Nobody told her.

Nobody told her you "couldn't" use a 150cc Vespa scooter for a track bike. Let alone a 1960 two stroke model. So here she was, sitting among a group of 16 riders. Front row and happy to be there. Nervous, but excited. Towards the back of the class were the Harley riders from ABATE. They made up about a third of the group. The rest of the riders were on bikes ranging from a Ninja to a CBR600 F4i to a scattering of sport touring bikes. Hers was the only really small ride.

You may be thinking that this is going to be one of those amazing stories. A story of how a person who shouldn't be able to do something came and conquered. That maybe this gal on her small scooter came in and blazed her way around the course, leaving the other riders in the dust. If so, you'd be on the wrong track. No pun intended. Okay, maybe a little.

On the other hand, it's not a story of how a rider came in and totally held everybody up. Of how they failed miserably. That wouldn't be accurate, either. The truth is somewhere in the middle. I'll expand more in a bit. For now, let's just say it's a story of how someone perhaps unkowingly bit off a little more than they could chew. It's about how someone naively jumped into the deep end yet came away with more than if they'd stayed on the side of the pool.


A quick word on photos. I know the last two photos look nearly the same. I'm exercising my blogger's privilege of including both. The top one shows Elvira more closely. She's sporting stickers sent to me by Krysta. First time I've ever put stickers on a bike. I just like the second photo. There's something about how the line of bikes points from the bottom right of the frame towards the corner in the distance.

I have no photos of Tracy, the rider of the Vespa. At the time I took the pictures of the Vespa simply because it was the first time I've ever had a small scooter in an ART ( Advanced Rider Training ) class. We've had a few MP-3's and a Silverwing before. Nothing this small, however. I really wasn't thinking about doing a blog post concerning the event. Six days have gone by since and I keep reflecting on the day. I finally came to the conclusion that underneath the surface was something worth sharing.

Tracy had a little experience riding to work and doing errands on the Vespa. Which made me like her already. Somewhere she'd seen some scooter racing and decided it looked like fun. Her enthusiasm was higher than her skill level, however. The ART class looked like a good way to raise the skill level. So here she was. Jumping right into the deep end, so to speak. I was teaching the classroom session. Tracy was fully engaged. She innocently asked a few questions that made some of the other students roll their eyes back in their heads. Which just made me warm to Tracy even more. There wasn't an ounce of pretension about her. Tracy was there to learn.

Interestingly, some of her questions weren't as strange as some of the other students might have thought. What they failed to take into account is that her questions were based on her experience riding the Vespa. There's definite differences between how a small scooter reacts and what one might expect on a bigger bike. Same basic concepts but each with their own nuances. Fortunately, I've become a lot more familiar with scooters and was able to answer her questions in such a way that it applied to her riding.

That's something I have a lot of you to thank for. So many of you in this blogger community of ours ride scooters. I've learned a lot from your posts and the discussions we've all had. The last few years of associating with you all has made me take scooters so much more seriously than in the past. During the same time period it seems like scooter sales have really increased. Which means we see a lot more scooter riders come through our classes. I beg rides from scooter riders both in class and otherwise. I want to be able to speak from the perspective our students are feeling. Through the sharing that you've done, you all have accomplished more to help your fellow scooterists than you're probably aware of! I offer my heartfelt thanks to you all.

Tracy has a personalized license plate. One of the things I appreciated about her is that she didn't come in as a "female" rider. Oh sure, she's well aware of her femininity as you can see by the plate. In the class Tracy just wanted to be treated like any other rider. No more, no less. It was funny that in one way she actually acted more like a man. Tracy wanted to take a couple of laps with me on the back of my bike. On the other hand, she really wasn't too wild about being a passenger. We made it work.

Maybe I should offer a quick explanation of my second sentence of the previous paragraph. On the other hand, maybe I'm doing a little jumping into the deep end of my own.

In order to avoid getting in over my head, I'm going to keep this narrowly focused. Men often come in thinking they know more than they do. It's not based on experience. It's based on the fact that, since they're guys, this riding thing should be in their chromosomes. Unfortunately, this common attitude can get in the way of their actually being able to apply themselves to really learning. Women often come in to classes showing the other side of the coin. They've been told that women don't do certain things. Or if they try it, the women will never be as good as the men. Back to the old chromosome thing. What really pisses me off is when a woman's male partner is the one telling her this. AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

How about this? Everyone comes to class. At the door we strip off all the limiting labels. Starting with an open mind, let's see where we actually end up based on our abilities. I'm pretty sure we'll all be better off for it.

That's why I finally decided to write this post about Tracy. You see, Tracy didn't "know" that our ART class wasn't the place for an inexperienced rider on a small scooter. Nobody told her that she "can't" do this. Tracy came in with no preconceived limits. Her mind was open to whatever the day would show her. What Tracy took away from the class would be based on actual experience. She would try things she might not otherwise. Somewhere in business there's a saying going around. It's something like:

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land high."

So where did Tracy land?

Her maximum braking greatly improved. At first she continually slid the rear tire. The scooter is a three speed with a clutch lever on the left front grip. There's a brake pedal on the floorboard of the scooter. It sticks up fairly high. Properly modulating the rear brake takes some work. Now Tracy knows how to do it right.

She can swerve with the best of them. As far as cornering goes, well, that can use a bit of work still. The Vespa is a three speed. Tracy rarely hit third gear. The scooter had a bit more available than Tracy did. Partly it's experience. Partly it's due to the small scooter. She hugged the inside line a lot. It's hard to just let the scooter aggressively drift out wide on the big sweepers. Tracy would pull off on the front straight to let faster riders by then go after it again.

I believe that Tracy left with a higher skill level than when she arrived. I also feel that she attained a higher skill level than if she'd attended a parking lot based class. Most of the real world happens outside parking lots. Tracy also still has some definite limits. At the end of class she told me that she knows she still has a lot to learn. More than she thought, actually. How does she know? Real life testing.

That's the point I wanted to share. We all need to know where we are in our riding skills. The question to ask is this. Does what we "know" reflect the reality or just what we tell ourselves?

Food for thought, isn't it?

Speaking of food for thought, for the next post I'm turning the keyboard over to Dean. He's going to address a topic that most riders have pretty strong feelings about. You all come back, now, ya hear?

Miles and smiles,

Dan