Less is more…

Well, here you go…a quick sprint on the 210 Freeway on my way to the San Gabriel Mountains a couple of days ago…

The segment above shows a short part of my putt on Saturday morning (my commute to the CSC plant).   It’s on the 210 Freeway, a road I often ride.

We had a great ride last Saturday.  On one of our stops, my good buddy Triumph Tom suggested a ZZ song for the video he knew was coming.  It was a good call, Tom.

The California Scooter runs just fine at higher speeds on the freeway.  It’s super stable.  When Steve designed the California Scooter, he improved the original Mustang fork and frame geometry for just that reason.  The windshield helps the ride, too.  I run with the windshield on my California Scooter for a lot of reasons, one of which is that it adds about 5 mph to the top end (even with saddlebags).

Interesting story behind the video you see above, and it’s what led to the title of this blog….less is more.

As you know from reading the previous blog, Steve, Josh, Triumph Tom, and I had a super ride Saturday.  I knew it was going to be good, and when I woke up early Saturday morning, I also knew I wanted to get some video.  The only problem was how to hold the camera while we were riding.

So, with liberal applications of electrical tape, an old reflector mounting bracket, a set of tin snips, and a pair of pliers, I engineered a helmet mount for my Flip video camera.  I’m taking great liberties here with the word “engineering.”  The bottom line, though, is that it worked, and I caught some super video segments on our ride.

Yesterday, I assembled the mother-of-all-videos showing the entire ride, but my masterpiece was 52 minutes long.  YouTube will only take videos up to 15 minutes.  Hmmm.  After lots of judicious editing I pared it down to 15 minutes, while saving all the best parts.  Yep, that’s me…Bart Markel and Cecil B. DeMille all wrapped up in one pot-bellied little package.  I had visions of sweeping the Oscars.  My mind was already working on my acceptance speech, but when I tried uploading my cinematic California Scooter show to YouTube, it said the upload would take 1800 minutes!  1800 minutes!  That’s 30 hours!  For a 15-minute video!

My daughter and her husband were watching all of this with great amusement.  She liked the 15-minute version, but then she simply said, “It’s too long, Dad…nobody will watch it.”  Don’t you hate it when your kids are smarter than you?  Especially when they’re right?

I woke up this morning thinking about that, and the video you see above is the result.  And you’ll see a few more from our Saturday ride in the coming days.  Shorter is better.  Less is more.  Makes sense to me.