THE EVENT PAGE ... (12-12-24)
Please note that all content on this site is presented without cost to you and is in the interest of entertainment and is not to be considered as advice. - #000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello All ... it's been a fun evening so far! Let's Keep On Thumpin', yes?
We've talked about a few things in the previous pages but the last subject was kinda on speed of travel, you know, how fast can I not only go legally or as highway roadside signed but how much faster can I go than that and get away with it?
It wasn't too long ago when an officer had volunteered verbally to me that as long as someone was driving within ten miles OVER the posted speed limit ... he was okay! Huh?
I'm known within my social circle here in my neighborhood, even in FSSNOC, as one who rides slower than most ... maybe because it is true.
Back in 2013, I deliberately chose to begin riding a 250cc all over the USA, I chose a Honda CBR250R and within its current 93,000 miles + odometer reading, it has made not one but several trips across the width and length of the USA sea-to-sea, top to bottom, and it did so willingly without complaint, without undue repairs, without extensive maintenance, without fuss or muss, it just did mile after mile, the front wheel rotating confidently that we would reach our destination, wherever it was ... and on less fuel than most.
My idea was to be an example to others. People learn from other people. Someone is watching you. Someone is learning from you, good or bad.
FSSNOC began in 1986, we all had hair, we all had energy, we all had get up and go ... well, by 2013, some of our earliest members were beginning to stop attending events, some even confessed to not riding anymore; their Honda 650, or Yamaha 600, or the kick starter SR500 and SRX650 or whatever, now setting in the garage ... the seat too tall and too narrow, and so on, there isn't any luggage, etc. ... and, as I mentioned early tonite, when I worked at a Motorcycle Shop for 30 years, starting as a salesman and later the head guru, and of note, it was a lot more fun when I wasn't the head guru! Ha! Ha! Responsibility can be a drag sometimes ... but in that process of applying some of the stuff I learned at my real job to my second "job", that of FSSNOC, a labor of love from Day one as it continues to be ... I tried to show the older aging faction that one doesn't have to ride a big fast bike or a new Harley or heavy Gold Wing to travel, in fact, if you've ever read Walt Whitman's poem, the Open Road, written in 1856, and published in mutation form in Thumper News twice and soon to be again ... at some point while reading his poem, one usually figures out that he is traveling not by car, not by plane, but by ... foot ... on dirt roads!
Not a jet plane to California, not a rented car trip to Texas, not a motorcycle journey on a "road" bike, often now on a trailer, to Sturgis ... one can go all those places and more, as Maynard pointed out, on a bicycle ... or a slower lighter engine-powered two-wheeler, say a smaller lighter motorcycle or a lower center of gravity Scooter.
Most bicycle riders that cover longer distances are quite content with 12 to 14 miles per hour, compare that to any 250cc, by comparison, a much faster mode of travel ... but is speed really what we desire? It often does appear so.
Or ... is it the pace of our world, hurry up, then wait ... Ever drive in a larger city of late? After our (Woodrow and Gus), FSSNOC trip to the Eastern part of the USA in 2023, you may remember the ThumperCafe #61 with only six people there in Vermont, why was that?
Why did the "Too Few Crew of Six" go and all the others stayed at home?
Maybe because they considered the driving climate, the high cost of motels, and of the impending storm forecasted which certainly all those things did occur; we rode from start to finish on several days without getting out of the rain ... and/or out of those pesky stoplights! Most of this was after the Event as Woodrow and I had elected to head even farther into the Eastern USA ... wrong! It was a poor decision...
It was on that trip, while repeatedly setting at stop signs looking at other people through the privacy of their heavily tinted windows and many times while we sat atop our motorcycles in the rain, I came to the realization that new cars are now designed to be capable of being your "living room", your "happy place", during those long 10-minute no-move stop signs.
Those cars even have air temp control that you set at the desired degree, coffee cup holders, serious(?) radio, even movies for the kids or Grandpa and Grandma in the back seat, who often are asleep ... These new cars are a sometimes rolling, sometimes not, comfort zone for when their passengers are stopped. Most drivers immediately grab for their cell phone when traffic stops, I counted as many as 35 cars ahead of us and I recall setting through more than one green-yellow-red-green sequence before we could go again ... that's tough on a country boy.
But, looking back, I have to say, "We had fun! Everyday, we had fun!" And it only got better when we were finally able to ride without rain gear, even for a few hours ... it was truly an adventure, an adventure with unplanned events and circumstances, we even slept overnight in an airbnb that didn't exactly tell us that we would be sleeping in a unheated, open air, to us and to insects and animals and mammals, but now, it is our favorite story ... and the idea of speed typically was out of the realm of possibility or necessity. Moving was what was important, not the pace of movement.
We six who persevered to attend that ThumperCafe event in beautiful Vermont were the fortunate! Compare what we seen, heard, did ... to nine evenings in a recliner watching a 50-inch tv at home ... Huh?
Now back to Scooters ... Why? (See last week's updates to get in on the first of this story...) Why would we want to "plan" to ride a Scooter (as compared to today's other conveyance options such as motorcycles) from Kansas northwest to the Oregon coast and then turn around and do it all over again on the flip-flop? And go East in 2026?
Carrie says she is looking forward to an "unhurried attitude of daily travel", by that, she means, I think, that we can stop when we have a yearning to, we can set on a bridge bannister and watch the cars NOT go by, that sort of thing. I replied, that her comment reminds me of DR. Dirt's South American travels, which I have missed reading of late, by the way. He often stops under a tree to read a book...
Read more or reread about the Scooter Scenario ... below in last week's update:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUR NEW SHIRT FOR 2025 ... in GOLD, of course!
WANT ONE? Get yours early by renewing your FSSNOC annual membership early for 2025. Why the gold color? Because we will continue to "search for the city of gold, ElDorado" in the upcoming year.
Why ... "Thumper-Trax"? ... (as advertised on the front of the t-shirt in red letters) Because we've been doing that since 1986, nearly four million miles of Thumper-Trax as we rode to attend our annual FSSNOC gatherings!!
Think about that! We will continue to leave Thumper-Trax wherever we go in 2025! Are you in? Our 2025 SHIRT will celebrate that concept in a bold way ... are you ready to participate? Thump When Ya' Can... #000
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now .... continued from last week's History Page update:
So Scooters are on our mind again of late as the wintery season darts and dives into our daily lives like a sword fighter - touche', eh?
Like ZORRO, yeah, cold one day, warm the next, then two days cold, warm one day, then cold, cold, cold, ... we know the drill. It's a time of warmth by the fire, a dreaming time, a planning time, a time filled with anticipation of the future, just not the immediate future at least here in Kansas (grin), but one has to dream...
Penny for your thoughts? Dime for your dreams? What is on your upcoming schedules, plans, and dreams. Today's dreams are tomorrow's reality, right? [email protected]
Henry Ford is quoted as saying, "Whether you think you CAN, or whether you think you CAN'T, you're right!" Dream on...
2025 is just around the corner. What will it bring for you, or better yet, what will you plan for 2025?
Just last evening, wife Carrie and I, after doing some limited research on the internet (dreaming?), went for the "click here to buy" button. It was kinda late, you know, in that giggly time of the evening, where things don't always have to make sense or cents, if you will.
We ordered a map set.
Yes. 12 maps. Waterproof. Rip-resistant. Our goal?
A Scooter trip across the USA on lesser traveled but generally hard surfaced roads that meander rather than go point-to-point ... this route started in 1976, the USA Bi-centennial, known then as the TransAmerica Bicentennial Trail, a bicycling route of 4,218 miles that transverses the USA from Astoria, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia on as much backroad as plausible.
More history? I rode my first bicycle distance ride in 1976, the "Ride Across Kansas" annual ride. Pedal ahead, I met Carrie on a 62 mile bicycle ride in 1993. We both were avid riders and continued to ride many miles and trips, both short and long, until I burned-out a knee in 2010. New fake knee or hang up my bike helmet, I decided to NOT go with the fake knee, so my bicycle also now resides in my garage alongside the Repsol.
All this background and history gives credibility to using a pre-existing bicycle trail/road route for a backroader's version of a trans-continental trip via a small-bore, fuel efficient, Four-Stroke Single ... a Scooter.
Time frame? We are thinking (dreaming) ... 2025 ... before the mountains freeze over but later than the rains of July in the high country ... ? Any advice?
This trail goes right by our FSSNOC headquarters here in ThumperVille (Hutchinson,Ks) at very near the half-way point ... our goal is to ride west to Astoria, OR. and return the same route only the opposite way, or choose another route to get home, that part of the plan/dream can wait.
Part B - 2026? - We do the Eastern half of the route.
So why Scooters? Why not motorcycles? There is a difference, or at least it seems that way to Carrie and I.
There is a thing I refer to as "the atmosphere of travel"... That sense of gravitation to some distant point yet with respect to what one can see and do at that moment while on the trip, a sense of being okay with NOT being at home, a sense of being okay with NOT being around the familiar, the safe, the pre-determined, the common, the daily spread.
Can it be that the faster one travels, the more the inverse to the above may be true?
A jet plane; the wait is often longer in the terminal than your time in flight. Clouds look very similar from above. Your best heard words, "Buckle-UP, we are preparing to land." Sigh...
A fast car; Via the most expedient route and surface, a multi-tasking cell phone your guide, one may nap or read a bit with feet on the dash, whether driving our not in today's cars.
A fast motorcycle; the cell phone says turn left in 100 feet, zoom, gas and go, always an adrenaline rush, gas again, fast corners, zoom, excitement until it rains, gas and wait it out with cell phone in hand.
Going fast means you must have an arrival agenda when you leave.
Slower travel gives one the option to consider more than one agenda, or for most of the trip, maybe even no arrival agenda. Time is your friend. A buddy. An ally.
Scooters are typically a slow-mode of travel though the actual moving sensation can be quite the reverse. Small tanks. Zippy. Highly movable. Lots of stops, many unplanned because it's so easy to do so. Somewhat like motorcycles, only more so, a traveling scooter is uniquely unique (grin) here in the USA and unique offers opportunities that common can only wish for ...
The preceding is for entertainment only and is not to be considered as advice - #000
Opinions, Rebuttals, Comments, etc. from FSSNOC members are welcomed via: [email protected]
Or text at: 1-620-663-1869 Thump On! - #000/Jack
Please note that all content on this site is presented without cost to you and is in the interest of entertainment and is not to be considered as advice. - #000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello All ... it's been a fun evening so far! Let's Keep On Thumpin', yes?
We've talked about a few things in the previous pages but the last subject was kinda on speed of travel, you know, how fast can I not only go legally or as highway roadside signed but how much faster can I go than that and get away with it?
It wasn't too long ago when an officer had volunteered verbally to me that as long as someone was driving within ten miles OVER the posted speed limit ... he was okay! Huh?
I'm known within my social circle here in my neighborhood, even in FSSNOC, as one who rides slower than most ... maybe because it is true.
Back in 2013, I deliberately chose to begin riding a 250cc all over the USA, I chose a Honda CBR250R and within its current 93,000 miles + odometer reading, it has made not one but several trips across the width and length of the USA sea-to-sea, top to bottom, and it did so willingly without complaint, without undue repairs, without extensive maintenance, without fuss or muss, it just did mile after mile, the front wheel rotating confidently that we would reach our destination, wherever it was ... and on less fuel than most.
My idea was to be an example to others. People learn from other people. Someone is watching you. Someone is learning from you, good or bad.
FSSNOC began in 1986, we all had hair, we all had energy, we all had get up and go ... well, by 2013, some of our earliest members were beginning to stop attending events, some even confessed to not riding anymore; their Honda 650, or Yamaha 600, or the kick starter SR500 and SRX650 or whatever, now setting in the garage ... the seat too tall and too narrow, and so on, there isn't any luggage, etc. ... and, as I mentioned early tonite, when I worked at a Motorcycle Shop for 30 years, starting as a salesman and later the head guru, and of note, it was a lot more fun when I wasn't the head guru! Ha! Ha! Responsibility can be a drag sometimes ... but in that process of applying some of the stuff I learned at my real job to my second "job", that of FSSNOC, a labor of love from Day one as it continues to be ... I tried to show the older aging faction that one doesn't have to ride a big fast bike or a new Harley or heavy Gold Wing to travel, in fact, if you've ever read Walt Whitman's poem, the Open Road, written in 1856, and published in mutation form in Thumper News twice and soon to be again ... at some point while reading his poem, one usually figures out that he is traveling not by car, not by plane, but by ... foot ... on dirt roads!
Not a jet plane to California, not a rented car trip to Texas, not a motorcycle journey on a "road" bike, often now on a trailer, to Sturgis ... one can go all those places and more, as Maynard pointed out, on a bicycle ... or a slower lighter engine-powered two-wheeler, say a smaller lighter motorcycle or a lower center of gravity Scooter.
Most bicycle riders that cover longer distances are quite content with 12 to 14 miles per hour, compare that to any 250cc, by comparison, a much faster mode of travel ... but is speed really what we desire? It often does appear so.
Or ... is it the pace of our world, hurry up, then wait ... Ever drive in a larger city of late? After our (Woodrow and Gus), FSSNOC trip to the Eastern part of the USA in 2023, you may remember the ThumperCafe #61 with only six people there in Vermont, why was that?
Why did the "Too Few Crew of Six" go and all the others stayed at home?
Maybe because they considered the driving climate, the high cost of motels, and of the impending storm forecasted which certainly all those things did occur; we rode from start to finish on several days without getting out of the rain ... and/or out of those pesky stoplights! Most of this was after the Event as Woodrow and I had elected to head even farther into the Eastern USA ... wrong! It was a poor decision...
It was on that trip, while repeatedly setting at stop signs looking at other people through the privacy of their heavily tinted windows and many times while we sat atop our motorcycles in the rain, I came to the realization that new cars are now designed to be capable of being your "living room", your "happy place", during those long 10-minute no-move stop signs.
Those cars even have air temp control that you set at the desired degree, coffee cup holders, serious(?) radio, even movies for the kids or Grandpa and Grandma in the back seat, who often are asleep ... These new cars are a sometimes rolling, sometimes not, comfort zone for when their passengers are stopped. Most drivers immediately grab for their cell phone when traffic stops, I counted as many as 35 cars ahead of us and I recall setting through more than one green-yellow-red-green sequence before we could go again ... that's tough on a country boy.
But, looking back, I have to say, "We had fun! Everyday, we had fun!" And it only got better when we were finally able to ride without rain gear, even for a few hours ... it was truly an adventure, an adventure with unplanned events and circumstances, we even slept overnight in an airbnb that didn't exactly tell us that we would be sleeping in a unheated, open air, to us and to insects and animals and mammals, but now, it is our favorite story ... and the idea of speed typically was out of the realm of possibility or necessity. Moving was what was important, not the pace of movement.
We six who persevered to attend that ThumperCafe event in beautiful Vermont were the fortunate! Compare what we seen, heard, did ... to nine evenings in a recliner watching a 50-inch tv at home ... Huh?
Now back to Scooters ... Why? (See last week's updates to get in on the first of this story...) Why would we want to "plan" to ride a Scooter (as compared to today's other conveyance options such as motorcycles) from Kansas northwest to the Oregon coast and then turn around and do it all over again on the flip-flop? And go East in 2026?
Carrie says she is looking forward to an "unhurried attitude of daily travel", by that, she means, I think, that we can stop when we have a yearning to, we can set on a bridge bannister and watch the cars NOT go by, that sort of thing. I replied, that her comment reminds me of DR. Dirt's South American travels, which I have missed reading of late, by the way. He often stops under a tree to read a book...
Read more or reread about the Scooter Scenario ... below in last week's update:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUR NEW SHIRT FOR 2025 ... in GOLD, of course!
WANT ONE? Get yours early by renewing your FSSNOC annual membership early for 2025. Why the gold color? Because we will continue to "search for the city of gold, ElDorado" in the upcoming year.
Why ... "Thumper-Trax"? ... (as advertised on the front of the t-shirt in red letters) Because we've been doing that since 1986, nearly four million miles of Thumper-Trax as we rode to attend our annual FSSNOC gatherings!!
Think about that! We will continue to leave Thumper-Trax wherever we go in 2025! Are you in? Our 2025 SHIRT will celebrate that concept in a bold way ... are you ready to participate? Thump When Ya' Can... #000
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now .... continued from last week's History Page update:
So Scooters are on our mind again of late as the wintery season darts and dives into our daily lives like a sword fighter - touche', eh?
Like ZORRO, yeah, cold one day, warm the next, then two days cold, warm one day, then cold, cold, cold, ... we know the drill. It's a time of warmth by the fire, a dreaming time, a planning time, a time filled with anticipation of the future, just not the immediate future at least here in Kansas (grin), but one has to dream...
Penny for your thoughts? Dime for your dreams? What is on your upcoming schedules, plans, and dreams. Today's dreams are tomorrow's reality, right? [email protected]
Henry Ford is quoted as saying, "Whether you think you CAN, or whether you think you CAN'T, you're right!" Dream on...
2025 is just around the corner. What will it bring for you, or better yet, what will you plan for 2025?
Just last evening, wife Carrie and I, after doing some limited research on the internet (dreaming?), went for the "click here to buy" button. It was kinda late, you know, in that giggly time of the evening, where things don't always have to make sense or cents, if you will.
We ordered a map set.
Yes. 12 maps. Waterproof. Rip-resistant. Our goal?
A Scooter trip across the USA on lesser traveled but generally hard surfaced roads that meander rather than go point-to-point ... this route started in 1976, the USA Bi-centennial, known then as the TransAmerica Bicentennial Trail, a bicycling route of 4,218 miles that transverses the USA from Astoria, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia on as much backroad as plausible.
More history? I rode my first bicycle distance ride in 1976, the "Ride Across Kansas" annual ride. Pedal ahead, I met Carrie on a 62 mile bicycle ride in 1993. We both were avid riders and continued to ride many miles and trips, both short and long, until I burned-out a knee in 2010. New fake knee or hang up my bike helmet, I decided to NOT go with the fake knee, so my bicycle also now resides in my garage alongside the Repsol.
All this background and history gives credibility to using a pre-existing bicycle trail/road route for a backroader's version of a trans-continental trip via a small-bore, fuel efficient, Four-Stroke Single ... a Scooter.
Time frame? We are thinking (dreaming) ... 2025 ... before the mountains freeze over but later than the rains of July in the high country ... ? Any advice?
This trail goes right by our FSSNOC headquarters here in ThumperVille (Hutchinson,Ks) at very near the half-way point ... our goal is to ride west to Astoria, OR. and return the same route only the opposite way, or choose another route to get home, that part of the plan/dream can wait.
Part B - 2026? - We do the Eastern half of the route.
So why Scooters? Why not motorcycles? There is a difference, or at least it seems that way to Carrie and I.
There is a thing I refer to as "the atmosphere of travel"... That sense of gravitation to some distant point yet with respect to what one can see and do at that moment while on the trip, a sense of being okay with NOT being at home, a sense of being okay with NOT being around the familiar, the safe, the pre-determined, the common, the daily spread.
Can it be that the faster one travels, the more the inverse to the above may be true?
A jet plane; the wait is often longer in the terminal than your time in flight. Clouds look very similar from above. Your best heard words, "Buckle-UP, we are preparing to land." Sigh...
A fast car; Via the most expedient route and surface, a multi-tasking cell phone your guide, one may nap or read a bit with feet on the dash, whether driving our not in today's cars.
A fast motorcycle; the cell phone says turn left in 100 feet, zoom, gas and go, always an adrenaline rush, gas again, fast corners, zoom, excitement until it rains, gas and wait it out with cell phone in hand.
Going fast means you must have an arrival agenda when you leave.
Slower travel gives one the option to consider more than one agenda, or for most of the trip, maybe even no arrival agenda. Time is your friend. A buddy. An ally.
Scooters are typically a slow-mode of travel though the actual moving sensation can be quite the reverse. Small tanks. Zippy. Highly movable. Lots of stops, many unplanned because it's so easy to do so. Somewhat like motorcycles, only more so, a traveling scooter is uniquely unique (grin) here in the USA and unique offers opportunities that common can only wish for ...
The preceding is for entertainment only and is not to be considered as advice - #000
Opinions, Rebuttals, Comments, etc. from FSSNOC members are welcomed via: [email protected]
Or text at: 1-620-663-1869 Thump On! - #000/Jack