Motorcycle Misadventures

Supercute and more

A friend of mine has just signed up for motorcycle lessons (motorcycle safety course, highway patrol), and asks, "Where can I get a supercute outfit and how much do I have to spend, AND I want to be able to wear it forever because I know it's going to cost $1000." Not being a fashion maven myself, I find myself ill equipped to advise. So, motogirls, where CAN one find a "supercute" biker outfit with all the padding and shields necessary for one to feel protected, that is fashionable yet classic enough to endure through the coming decades? I await your wisdom.

Not Riding in the Rain

In preparation for my dual-sport ride in Colorado (I'm lost in dreaming - it's not until August!) I was cruising DualSportRider.org and was amused at this poll:

Rain, Do I ride or stay in bed?
* I stay in bed.
* What's a lil rain, I ride.
* Other: Post a comment

I have to cop to being a fair weather rider. Once, long ago in France, I got stuck in Brittany four days because of rain. I can't remember the exact model of the Honda 750 I was riding; it was a touring bike with an air intake stupidly mounted on the front, which just sucked in the water and choked up the system. (What bike was that, anyway? That trip was in 1988, so it must have been an 86 or thereabouts.)

I admit to being relieved that I didn't have to ride in the rain, and blamed it on the bike, and not my squeamishness. I didn't have to be anyplace anytime soon - the best way to travel - so I hung out in my tent reading and writing, walked the beach in my rain gear, sat around in cafes. The place was Brittany, and the beach was pink sand and rocks. Some of the women in town wore the old style black dresses and cylindrical hats of white lace, for real, not because they were trying to attract tourism. It wasn't a bad delay.

Italy, Y2K, Damanhur (North of Turin) to Geneva: Light rain all day. Worse yet, about 100 tunnels along the cliffs. (I am not exaggerating.) Light-dark, light-dark, light-dark. I had to keep flipping my helmet shield up and down in order to see the road, and my eyes weren't adjusting very quickly to the light and dark. Though the Guzzi EV 1000 handled excellently, the ride was downright dangerous, and if I didn't have to be in Florence to meet my friends, I wouldn't have done it.

Florida, 1995, I was chased to Texas by a hurricane and the Ural didn't like being wet. We choked and hopped all the way to sunny Mississippi on the Redneck Riviera. I wanted to scuba dive but the hurricane had chased the jellyfish from the Atlantic into the Gulf. The water was thick with the gelatinous creatures, which stung with gentle pinpricks.

Aerostitch has a great selection of rain gear, by the way. But I'm curious. Have you ever had a pleasant riding experience in the rain? Or do you just find it worth the trouble?

Trans-America Trail Trip Planning

Sam Corerro of the Trans-America Trail called the other night to talk about my August ride through Colorado. We talked about what the weather might be like. "Bring layers," he said. "There will probably be snow on the high peaks - but not for long, and then we'll drop down into a 105 degree desert valley." Then he started talking about wild horses and bear encounters. He met a mama bear on the trail one day. "What did you do?" I asked. "She wouldn't move, so I had no choice but to go around," he replied. So he gunned it, and whipped around her real fast. Now... who needs to leave the country for adventure?

Touring the Dead Zone

Imagine you are a 25 year old woman motorcyclist who lives near Chernobyl. You like to go fast, so you ride to the empty roads in the "dead zone." Meet Lena, from Kiev, Ukraine:

Motorcycling is a great hobby of mine, I ride all my life and I owned different bikes and I ended with big kawasaki zzr 1100 cc sport touring motorcycle, which also known as ZX-11. it fast like a bullet and comfortable for long trips. I travel a lot and one of my favorite destination lead through poisoned with radiation, so called Chernobyl "dead zone" It is 130kms from my home. Why favourite? because one can ride there for hours and not meet any single car and not to see any single soul. People left and nature is blooming, there are beautiful places, woods, lakes. There is no newly built roads, but those which left from 80th in fairly good condition. Take the tour.

Gadget Lust: Dry Pak waterproof holder for cellphones and PDAs

The Travel Insider reviewed this Dry Pak waterproof holder for cellphones and PDAs. I picked up something similar to this in a marine supply shop before I went to India, but it wasn't padded. It looks like a useful item to keep a motorcycle travelers' various and sundry small electronic equipment safe, dry, and dust-free. And you can apparently even use the cellphone while it's in the protective pouch.

An adventure touring website and other places to sell motorcycles

You never know what's out there until you try to sell something. I post a notice that I think I might want to sell my Ural, and Paris-based motorcycle blogger Mike Werner suggests I post it on the adventure rider forum, of which I have been oblivious all this time. It's so much fun! Forums, lists and critiques of adventure touring bikes, books, and more - hey, the Ural isn't listed though the criteria fits: "Motorcyles fit for long days that you can take off-road."

Then Minnesota-based Sheldon Aubut suggests I list it on the IMZ-Ural web board, which I hadn't seen before though I ought to have taken a look once the Ural America site folded. (Too bad...they had a great forum that was very active.)

My dad suggested I sell it on eBay, because both my brothers work for the company and my mom just made $250 on an old World's Fair poster. Sure enough, I see Urals, Dneprs, and more for sale "just like new," or parts "in the crates."

Craigslist.org is my other option, of course, which is how I found some DSL equipment, a job, and my new abode, a fabulous little cottage near Park Presidio. (My mother says she now has dedicated three full pages of her address book to me alone and is leaving one blank for future moves.)

But the newspaper? I don't know...do YOU look in the newspaper when you want to buy or sell something?

Ural for Sale

THE URAL IS SOLD! THANK YOU, GREG -- YOU MIGHT SEE THIS BIKE AT THE ANNUAL GRIFFITH PARK SIDECAR RALLY

The decision had to be made sometime. I've just moved (from one end of San Francisco to another) and this place doesn't have a garage, either. The Ural is collecting dust in my parents' shed, and every year or so Dad and I take it out, tune it up, and get it going. This time we'd like to get it going outta here, because neither of us ride it. I thought I'd put it out to the community first. It runs as well as any Ural. It's a 1994, the same one I took around the county for the American Borders trip. Let me know if you're interested. carla@carlaking.com