Motorcycle Misadventures

Bikes for Shorter Riders

VTwin Mama (for sassy, classy women motorcyclists) has kindly put together a page of bikes suitable for shorter riders. The basics are these points:

1) Lower the bike with a lowering kit (new brackets that lower it or back end suspension/shocks and front end fork).
2) Change the stock seat to something that is either narrower (so the legs are not pushed out) or curved down to lower overall seat height or have the original seat's interior padding shaved down.
3) Change out the tire (but talk to the mechanic about a possible impact on the speedometer reading).
4) Buy or modify boots for a higher heel (but not to high to interfere with foot controls).

Here are details and particulars on bikes.

Women Account for Almost 10% of Motorcycle Sales in 2003

The Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) reported that women now account for nearly ten percent of the just over 1 million motorcycle owners in 2003.

The report also made general statements about the motorcycle marketplace in the past couple of decades. Sales tapered throughout the 1980s, and reached their nadir in 1992, when roughly 278,000 new motorcycles and scooters found buyers. Today, the industry sells more than that number in dirt bikes alone. Annual motorcycle sales began their sustained rise in 1993, and made huge gains in the latter part of the decade. In 1998, sales jumped 21 percent compared to the previous twelve months. In 2000, the market skyrocketed by 30 percent. Motorcycling witnessed double-digit annual percentage increases between 1998 and 2002.

Read the media release.

Interested in buying a motorcycle or learning how to ride one? Find out what you need to know to get started by calling the Discover Today's Motorcycling toll free number (800) 833-3995 which is available 24 - hours a day, seven days a week. When calling, you will also receive information about the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) RiderCourse® nearest you. If you're interested in off-highway motorcycle training, visit the MSF DirtBike School online.

Discover Today's Motorcycling (DTM), the media and consumer outreach program of the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), is a source of information about motorcycling to the media and the general public. The MIC, located in Irvine, Calif., is a not-for-profit national trade association representing manufacturers and distributors of motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, scooters, motorcycle parts and accessories and members of allied trades. 

Silk Road Adventure Tour led by Helge Pederson

Helge Pederson of GlobeRiders is leading 17 motorcycles, riders, some passengers and a chase vehicle along the Silk Road from Istanbul to Xi'an passing through Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China. The tour has all been arranged with visas, accomodations, most meals, three staff members and the route completely mapped out and loaded into individual GPS devices on the handlebars of each bike. Helge will have an INMARSAT transmitter on his bike that will transmit the group's position to a satellite every 30 minutes and retransmitted to his webmaster in Seattle so an Internet audience can follow along. Preliminary info is at Dean's Silk Road Adventure website hosted on GlobeRiders.

Multi-Purpose 650cc Single Cylinder Adventure Touring Motorcycles

I'm trying to put together a list of what might be termed Lightweight Multi-Purpose 650cc Single Cylinder Adventure Tourers - not 80/20 dirt/road bikes, but real multi-purpose bikes that are study, can handle being weighed down with a lot of luggage, and most of all, reliable. The best ones. Also relatively low or that can be lowered. (For example, eliminated is the Honda XR650L Honda because it is extremely tall). Any comments/discussion on the below and additions to the list appreciated. Also, who is riding them, and has a website that describes the bike and mods - like Chris & Spice and also Mark, below. Maybe it would be useful to list bikes that didn't make the list. Looking forward to your input.

BMW F650: the gold standard

Kawasaki KLR 650
- Chris & Spice's RTW Tour on 2 KLR 650's
- Mark Hammond's San Francisco to Tierra del Fuego Tour

Aprilia 650 Pegaso, adventure tourer

Suzuki DR650 Freewind

Tiffany Coates in Africa

Mike Werner of Bikes in the Fast Lane interviewed Tiffany Coates, world motorcycle traveler, when they crossed paths in North Africa. Tiffany was on her way to Timbuktu, solo, on her BMW F650GS. It's a wonderful interview of an avid woman motorcycle traveler, and better yet, led me to her stories on the inveterate Horizons Unlimited site. Here's an excerpt -- the inevitable two questions put to solo women travelers:

Did you find any disadvantages of riding alone as a female?

None except for the lack of toilet facilities at times and also having to put up with sleazy border guards and policemen.

Any advantages?

I had the best of both worlds, where I was given more access to families and welcomed more warmly than a man would be, but also being treated as an honorary man and receiving the respect that a man's status would have in many of the developing countries.

I completely concur!