if I want to ride it the way it was intended to be ridden...all the time, and in every condition. With my fishtail parka on.

Have fun,
Bill