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 04 | Wednesday, June 21: Virginia Cherry and I split up on the unpaved trail leading to Checkpoint 1 this day, mostly because she’s a superbly skilled rider on any road and I’m like skidding across ice with bald tires.

She makes Checkpoint 1 (an abandoned building in Octate, New Mexico) and is urged by a Cannonball support driver to go head without waiting for me, which she does, and later feels bad about.

By the time I get there, she is far ahead of me, which is fine because I go at my own (admittedly slower) pace and wonder about the country I’m passing through. Some of the small towns, once prosperous, are abandoned and desolate. I wonder what happened to them.

As expected, it’s another hot day. Checkpoint 2, an abandoned farmhouse on Yates Road, looks haunted¹ with its windmill clattering slowly in the breeze.

I stop for gas at Allsup’s Convenience Store in Clayton, New Mexico, and find fellow riders I know – Bill Redington, Stephen Terrien, and Paul Cronin. It’s really good to see them and we talk about what we’ve seen and laugh together.

Then I hear another scooter arrive and it’s James, the rider from yesterday, catching up with us. He parks at one of the pumps, shuts down, and says hello while pulling off his helmet and jacket. He’s clearly knackered in the heat.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’m okay. Hot.” He begins fueling up.

I roll Terror from the gas pump to the last parking space in front of the store and go back to talk with the other riders. Paul leaves and Bill is saying something about bad weather when we hear a crash and clatter of metal.

I turn and see James’s scooter and Terror on their sides on the ground, with James in-between. Someone from the store is already there, trying to help. I dash over.

It looks bad. James appears to be stuck and I can’t tell if he’s hurt. I yell for the others but they’re already on their way.

We lift the scooter off James and the store guy gets the sidestand down. Bill helps James stand up but he’s unsteady and wobbles like he’s going to fall. I grab hold and together we get him upright.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he says, and staggers toward the store. “I just need something to drink.”

Stephen tries to get James to sit down but he keeps moving. “I think he’s dehydrated,” Stephen says.

That’s when the warning about dehydration from fellow rider Eric Semple² comes soaring into my head. “You have to drink,” Eric had said a day or two earlier. “Dehydration sneaks up on you and you won’t know what hit you.”

Meanwhile, the others have stood Terror upright. I check for damage but I don’t see anything other than a bent eyebolt in the rear luggage plate³. That’s where the scooter hit the Vespa, pushed it off its centerstand, and onto the pavement.

James recovers and says he is sorry about the Vespa. I tell him not to worry. Bill suggests we ride together to the next checkpoint and we agree.

“Why don’t you take point and I’ll bring up the rear?” I suggest to Bill. That means James will have riders in front and behind him.

That’s how we ride to Checkpoint 3, the last of the day, a group of rusted out grain elevators in Felt, Oklahoma, about 23 miles away. We take our photos and certify our locations and set off again for Guymon, ready to end this day.

But the weather has other ideas.

Storm clouds have been seriously building ahead of us and the wind starts picking up. Rain sprinkles a bit but the gusts are strong enough to batter us on the road. I’ve ridden in bad wind before but this is starting to get scary.

Bill pulls over and we all stop.

“This is looking bad,” he says. “You can go ahead if you want, but I’m going to turn around and wait this out back there.”

It’s a sensible idea – I’m secretly relieved – so we follow him back to the rusted sheet metal silos of Checkpoint 3. If we need a support truck, they’ll know exactly where we are, which is about 60 miles from Guymon.

We park our scooters on the side of the road and wait for more than an hour, as Bill monitors the storm’s movements by smartphone with the help of his brother back East.

At times the wind is strong enough to rock the scooters, so much that we sit on or keep a hand on them to prevent a tip-over.

Finally the storm clears and we proceed. It’s dark by the time we get to Guymon but we are too tired to care, I think. Everyone is all right: Bill, Stephen, James, myself, and a rider named Eddie who joined our group to wait.

Later, we learn that some riders were pummeled by rain and hail.

Next morning, Day 05, I take my spare Camelbak⁴, a new one with the tags still on it, and find James packing his scooter in the Hampton’s parking lot.

“Here,” I say, “This is an extra. Why don’t you take it? It may make the ride easier.”

He looks at it, then at me. “No, thank you,” he says. “I’m dropping out.”

I’m stunned. “Seriously?”

“I’m tired and I’m packing it in,” he says. “I’m just getting rid of a bunch of stuff and going home.”

“Wait a sec,” I say. “We’re halfway done.”

It’s true. We’ve covered about 1,500 miles with roughly 1,670 to go.

“You’ve done a lot to get this far – not many people can say that. You can keep going,” I say.

“No,” he says. “I’m going home.” Then he pauses and says, “This isn’t the first time. It’s happened before. There’ve been other instances.” And there’s a ship-lost-at-sea look of resignation in his eyes that breaks my heart.

He continues strapping bags to the scooter. And I try to find the words that will make him see otherwise and I fail, miserably. I know the Cannonball is not an easy ride; I’ve thought about quitting, myself. The heat and fatigue and effort are exhausting.

“Take the Camelbak anyway,” I say. “For the ride home.”

He shakes his head, says, “no, thank you” and turns away with finality and I realize that there is nothing I can do without making him resent me for interfering. And I am so damned inadequate and sorry.

Virginia will tell me that she also tried to talk to him and he rather snapped and said Look, I’m going home, okay?

I see Stephen a bit later and relate what happened. “That’s unfortunate and I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “But it’s his decision to make. It’s up to him.” And Stephen is right, of course.

But I can’t forget what Maimonides, a 12-century Torah scholar and philosopher, wrote. You see it phrased differently, but the essential sentiment is:

“A single righteous act can tip the balance and make all the difference.”

Day 04 was a long day but we’d dealt with it, the heat, scooters falling over, and dodging a storm.

And now I learn again that sometimes, despite our best effort and intention, nothing can be done.

Even so, I wish that we – James and me – had been able to tip the balance on that morning of Day 05.

***

1 – Which makes me compose a ghost story in my helmet about a motorcycle rider who pauses in front of a farmhouse to take a picture and talks with a little girl who invites him in for a cup of cold water. He politely declines and later learns that the house has sat empty for years.

2 – That’s VespaChef #8, a superb rider, chef, outdoorsman and raconteur. A true Renaissance Man, one might say.

3 – I wonder if the Vespa’s headset’s been knocked out of alignment and check that, too, but it looks okay. Moto Richmond later assures me it’s good.

4 – Linda suggested I try one during the hellishly hot ride home from San Diego in 2007 and I’ve been using it on every long ride since. They really do help. Some riders use water bottles mounted on the bike instead of backpacks, but the result is the same.