Note from the mission historian: The 2023 Scooter Cannonball was an eight-day, 3,170 mile checkpointed ride across the U.S. from San Clemente, California, to Hilton Head, South Carolina. It started June 18^th and ended June 25^th. Cannonball events are held every two years and are limited to scooters of 278ccs or less.

I piloted “HMS Terror,” #61, a 2016 Vespa 300cc GTS Super Sport (rounded up from its actual 278 by Piaggio marketing). She has about 22 hp and I named her after one of the two ships of the 1839 James Clark Ross Antarctic expedition.

I rode very slowly and carefully and finished almost dead last.

***

Day 03 | Tuesday, June 20: Checkpoint 3 is a lonely three-pump fuel station selling only low 86 octane and diesel on a desolate stretch of New Mexico 197. The temperature hovers in the low 90s as I arrive with Virginia Cherry, a riding partner.

This is the Torreon Store and Gas Station in Cuba, New Mexico, a mandatory checkpoint¹ worth 95 points, but we’d be stopping here even if we didn’t have to. The hot, dry air is sucking the life out of us, and despite the cool water in my Camelbak I’m dying for a cold bottle of Gatorade.

We’ve come about 257 miles today and have been hopscotching with fellow Cannonballers Stephen Terrien from New Hampshire and a few others.

That’s not unusual. Motorcyclists and scooterists tend to find their own pace and often encounter those traveling at similar speeds.

We exchange greetings and commiserate over the heat; it’s good to see them again, to know they’re okay.

We fuel up and do the Cannonball documentation with our smartphones, sending photos and GPS coordinates to event organizers to prove we are here. Then we hit the store for drinks and the restroom, which is unexpectedly elegant in an Algonquin-of-the-West sort of way.

“Steve, visit the restroom even if you don’t have to pee,” I say. “It looks amazing. You’ll thank me later.”

“I will,” Stephen says, and laughs.

Other riders arrive, fuel up and leave, including Charles Beck² from South Carolina and Steve Putnam³ from Florida. They’re moving fast and steady, riding much more efficiently than me.

Then a third rider on a loaded scooter appears at the pumps and we say hello. This is James⁴ and he does his documentation and wearily takes a seat in the shade of the store.

He’s tired like the rest of us, a little more, maybe.

We strike up a conversation and I ask what drew him to the Cannonball. He tells us he’s doing it for the adventure and has wanted to do it for years.

“I saved up for a long time,” he says after a moment. “I don’t really make much. I’m sort of a janitor at a hospital and I clean up the bloody messes after surgeries and such.

“I was even selling my plasma to get extra money.”

I tell him I admire his dedication and ask if I can take his photo. “I’ll email it to you,” I say.

He laughs through his fatigue and says he’ll show the photo as proof to some people “who didn’t believe I’d be doing this. They thought I’d sell my vacation time and wouldn’t go.”

We wish each another good luck and Virginia and I leave. We have a long way to go.

But I’ll remember James in the miles ahead, marveling at (and envying) his perseverance. The Cannonball is a difficult, expensive, exhausting undertaking, especially for us rookies. I think he’s worked harder than most of us to get here.

I think of that as the sun bakes us and the taste of cold Gatorade vanishes, and we bounce and rumble down the empty, arid road.

* * *

1 – There are three mandatory checkpoints that riders must document or else lose all points for the day.

2 – Charles, on a 2021 Honda PCX 150, finished 101^st overall. 173 riders were at the start; some dropped out along the way for various reasons, including mechanical difficulty.

3 – Steve, on a 2007 Honda Helix, finished 135^th overall.

4 – Not his real name and in time you will understand why.