Illustrations by Veronica Bravo, USA TODAY
The Scooter Cannonball – a checkpoint-choked, coast-to-coast rally on small-engine scooters – is not what first-timers expect.
“Every scooterist says: 'Oh, I want to do that. What a fun trip.' But it’s not a fun trip,” says Brook Dain, 53, a Vespa pilot from San Jose who participated twice and plans to return in 2023.
Before his first Cannonball, “I thought it was going to be a glorious adventure where I'd see America,” Dain says.
- Looking ahead to 2023: Cannonball riders tell rookies what to expect.
- Go to the source: Scooter Cannonball.com has registration, rider info.
- Rally basics: What to know about the Cannonball, with 2021 event as a guide.
By his second run, “I understood that it's a grueling event. What you see are your handlebars. You ride really fast past things that make you say, 'Wow, that would be cool to stop and see.' But you can’t. You have to keep moving.”
“The sights, they all blur together,” Dain says. “But they're replaced with the interesting things, where you realize what it's really about – testing yourself and meeting those who are riding the Cannonball and doing the same. You're finding that camaraderie."
USA TODAY asked three riders, all of whom plan to ride in 2023, about their special moments in the 2021 Cannonball, 4,500 miles over 10 debilitating days.
Here's what they remember best.
Day 5 was the worst for Linda Hurley (whose rider name was LindaHurley) 59, of Aliso Viejo, California. That was before she broke her ribs in a fall two days later.
On Day 5, she had traveled 430 miles in 11 hours on her overloaded scooter. She was nearing the day’s last checkpoint, which promised:
- A hotel room.
- Dinner.
- Some sorely needed sleep.
“Then I got a flat tire 30 miles outside Huron, South Dakota,” says Hurley. The tire “was just disintegrating and there were like 15 holes in it."
“I had a patch kit and stuff, and other riders stopped to help,” she says. They tried to fix the tire "with about eight patches sticking out of it, those glue-covered ropes."
But the tire wouldn't hold air. She got a tow to the hotel in Huron and had to change the worn-out tire. Again, other riders jumped in to help her remove the tire and mount a new one.
"I was working on my bike till 9:30," Hurley says. "I hadn't eaten a thing all day. The restaurant was closed. So I go to the bar and they tell me they'd just closed the kitchen. I wouldn't have died, but I was really hungry."
She was sitting near another Cannonball rider, someone she didn't know, and he overheard the conversation. "He had just ordered pasta," she says.
The rider "asked the bartender for an extra plate. And he gave me half his spaghetti."
Pamela March – known by her rider name gopam – was plagued with electrical problems on her Vespa from the first day. She got help from someone she didn't know.
“My scooter died on Day 1,” says March, 49, of Los Angeles. "GotMojo, rider No. 23, came to my rescue. We had to jump start it three times on the first day. We knew it was an electrical problem, but we didn’t know the exact issue.
- See it here: gopam's YouTube video shows what happened.
"The first thing to try was a new battery and to replace the voltage regulator," she says. "I was able to buy batteries along the way. But specific Vespa parts are hard to come by on rural routes."
March sent a message to the modernvespa.com forum a message on Day 2:
"Any MV members have or know where to get a voltage regulator for a GT200 along the route on Day 3 through Ohio, etc?"
"That's where I saw Pam was having a problem," says Jon Vander Veen, 53, a scooter enthusiast and Modern Vespa member in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He wasn't participating in the Cannonball but was following live updates on the scootercannonballrun.com site.
Vander Veen was following the 2021 event because "the route went through my hometown, Ionia, Michigan, and I thought it'd be a perfect opportunity to meet some of the people I only knew online.
"They were looking for dealers, someone who might have a part. And we have a Vespa dealer here near Grand Rapids," Vander Veen says.
Vander Veen called the shop, which did not have the needed voltage regulator.
"Then I realized that I have a parts bike (a non-running Vespa used for spare parts) behind my garage that's the same model as Pam's," he says. "So we cross-referenced the numbers to make sure that it had the right part."
Vander Veen removed the voltage regulator from his Vespa, drove more than 50 miles from Grand Rapids to Vermontville. He and Steve Rasey, support truck driver for the Not Fast Just Furious team — March and a few fellow riders — helped install it in March's bike.
"That was on Day 3, Checkpoint 3, which I started calling the Golden Checkpoint," March says. "We installed it right there. It took maybe an hour or so." The regulator allowed her to continue, but her Vespa had other problems.
"I found out later I needed a new stator," she says. "But that's too big of a job to do in a hotel parking lot, and I didn’t have the part."
She was able to keep riding across the country "by installing six new batteries and jump starting my Vespa multiple times."
Motorcycle and scooter owners will often stop to help riders stranded on the roadside. Vander Veen thinks nothing of driving 100 miles to help a stranger.
"It was the opportunity to get a part to a rider who needed it," he says. "Pam just happened to be the one who needed it, and my bike just happened to be the right bike with the right voltage regulator."
"It was a surprise that he had a regulator and was willing to help," March says. "The scooter community on Modern Vespa always shares information and gives great advice.
"So I’m surprised – but not surprised – because forum members are amazing."
With the regulator installed, March says, she rode away and "wept tears of joy and sang lyrics from David Bowie’s song "Heroes": 'We could be heroes ... just for one day...'”
Timothy Jackson, 45, of Pasadena, California, describes himself as a fast rider during the Cannonball. At 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds, you couldn’t miss DJ Tiny on his Vespa.
He was also the sole Black participant in the rally.
“With my dreadlocks flying out the back of my helmet, there's no mistaking who I am or what I am," Jackson says.
Because of his speed, Jackson usually rode alone. The rally took riders through some rural areas where some residents “were definitely curious why I was out there, why I was in their neck of the woods. So my ride was a little bit different than most.
“It was a bit like being in a fishbowl at times. No one was blatantly mean to me, but you could tell they were kind of like, 'Oh, that's different.'
“We stopped at a lot of small towns for dinner. It was the height of the time where everyone should be out, and yet there weren’t other people of color in the restaurants – working, serving, eating or otherwise.”
In South Dakota, “we went to dinner at a place like that. It was like in the movies when you walk in and the music stops. I could feel that it was out of the norm that I was there. I wasn’t refused service or anything. But you just kind of know the feeling
“As we’re walking out of the restaurant, we encounter a mother and her young son, maybe 7 or 8 years old. He stops me in my tracks and says, ‘Hey, do you want to see what I found today?’
“And I was like, ‘Oh, what did you find?’ and he says, ‘Look, this is my special rock.’ And we interact for a bit.
“He's being so warm and he tries to give me his rock. I say, ‘Here, you hang on to this and I'll get it from you next time.’ And I give him one of my Cannonball stickers.
“He looks at me and says, ‘I want to give you a hug.’
“I look at his mom and she’s like 'Yeah, sure!' And he gives me a hug. Then they walk into the restaurant and I look back at them and I see everyone's standing against the railing, watching.”
Does Jackson think he might have changed the boy’s life?
“I know he changed mine.”
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TOP ILLUSTRATION Veronica Bravo, USA TODAY; photo courtesy Brook Dain
SOURCE USA TODAY reporting and research; scootercannonball.com