Longitude & Gratitude

Category: Riding

  • Baja, Ten Years After.

    Baja, Ten Years After.

    Ten years ago, and on the occasion of my turning a sharp, gravel-strewn corner into midlife (I hit 40), my wife sent me packing. On a gift trip. I guess there’s nothing particularly unusual about receiving a “milestone” birthday gesture like this. Spouses surprise spouses—and partners, partners—when the life-odometer turns over, and you become the proud owner of…

  • Goodnight, Vroom

    Goodnight, Vroom

    Each November, like many other riders throughout the northeast, midwest, or anywhere else it gets too cold or snowy to ride, I lay my bikes up for the winter. The ritual involves a good pre-sweep of the garage; exquisite outdoor-junk geometry to pack the maximum amount of crap into minimal space; fuel stabilization with Sea Foam or Stabil; the…

  • A Ride by the Book: The Trans Mass Trail

    A Ride by the Book: The Trans Mass Trail

    Despite the interstates and commuter lines, Walmarts and Home Depots, crumbling industrial-era mill towns where longarms, brass fittings, mantle clocks and hats used to be made, despite Fairfield County’s tri-state gravitational pull, the Boston Post Road, Boston itself, urbanized and under-serviced cities like Bridgeport, and greater Hartford’s well-insured suburban sprawl, New England still has plenty…

  • Scoot d’Azure

    Scoot d’Azure

    I never really post anything here on longitude&gratitude about work, because I’m a firm believer in the separation of church and state. And I haven’t seen a constitutional exception yet that would call for the co-mingling of the Church of motorcycles, scooters, and other two-wheeled faiths with the State of my professional work life. Until Cannes. To…

  • Two Wheels Good

    Two Wheels Good

    Waaaayyyy back in the day, as in back in the good-old “10-inch vinyl and cassette mixtape, Evil Empire/Converse hi-tops and Cold War eighties” kinda day, when I was a college kid living on Pine Street in Burlington, Vermont, I got deeply into this: (You know, other than the upturned collars and new-wave pompadours, not too dated…and Triumph…

  • Horse Trading

    Horse Trading

    A fictitious Texan who lives somewhere up inside my head once said, “Wayell, comes a tahm in lahf when ev’r man has to part with his horse. Ain’t no use wellin’ up or gittin’ all senimenal ov’r’ it. Jes’ a fact a lahf. S’why the Good Lord invenned horse-tradin’. Obviously, the Good Lord hates an empty stable.…

  • Burning Bushes, Burying Hills

    Burning Bushes, Burying Hills

    It’s getting to be mid-November, and there are not many riding days left. The light’s getting sideways and our copper beech is already almost bare, decimated by clouds of starlings. They seem to exfoliate the mighty tree in just one or two seatings, dining noisily and creating a beech-nut hail that litters the ground below,…

  • The Apple Store

    The Apple Store

    Last Friday, I managed to rejigger my work schedule, skip the scooter/train/subway/CitiBike/walk that is my daily adventure-commute, and pay a much-anticipated visit to the Apple Store (via motorbike, naturally). I’ve had a hankering for some juicy new technology this fall, and wanted to check out some of the current crop of Apple offerings…especially the new…

  • Lime Rock Historics

    Lime Rock Historics

    Last Sunday was a swampy, crappy day, with skies like wet paper towel…. The ride getting up here was somewhere between uninspired, and completely mired… There was an annoyingly long line at the entrance gate… But finally, the bridge… And I’m in. Welcome to Lime Rock Park in beautiful Lakeville, Connecticut. Tucked way up in the northwestern-most…

  • Vespa Lube

    Vespa Lube

    I happen to be the lucky and proud owner of one of these. It’s a 2006 Vespa GT200 Granturismo. King of the Modern Vespas. Not as chunk-style and up-powered as the GTS 250 or GTS 300, but still as smooth as Italian-churned butter and amply quick. Also, not as fey-looking or anemic as the LX.…