Motorcycling is a passion I found later in life and I’ve embraced it with gusto. It’s provided me with such joy, fulfillment, and confidence. And also a whole lot of suffering.
We frequent the Maverik fuel station in Lordsburg, NM as part of our maintenance rides and this is our usual parking spot. There’s rarely anyone parked in this strip of spots on the side of the building so we roll in through them a swing around pointed out for an easy exit.
Until this guy showed up today. In the fucking enormous sea of concrete—complete with areas for big rigs to park or pause—this knob decides to block the space we’re parked in. The one spot that had vehicles in it.
When we came out of the store after securing our snacks and to this little scene we were annoyed but it didn’t require immediate attention. We figured he’d be gone in a few minutes given that he parked like a complete asswipe. We still needed to take our snack break which we figured would be plenty of time for him to vacate.
He did not leave within a few minutes. He proceeded to eat his lunch from the confines of the truck cab. By the time we had our snacks and were quite done with hanging out in the sun and heat, we began gearing back up. Dude still wasn’t going anywhere.
Just fuck. We were hot, tired, and simply didn’t have the bandwidth to talk with this guy. Fortunately no one pulled into the spot next to us so we pushed the bikes around to set up for a smooth exit behind the truck.
So no, we weren’t completely blocked in. But we shouldn’t have had to work around this guy. Or have to gauge whether a conversation about the situation would be cordial or adversarial if we approached him about it.
Fancy gear
July 14, 2026
Proper gear isn’t “fancy” it’s just common sense. And there are a lot of style options on the market.
J. and I talked with a fellow local rider at one of our favorite lunch stops yesterday. The discussion turned to managing monsoon weather while riding.
He was wearing regular jeans and a t-shirt. He mentioned he didn’t have “fancy gear” like us to stay dry. I tried to hide my cringe. I’m not sure if I was successful.
What’s my takeaway from the conversation?
Can we dispense with the notion that proper motorcycling gear is “fancy” or performative, please? I can not fucking believe that this still has to be explained.
Weather protection is just the start. Gear also provides protection from minor road debris and insects that become very unpleasant projectiles at speed. And crucial protection at the other end of hazard spectrum in crashes.
It’s basic safety gear. It is not a luxury. It is not “fancy”.
Because you know what else very fucking not fancy? Road rash.
Tiny missile
July 5, 2026
Imagine how much that would have hurt without a helmet with a proper face shield.
There are times when the insects I encounter while in the saddle sound and feel like rocks as we collide. And the bug I took to the face shield today was a doozie.
Today this one came directly over my windscreen, then dipped down a few inches in the wake before the air flow grabbed it again and jetted it back up into my face like a missile.
Sans helmet, it would have probably gone directly up my nose. That would have been some bad shit while piloting a bike at 65 mph.
I seriously don’t know how riders get by without helmets, obvious crash protection aside. Just the bugs and other debris are bad enough.
We used to ride so much more—in the 15,000-ish miles per year range. Mainly because we were traveling a lot to rallies and whatnot.
But the new normal seems to be in the range of 6,000 miles a year. Pathetic, I know. Granted, that’s more than we were getting in during the pandemic but it’s still pretty lame.
Even so, we bookended 2025 with New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve rides. It’s nothing more than symbolic but it felt good regardless. Or at least, conciliatory. Especially since we only got in one short trip on the bikes. The rest of the rides have been of the maintenance variety.
As for 2026? We didn’t even get our first ride in until two weeks into the new year. All due to life, work, and obligations that are incompatible with riding (like say, a colonscopy).
Happy riders on New Year’s Day 2025Happy but chilly riders on New Year’s Eve 2025
Hard-earned first ride
I wish I could say getting out the door for the first ride of the year was smooth. It was not. We got a late start thanks to some work fires that needed putting out. And once we finally saddled up and were about to dive into our throttle therapy, my dear man’s bike wouldn’t fucking start in spite of the fact that he leaves it on a trickle charger in between rides.
We had to dial back and go through the rigamarole of jump-starting his bike before we could set out. We originally planned to have a brief stop visiting with friends over coffee before the ride. By the time we finally had sidestands up, there wasn’t time.
And, of course, we needed to get some miles in to make sure his bike was adequately charged so it would restart. So a quick stop for coffee after only a mile in the saddle wasn’t in the cards.
Once we were on the road and settled in though, it was a pleasant ride, if nothing technical or demanding. And after two weeks off the bikes, that fit the bill to refresh our skills and at least tick the box for the first ride of the year.
My dear man’s bike has a slight aversion to cold temperatures that proved terribly inconvenient on our first ride of the year.
The moto year ahead
The good news for our slow start to the new year is that it’s still early days. We have time to correct our course. But fuck, I really hope all of this challenging beginning isn’t a harbinger of our saddle time this year.
The hopeful spot on the riding horizon is our new Southwest Art Towns project. We need to cover a lot of ground throughout the Southwest this year to promote it. And we should be able to do a lot of that on the bikes.
Stay tuned to see if we can get in some moto adventures to redeem ourselves as motorcycles travelers in 2026.
Cheers, friends. See you in the saddle. I hope.
We did manage to get the bikes washed for the new year. That’s something, right?
I finally crossed over 40,000 miles on the Adventure Beast a few days ago. It’s been a grudging milestone to achieve.
Before we went on the road and eventually landed in Silver City, my dear man and I rode about 15,000 miles a year. In the current landscape of our lives, we’re struggling to get 5 or 6 thousand. Finally getting to the 40,000 mark has taken chipping away at it one micro-ride at a time.
We call them maintenance rides—short putts in the 100-mile-ish range. Motorcycling is a perishable skill so we’re doing just enough to keep our skills from deteriorating. And just enough to keep our spirits up and remember that we’re motorcyclists.
The biggest impact we’ve seen in our riding is our diminished stamina. When we do get in a longer ride, we’re pretty damn wiped out at the end.
But we do have a short moto trip planned next month that will help. Unfortunately that’s just before I go into foot surgery with the likelihood of being off the bike for 6–8 weeks.
So I won’t exactly be finishing 2025 strong on saddle time. It’s a bit deflating but, as you know, I’ll keep moving forward and make the best of it. But damn, it’s a kick in the ass.
Suck it, 2025. Bring on 2026.
My view at 40,000 miles, cruising near home in beautiful southwest New Mexico.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that question. The difference was that this time the question wasn’t directed at me. Even so, I replied that I was the pilot of the Moto Guzzi V7ii Stone parked outside a Waffle House on a cold January morning in north Georgia. But the interrogator’s attention was fixed on my dear man who was sitting across the table from me. And who was now staring at me in utter disbelief.
Southern education
Long before I moved to Nevada, my dear man came to visit me in Georgia. He brought along his trusty Kawasaki KLR 650 so we could get in some riding time together. He’s a lifelong westerner with no experience in the Deep South so part of the riding experience would be a bit of cultural education. That education had to include Waffle House. Of course.
We set out on this crisp winter morning with a short ride in mind. We only had just enough time to pull off our gear and settle in over a hot cup of coffee when two men pulled into the parking lot. They got out of their pickup truck and sidled towards the restaurant, eyeing the motorcycles. Before reaching the door, they veered off and began slowly circling the bikes like a kettle of vultures—scrutinizing, nodding, faces stern.
A southern education isn’t complete without a visit to a Waffle House.
Predictions
I sighed heavily and looked at my dear man. He looked back at me quizzically. I said “This is how this is going to go down.” I proceeded to predict the conversation we would be having with these men which would include ignoring me. He chuckled, thinking I was joking.
The men eventually walked in and quickly puzzled out that we were the riders. It was a pretty easy conclusion. There was only one other customer at a table in the far corner and we were the ones sitting in a booth with helmets and riding jackets piled next to us.
Sure enough, the men walk in and stopped at our table. “Who’s ridin’ that there Moto Guzzi?” one of them asked. To get the full effect, you have to imagine that question being asked in the thick quintessential southern accent. And you have to imagine the motorcycle brand pronunciation as “Guh-zee”.
My dear man stared at me wide-eyed. I’d predicted the first sentence with complete accuracy.
Orations
I confirmed I was the Guzzi pilot to the breakfast intruder who now towered over us sitting at our tiny, sticky table. He gave me a quick, curt glance and returned his attention to my dear man. Then he launched into his monologue.
His lecture contained all the greatest hits plus a few bonus tracks from the album I’d heard so many times before. It was no shocker he thought Harley Davidsons were the best bikes to be had. Anything else was far inferior. But the Moto Guzzi was a decent choice if you weren’t fortunate enough to get your hands on a Harley. Imagine my relief to know I’d chosen an acceptable motorcycle to this colossal blowhard of a man.
He sprinkled in a few disingenuous questions aimed at my dear man along the way. He never actually waited for a response, though. His companion stood by, listening and nodding, as the man droned on. He had a lot of thoughts on different segments of the motorcycling community. “You know, them Goldwing people ain’t very friendly,” he declared.
The crowning glory of the sermon was when he gave an acknowledgment to my dear man’s KLR parked next to my Guzzi.
“You know, them there Jap bikes are pretty reliable, though.”
My dear man and his trusty KLR learning about Georgia in more ways than he bargained for.
Enough already
Up to that point I had just sat and sipped my coffee, largely ignored by the misogynistic orator. It was a relief from the usual scenario of being the target of the verbal siege. I was also having my fun by watching my dear man’s reaction to this experience. The “Jap” bike comment put us over the edge, though. Like me, I knew he was thinking enough-was-enough with this guy.
I also knew my dear man was taking cues from me since he was a visitor in my stomping grounds. So I made my plans to derail the “conversation.” This bonus cultural lesson had gone on too long. Before I could intervene though, the clueless man suddenly decided he was done and shuffled off to a table with his companion.
Relief
My dear man stared at me. He was in shock. Partly from being subjected to this man and experiencing the full effect of what you might characterize as a southern “good ole boy.” But he was also reeling from my prediction of the exchange.
“Not my first rodeo.” I said. I shook my head and breathed a heavy sigh of relief that it was over. “Welcome to Georgia, babe.” He stared at me, dismayed.
It was not the South’s finest hour. And not what I’d set out to show him in our explorations that day, but it was educational nonetheless.
At times I feel like I have a lot to say about this unwelcome anniversary. And sometimes I don’t. I decided it was important not to sweep it under the carpet, though. And sure enough, as I began to put thoughts to keyboard, the momentum built and I found I do have a lot to say. So much, in fact, that I had to break this into multiple blog posts to wrap up another time in my renewed vigor for this blog.
The other dichotomy is that it feels simultaneously like yesterday and also like many lifetimes ago. There are Olympic-worthy mental gymnastics at play in trying to process this life event in the context of the bigger picture. I find myself trying to process everything that has happened and everything I’ve done in the last ten years and how this event, and its impact on my life, fits into the narrative.
The emotional bits
The trauma noise is mostly a low-level murmur in the mental recesses these days. I still have reactive moments, though. They’re often less-strong or, at least, easier to get back in control when they burst to the surface.
And lest I ever have a moment of peace, there are always the gnarly scars and tibial hernia to serve as constant, daily reminders of the hell of the experience.
RIP, Marlo. She was a good bike.
Physical status
In spite of my Herculean efforts to rehabilitate Frankenleg, I eventually reached a plateau of the strength I could realistically rebuild and maintain. I’ve spent many hundreds of hours doing physical therapy in the last ten years. I’ve been tenacious as fuck about it. But with the level of damage, there’s really no putting it back to what it was, just getting to the best it can be.
I manage chronic pain and a multitude of mobility limitations on a daily basis. I work hard to hide and minimize how un-awesome Frankenleg is. I’m mostly successful at that. Physicians, physical therapists, and massage therapists have been the only people who notice the hitch in my giddy up for the most part. With the exception of going down stairs. There’s only so even and smooth I can make that look, which isn’t very much.
But most people who don’t know this part of my history wouldn’t suspect the level of injury I manage. Ten years later, though, I can chalk any trouble with stiffness, weakness, or clumsiness to just “getting old” when it is noticeable to someone.
Why try to hide it? Emotional self-preservation really. I’ve talked a lot about this over the years. After the first few years when I felt obligated to talk about it and it seemed to be what defined my life, I decided to change the playing field. So by minimizing the physical glitches, I get to be more in charge of when and how to talk about it. Plus, by trying to be as smooth and “normal” in my gait as possible, I head off creating new problems by favoring it.
I worked hard as fuck to get back on the bike back in 2015. And I’ve had to work hard every day since to stay on it.
What lies ahead?
The various injuries keep finding new and creative ways to hurt. There are a host of smaller ones that sound in on a daily basis. But obviously the big daddy is the femur shaft fracture and associated hardware.
I’ve discussed removing the hardware with my various orthopedists over the years as a crap-shoot effort to ease some of the recurring and supremely painful issues in my knee. I was at the beginning stages of pursuing that more seriously right before COVID hit.
The notion has been on the back burner since but the specter remains. I don’t relish the idea of going back into surgery and all of the knowns and unknowns that come with it. But often, it seems like it might be worth a shot.
Then there’s the ever-present question mark about the femoral artery repair. It will always put me at increased risk for a clot or blockage in the graft area. So that’s fun.
Fallout
Obviously there’s a lot of mental and physical fallout from the whole ordeal. But what’s on my mind more so than in years past are the less-obvious facets—what this has taken from me in terms of time and life enjoyment.
Sure, I’ve gotten on with my life, adjusted my expectations, and incorporated managing all this into the flow. But really, I had to give up things I enjoyed because either I can’t do them at all anymore or they’re just too painful and not worth it now. Running and backpacking are out of the question.
Even things I can still do are at a limited capacity. Hiking is limited to shorter walks. Yoga requires a bunch of modifications and such. Full lotus? Uh uh. Ain’t happening anymore.
There’s lots of that kind of stuff. All those details might seem small, but they add up.
And when I take a beat to think about the amount of time this has taken from me life, it’s staggering. All the doctor’s appointments and time in physical therapy? Not just the first round. Every damn round since then too. Fuck all, that’s a whole lot of hours stolen from me.
And it’s not over. I’ll spend the rest of my life dealing with this.
All because someone chose to be a shitty driver. How fucked up is that?
FFS, I’ve spent soooo much time in physical therapy. Over and over again.
Something to consider
So is there a point to sharing all this shit with you? Yes, of course there is. The message is largely the same one as five years ago–the last time I wrote about this.
Brass tacks, I’m taking this shit show of an anniversary to remind you what’s at stake when we’re behind the wheel. And how quickly and easily we can serve someone a life sentence of pain and misery. If they survive, that is. I almost didn’t.
And it’s completely avoidable. The carnage we see and experience on the road every day is not inevitable. Yet we seem to accept that it is. It’s mind-blowing to me. That’s the stuff we’ll talk about another time.
For now, remember to pay attention. I mean really pay attention. Teach yourself to watch for vulnerable road users—motorcyclists, bicyclists, pedestrians. Please don’t be the shitty driver that does this to someone.
I’m a big ball of fun today, I know. Book me for your next party.
Motorcycle travel has been woefully absent from my life lately. It’s left a huge hole in my life. Here’s where I confess it’s been over a year and a half since my last motorcycle trip. Ouch.
In the course of my annual birthday reflection, I had to acknowledge that my life is way off-kilter. So I made myself a few promises. One of them was to reclaim my soul and get back to motorcycle travel. And what better time than for my birthday?
Unfortunately, in an off-kilter life, it’s not as simple as just packing up and going on a trip, responsibilities be damned. But my dear man and I figured out a way to combine business with pleasure. We charted a route that would allow us to get in some nice twisties and still accomplish what we were originally planning to do by car. It was a win-win.
Birthday pizza
Our first planned stop was in the Village of Magdelena, New Mexico. We did a deep dive on understanding the lodging and dining options there before we left but there were definitely some question marks. It’s a really small town with limited services so we were prepared to make the extra 27-mile stretch to Socorro if we couldn’t make it work.
We found a motel room that seemed to fit our needs and was walking distance to a saloon that served pizza. There was another restaurant with more offerings at the far end of town but would have required scrambling much further along a busy state highway with no sidewalks in the freezing dark. Call me crazy but that just didn’t sound like fun. So my birthday dinner was frozen saloon pizza. It wasn’t delivery, it was Digiorno. Literally.
You might be thinking, “Wow, Val, you really know how to go gourmet for your birthday.” Fortunately I didn’t have any expectations of a grand birthday dinner. And it still beat the time we overnighted in Twentynine Palms on our way to Baja with only a motel vending machine to raid for dinner. It’s all about perspective, right?
We ended up having a great time at the saloon with lots of friendly, welcoming locals. Plus a bonus surprise of live music by a great musician. So I call it a win.
My epic birthday pizza.
And then things go bad
Magdalena rests at about 6,660 feet elevation and the overnight temperature was forecast to be 25 degrees. The motel room had a small mini-split unit that we cranked up once we arrived. During the night, though, we both woke up realizing it was fuck-all cold in the room.
The heater was not doing its job. We fiddled with the unit, each of us trying different things as our frustration built. Eventually I thought to look up the manual for the unit online to see what we needed to to do get it running again. I’ll let you fill in the blank on the string of profanity I uttered when I discovered that the unit doesn’t heat when the outside temperature is below 41 degrees. Which is, of course, when you actually need–you know–heat.
We tried to layer up and regain warmth in the room but by around 7 am we decided to set off for an early breakfast with the hope of warming up someplace else.
Just a wee bit chilly that morning and only slightly warmer in our motel room.
Hunting for breakfast
We had some concerns about the availability of breakfast given our pre-trip research and what we noticed coming into town. Sure enough, the small café in town wasn’t open. So we walked down to the fuel station to see if we could grab some coffee and frozen breakfast burritos—another less-than-optimal food management scenario we’ve had to employ in the past.
We were pleasantly surprised to score some locally made burritos that hit the spot. They were certainly a far cry better than the mass-produced frozen variety.
The fuel station had a small table and a couple of chairs tucked in a corner inside that I was eyeing intently for us to hover at for a bit to eat and thaw out. No luck. A couple of locals were hanging out chatting and there wasn’t room for us to join in. It was clear they planned to be there awhile so we begrudgingly shuffled our popsicle-like bodies back to our motel room.
It may not look like much but it was better than a frozen burrito.
Do we stay or do we go?
With some food and coffee in us, we had a little more bandwidth to consider our options. This was technically a work trip and we’d planned to spend the first part of the day scouting the art businesses in Magdalena. There aren’t many there but our new project is all about connecting rural artists so we wanted to meet some folks.
Under the circumstances, we opted to bail on that notion for this trip and try again another time. We were in no mood for it by then and needed to manage the more pressing situation of freezing our asses off.
That left us facing our next decision: do we stay in the freezing room until things warm up outside or head out on the bikes in below-freezing temperatures. Sure, we have some heated gear but even that has its limitations, especially when we’d be starting out already hypothermic.
We opted to layer up as much as possible and get some work done in the motel room while we waited for temperatures outside to get more agreeable. And then around 9:30 as we were nearly done loading up the bikes, the heater in the room decided to get to work. What a kick in the ass. It was almost insulting.
Equipment failure
My dear man’s bike doesn’t really like to start when temperatures dip low. He’s well aware of that and had gone outside earlier to make sure it would start. And it started like a champ so he let it warm up a bit before shutting it off. At least that’s one victory in this shit show. Or so we thought.
By the time we were fully loaded and ready to saddle up, his bike decided it wasn’t going to cooperate. Sigh. I pulled out my battery-powered jumper kit only to discover that we had the wrong set of alligator clips with us. The clamps we had on hand didn’t have the proper connector to the battery pack. We have multiple kits from the same brand but with differing connecters and somewhere along the way we mixed up the pieces of the kits.
Now what? We looked at the gravel parking lot ahead of us. There was just enough distance to bump start the bike. Maybe. It would be tight. In my head I was sizing up the scenario. We’re cold, tired, and frustrated. The parking lot is a gravel surface with not a ton of room to accomplish our goal if we don’t get it right on the first try. No way this can go wrong. But we were out of options.
My dear man reassembled his bike seat from the failed jump starting machinations and mounted up to attempt the bump start. Then he gave it one last try. The bike started. We both took a deep breath. He said “How about we get the hell out of here?” I agreed, wholeheartedly.
A much more agreeable elevation for winter travel.
Truth or Consequences
I’m happy to report our fortune improved from that point. We made a brief stop in Socorro to visit a gallery there, grabbed lunch, and boogied to Truth or Consequences which was our main destination for the trip. The stretch between Socorro and T or C is largely interstate but we were able to mainly stay on side and frontage roads and not have to participate in that scene. Freeway riding is unequivocally horrible and we avoid it as much as possible.
We arrived in T or C just as the daylight was getting low and temperatures were beginning to drop. We shacked up at a funky historic hot springs motel downtown to be walking distance to the art galleries we wanted to visit. When we saw that the rooms were equipped with the same kind of lame mini-split unit from the motel the night before I thought, “Are you fucking kidding me?!?”
It was a false alarm, though. The overnight lows weren’t nearly as onerous in T or C now that we were at much lower elevation. Plus our room was also equipped with a space heater. What a concept, right?
In spite of a toilet that sounded like a second-grade recorder recital, I reveled in the otherwise agreeable, spacious room. I spread out my yoga towel and tended to my stiff muscles from two cold days on the bike with a short but vigorous Vinyasa flow.
With some physical relief, I was ready to explore T or C. We ate our way around town for the next day and a half in between art gallery visits. It finally felt like a proper birthday trip.
We had a very good time eating our way through T or C.
Keeping the rubber side down
Our whirlwind tour required one last day of riding to get home. We opted for the scenic route over Emory Pass in the Black Range. It’s a spectacular ride with fantastic twisties—the kind that remind you why you ride. It’s actually our favorite day ride from home and we ride it quite a bit.
So we know the road well. Well enough to know we would be riding it gingerly that day. There is a longish stretch of those gorgeous twisties that spend most of the time in the shade. Sure enough, there was ice coating the asphalt in those shady spots, even though it was well into the afternoon.
It was also a very high-contrast day in terms of lighting. Our eyes were having to adjust to the quickly alternating bright sun and deep shade which adds to the challenge of managing the potentially slick surface. As you can imagine, it was not a spirited ride through that section, but beautiful nonetheless.
We made it home safe and sound then celebrated having broken our moto travel dry spell. I don’t know what the next trip will be yet but I can tell you it damn well won’t be another year-and-a-half before it happens.
Ice in shady corners over Emory Pass was our final challenge of the trip.
Trip assessment
You might not know that I have an inner Type A personality that I work pretty hard to keep in check. She can be a real bitch. But I do try to use her for good on occasion. Just like my annual life assessments when I reflect on the things I’ve done well and the areas I need to improve, I do post-trip assessments as well. That’s when I can let Type-A Val do good work instead of evil.
Overall, I’m pleasantly surprised how much moto travel muscle memory I still had. It came back really quickly in terms of being in the mindset of not only managing the challenges of motorcycle travel but also enjoying the pure bliss of it. Motorcycle travel is a unique experience.
In the case of this trip, the only true surprise was the lack of heat in the motel room on the first night. That’s not something we could have anticipated. There was nothing in the reviews we found in our pre-trip research that gave us a head’s up on that one.
As for the breakfast issue, we knew that could be problematic going in so we had a backup plan. We always carry a handful of Kind bars(affiliate link) for emergencies. Had we not been able to score the burritos, we would have just noshed on a couple of those to hold us off until we got to the next town. Not ideal, but we would have been ok.
I do need to refine my packing skills. I could have gotten away without the messenger bag that I strap to the passenger seat if I’d been more resourceful with the space in my panniers. In the past I’ve usually only had to make use of it when camping off the bike and needed the extra space to accommodate camping gear. It was unnecessary for this trip and just a hassle instead of a benefit. It would have been far better to rework my panniers and eliminate it from the equation. In the big scheme of things, that was very much a minor point.
The big take-away
The biggest reminder I’m taking away from this trip is the value of adventure travel. It forces us out of our comfort zones, makes us think ahead to manage avoidable issues, and requires us to flex our problem-solving muscles on the fly. All of those skills are good for our mental health and keeping the gray matter sharp.
PS — By the way, I sorted the mixed up jumper cable issue as soon as we got home. That lesson was well-learned. We’re not going to make that mistake again.
I know all my rider friends out there are thinking “Well, duh!” at the title of this post. But humor me while I help our non-riding friends understand the benefits of throttle therapy and why we do what we do. Especially the ones who think we’re bat-shit crazy for loving motorcycling the way we do in spite of the risk.
So let’s back up. We all know that sometimes we have to step away from something—a project, task, challenge, etc.—to regain perspective and come back to it with renewed vigor. In that mental space we can identify new approaches, overcome obstacles, and—most importantly—free up the bandwidth we need to keep going when we’re in the trenches working our asses off and we’re just damn tired. In other words, “pushing through” usually backfires as our effectiveness and motivation fall off the fatigue cliff. A little break can get us a lot further down the road.
It’s a pretty basic concept we all know really. Except when we forget.
Beast mode can’t be sustained
You all know my life mindset is “keep moving forward.” And it might not surprise you that sometimes I actually push too hard at that. Like relentlessly hard. And it’s to my detriment, not benefit (insert another “well, duh” moment here) as I end up doing more harm than good by not shutting down the processors for a hot minute. Mistakes and misplaced energy abound when you’re in that mental space. At 50, I’m still working on honing that self-check. I’m still sometimes slow to recognize when I need to take at least a little break and remind myself I’ll be better off for it. Maybe I should tattoo “All work and no throttle makes Val a hot mess” on my forehead.
Through all of that ordeal, I’ve come to a few realizations about why riding is so effective for me in activating the reset button, more so than other releases.
Here’s my short list:
It forces the mental break in an absolute way.
Being distracted while riding is obviously a very bad idea. Your life depends on having your mind in the game. I use my time in the saddle to enjoy the scenery, pay attention to my riding, and improve my skills as a rider.
In that time, all the noise that is normally sucking at the mental tit gets kicked to the curb for a short while. And my brain breathes a huge sigh of relief once given the chance to do something different than fuss about all the shit going on in my life.
It forces you to step out of your bubble
It’s all well and good to sit down with some excellent knitting at home but you’re often still surrounded by the usual scenery and all the reminders of the tasks and projects you “should” be doing. As a dear friend of mine puts it, those things are still “squatting in the corner like a malevolent toad.” Paints quite the picture, doesn’t it? So while breaks of that nature require a certain amount of concentration, it’s not at the complete and non-negotiable level that piloting a motorcycle requires.
Malevolent Toads can suck it when I’m in the saddle.
Out of the office
I can’t be yanked back into the fray unexpectedly when I’m on the bike. The phone is on Do Not Disturb. No one can walk in and disrupt me. I’m away from the computer. The Malevolent Toads are no where to be seen.
It takes time
You must commit to a certain amount of time when you set out on the bike. Riding isn’t something you do for a five-minute break, so you actually give yourself a realistic window to decompress. Think of it as giving dopamine enough time to KO cortisol. If they’re only in the ring for one round, it’s probably not going to happen. But go nine rounds and the happy hormones will bring home the belt.
Rejuvenation
The sensory input of riding is unlike anything else. It gives your nervous system a wake up call. You can get back to work after a ride with the fire rekindled around all your little smoldering neurons.
You might argue that something like a good hike offers a similar effect. Absolutely. Taking some time in nature certainly goes a long way towards decompression and rejuvenating the spirit. But since it usually doesn’t require the exclusive concentration that riding does, your brain can still be working the problems in the background.
That isn’t necessarily bad. I’ve solved a lot of problems in my head while on the trail. It’s a different sort of mental reset, though.
Flexing the gray matter
Motorcycling exercises split second decision-making and problem solving. It flexes a different part of your brain than gets used in everyday life or slower-paced activities. It’s like cross fit for cognitive function—it keeps the gray matter buff.
The results
A lightness occurs when the ride is over and you haven’t thought about all the crap that’s had my brained stuffed for so long. And an invigoration. It’s time to dig back in and tackle everything in front of me with all of your gusto, not just a shadow of it.
That’s the in-a-nutshell version of why riding is the prime way I step out of the pressure cooker. Other ways are good, and even great. But nothing compares to time in the saddle for me.
I put my BMW MOA mileage contest forms in the mail a few days ago. I almost didn’t send them in at all. My riding mileage for the 2020–2021 contest season is abysmal. Embarrassing even.
In a “normal” year, I’d clock anywhere from 10–15 thousand miles. That’s fairly modest in the scheme of the mileage many BMW riders log in the contest. But I still like participating in it even though I’m not really a contender for the top slots. Since I wanted to enter for the upcoming season, I figured I’m if sending in my start form, I might as well send in last season’s end form as well. As heartbreaking as it is.
The new gear I got late last year? Yeah, it’s still clean.Even Toby was feeling the lack of throttle therapy time with the sidecar left storage.
So what gives?
Going full-time combined with the pandemic has been the perfect storm to derail my saddle time. I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried. Between our own logistical struggles and the pandemic fallout that has changed everything in complex, mind-boggling ways, we’ve struggled to carve out significant time to do the fun stuff.
Plus, we’re working really hard right now. Running multiple websites, online stores, and my work on a non-profit board is well beyond a full-time job.
J at camp, working away.Not exactly the kind of saddle time I’d like to be having. But the pizza definitely tasted better sitting on the bike.
Dagger to the heart
Once we were back on the road after the shutdown and it felt ok enough to ride again, we took the GS with us instead of the sidecar outfit. I did some follow-along-on-transit-days rides while J towed, plus a few other short rides in our stationary time.
We found ourselves at Wild Horse State Recreation Area for a couple of weeks over the Independence Day holiday. On that visit, we had a nice chat with the park ranger about riding. He recommended some routes in the area.
When we returned to the park a couple of months later, he stopped by and asked if I’d done any of the rides. I had to sheepishly admit I hadn’t, reminding him we aren’t on vacation. We work from the road.
“So it’s just a really nice campsite ornament then?” he asked, glancing toward my bike.
Yet that was seven months ago. And we’re still struggling to get the seat time we need to feel like we’re living our best lives.
Riding along with the rig on our way out of Great Basin National Park.
Solutions
We know we need to make some changes and we’re working on them as best we can in still-uncertain times. As little riding time as I’ve had, J has had even less with us leaving his bike behind in storage while we’re on the road. We’re not good with that.
We’ve spent many a happy hour lately soul-searching about what we want moving forward. And we have to do that in the context of the state of the world today which is like another universe from when we set out on the road.
It’s definitely time to get our shit together and fix this problem.
I was riding my BMW F700GS across the country along with my dear man on his Yamaha FJ-09. We left from our home (at the time) in Dayton, Nevada with various destinations in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina on the radar. We didn’t have a strict agenda, necessarily. There was a need to be in the southeast for particular events but we’d given ourselves enough buffer to have a leisurely ride there.
We don’t make reservations for trips like this. We’re well aware that moto travel is far too unpredictable for that. Plus we like having the flexibility to change course if we want. So one late afternoon as we were figuring out our end-game for that day, it was clear that Durango, Colorado would be our resting place for the night.
Riding in Colorado
Tacos to the rescue
We didn’t realize that it was the weekend of the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering. The town was packed with well-dressed folk attending the event and hotel rooms were in short supply. By the time we rolled into town, we were lucky to get a passable room at all, much less one a walkable distance from downtown to be able to enjoy some good grub and cocktails.
It was later in the day than we would normally have stopped and we were starving after a vigorous day in the saddles. There was no time to shower before walking to town. We needed food quickly. Tacos were in order and I knew just the place, having been through Durango a few times before.
With a quick change out of our moto gear and bit of a freshen up, off we went for tacos, sans showers. J followed my lead, trusting my taco judgement. Nini’s Taqueria fit the bill for our weary traveling souls. We devoured dinner with all the gusto of people running on far too few calories for the day.
These tacos didn’t stand a chance after a vigorous day of riding.
Happy hour shenanigans
Now we needed Manhattans, our go-to happy hour cocktail. Again, I knew the place and led J to the The Diamond Belle Saloon. We found it full of revelers decked out in their western finery. It was a sight for sure. And we were certainly out of place in our casual clothes and unwashed helmet hair.
We hovered at the end of the bar, jostling between the comings and goings of the other patrons and hoping to snag a space. Our patience paid off a short time later. We settled into the two stools at the end of the bar a short time later. We savored our well-deserved Manhattans, reliving a great day of riding.
A proper Manhattan is a fitting end to a day of travel and adventure.
Eventually J stepped away for a personal break. Before leaving he asked, “Do I need to leave you with a weapon?” I laughed, of course. His query was mostly facetious. Not that he had anything usable as one anyway, but I understood he wanted me to elevate my situational awareness while he was gone.
I ordered a beer from the bartender and began checking in with the world on my phone after a day mostly offline. You know, the usual BS—email, social media, etc. A few moments after J left his seat, with his cocktail on the bar and his coat still on the stool, a group of four men commandeered the end of the bar.
They were clearly many drinks into the evening. And they certainly weren’t there for the poetry festival, dressed in preppy casual clothes. Hardly the rugged cowboy look.
The bartender approached to deliver my beer and see if we needed anything else. Just then one of the men asked what I was drinking. Without looking up from my phone, I picked up my beer and tilted the label slightly towards them with a healthy dose of leave-me-the-fuck-alone attitude.
He didn’t get the message. His next comment came quickly. “Kinda light, don’t ya think?” I whipped my head his direction, Exorcist-style, and gave him a look that could not be mistaken for anything but pure, unadulterated malice.
“Are you dissing my fucking drink, dude?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a bemused grin emerge on the bartender’s face as he stepped back to lean on the bar behind him. He folded his arms on his chest, looking like he wished he had a bowl of popcorn for the show that was about to start.
The offending man took a slight step back. It was clearly not the reaction he was expecting. He doubled down on his poor behavior, though, and continued his intrusive commentary on my drink choice.
“I mean, beer isn’t exactly a real drink.”
I was a bit taken aback by the absurdity of this man-child so I didn’t respond immediately. All I could think at first was that I was being punked. This had to be a joke. No, there were no cameras around, this guy was seriously saying this shit to me.
Before I could begin to excoriate him with profound pleasure, J returned. I saw his face over the shoulders of the wall of very large men between us, blocking the path back to his seat in the crowded bar. They didn’t pick up on the fact that I wasn’t looking at them but past them.
I got a little grin on my face thinking of the question J asked me just before he left. I let out a little ironic chuckle that he was right about the weapon. Understanding I wasn’t in distress, he stood back and watched for a moment, waiting for a cue from me. I simply glared at the clueless men and growled “You’re in the fucking way,” as I gestured behind them.
Startled back into reality, they turned to find J looking, shall we say, quite unamused. They parted so he could get by and one of them asked him if he was my husband. “No. I’m her fucking bodyguard,” he replied sternly as he resumed his seat.
After a bunch of sputtering gibberish pseudo-apologies—mostly to J and not to me, mind you—they settled into their own conversations again. I was intent on not letting the brief encounter ruin our evening. So I returned to my beer and my conversation with J, ramping down from Defcon 1 and my plans to rip this guy a new asshole.
The old timey piano music added to the standoff atmosphere in the saloon.
A grown-up in the mix
One of the men, by far the oldest in the group, eventually spoke to both of us again. He made a sincere apology for his young friend’s behavior. He was a nice enough guy and seemed pretty embarrassed.
After some chatting, he put together that we weren’t there for the poetry festival either. He’d traveled from Pennsylvania with his son and his son’s friends for a golf weekend. The preppy look suddenly made sense.
J looked at me, not knowing how much conversation had passed while he was gone and asked “Did you tell them what you did today?”
“No, didn’t get around to that” I said casually as I sipped my apparently inadequate-for-twenty-something-assholes beer.
J proceeded to explain our cross-country motorcycle trip and that today was just one of many 300-plus-mile days of carving mountain twisties on the bikes.
“Oh,” the man said with a look of admiration and a healthy dose of intimidation. “We got in some good curves today. On the… golf carts,” he said with stilted hesitation. He laughed and we chatted a bit more.
He had a lot of questions about our motorcycle adventures. His young companions listened silently and with increasing sheepishness about choosing me as the target of their manipulative, juvenile antics.
After some time they drifted away to other parts of the saloon as the conversation wound down. I never got around to deflating them further by mentioning that just a couple of weeks before I’d been riding in camel races.
Have fun in your golf carts, boys. Try to keep up.
Epilogue
I later learned that the tactic this asshole was using on me was called “negging.” It’s an actual thing – a manipulation technique designed to get someone (often women) to engage by undermining their self-confidence and self-esteem to seek approval from the person delivering the comment.
This has been around for awhile but it was news to me. I have no idea if this guy targeted me because he couldn’t tell I was considerably older in the dim light of the saloon. Or maybe because he noticed I’m older, thought I was alone, and figured I was some desperate cougar. I have no idea.
All I can hope is that the dad gave them some proper guidance once the jerks sobered up.
Motorcyclists will find any excuse to ride. Not that we need an excuse but it adds to the fun. As is finding the longest, most interesting path to achieve our goal.
One morning a few years back, my dear man woke with a notion. He does that sometimes. This particular morning, he decided to take up canning his own cocktail cherries. Happy hour is kind of a big deal at our place. And Manhattans are our cocktail of choice the vast majority of the time.
A proper Manhattan needs an excellent cocktail cherry and he was set on making his own. We could just go to the local grocer and pick up some cherries that have been in transit for who knows how long. Or we could scoot over the hill (what we call crossing the Sierra) to get some fresh from a farm.
So of course that’s what we did.
Rest stop above frozen Caples Lake.
Mission: cocktail cherries
A quick breakfast and off we went, enjoying the glory of the Sierra over Carson Pass. It was a brisk ride and the lakes were still capped in winter ice, making for a captivating ride.
Our destination was a question mark. We just knew we’d pick one of the farms that looked good when we got there. We landed at Clement’s Ridge Produce in Clements, California. They stock lots of fresh produce, locally-sourced sundries, and have a killer deli and bakery. Our first order of business was visiting the deli and devouring their offerings. After 150 miles of spirited riding, we were ravenous.
With our bellies full we could think straight again. J thoughtfully chose the cherries that would become the culinary canvas for his first experiment in cherry-canning. And fortunately, our space limitations kept us from buying too much else, though the temptation was strong with all of the yummies on display.
Small world
On the return trip, we stopped at Peddler Hill vista overlooking Bear River Reservoir on Carson Pass (CA 88) for a rest break. There were a lot of riders out enjoying the agreeable weather and many stopped at the overlook as well. We helped them get pictures at the majestic vista as we often do when we see folks wanting to capture their smiling faces on their journey but have no one to take it for them.
Just as we were heading back to the bikes to saddle up and finish the ride home, a westbound rider hit the brakes and swung quickly around into the pullout next to us. It was our pal Fonzi, a fellow whiskey aficionado, who we know from our time at Overland Expo. How he recognized us while riding by at highway speeds, I’ll never understand. But we live nowhere near each other and we were all far enough from home that there was a lot of serendipity at play that afternoon.
And before we left, a couple of riders he knew from a tour in Baja rolled in and stopped to say hi. The odds of this happening are remarkably small. To top it off, they were on the way to look at houses in our little Nevada town of Dayton.
And all of this came together because one morning, J got inspired to make cocktail cherries.
Helmet hair, don’t care! We’re always happy to see our pal, Fonzi.
Cherry on top
The cherry mission was simply the inspiration for the ride—the cherry on top so to speak. The depth of this spontaneous adventure lies in all of the experiences surrounding it that have lasted well beyond that one ride. We still laugh about our random encounter with Fonzi.
And in the following days, J immersed himself in the canning process, diving into kitchen chemistry and experimenting with various bourbon syrups that produced the best flavor. The fruits of his new-found hobby have since found their way into our friends’ homes, spreading the joy of happy hours and Manhattans.
Alternative cherries
It won’t be a shocker to you that we don’t have the ability to can cherries in our current state as full-time RVers with only a microscopic kitchen to work with. We brought our remaining stash with us when we hit the road but ran out long ago.
Our nomadic scenario has impacted our friends as well who have come to cherish the delicious J’s delicious treats. In fact, during one happy hour not long ago, we even got a panicked message from a friend who was horrified to find himself out of J’s cherries. He desperately needed to know what alternative to use to preserve marital bliss in the midst of a cherry crisis.
Luxardo cherries aren’t made with the same love as J’s cherries but they’re pretty tasty.
An adventure gone good
It may surprise you that I don’t subscribe to the adage that it’s not an adventure if nothing went wrong. That’s a total load of crap. Our 300-mile cherry ride was quite an adventure filled with surprises and delights. Everything went great and it was fantastic. Its legacy makes it even more fabulous.
Adventure on, friends! Wrap yourself in the memories and lasting impacts that each adventure leaves in your lives.
That was Walt Fulton’s response when I queried him about the challenges women face in motorcycling. He didn’t get to finish that sentence, though. What cut him off after those first seven words was several minutes of raucous laughter of the “Oh hell no, he did not just say that!” variety from me and several others involved in the discussion—mostly women riders.
But hear me out. Because when Walt Fulton is willing to share his insight, I will always listen. If that statement had come from almost any other man, he would likely have been verbally disemboweled that evening. But Walt is an expert. He’s a phenomenal rider with a lengthy list of motorcycling accomplishments on his resume.
More importantly for my purposes in sitting down with him that evening though, is that he has trained countless women riders—with respect. Walt also has a strong partner in the indomitable Nancy Foote, who is an amazing rider in her own right. Walt gets it. He understands women, women on motorcycles, and the challenges they face.
So after we had a good laugh at Walt’s first few words, we all listened intently.
Walt Fulton filling me in on women. In motorcycling, that is.
Women in motorcycling
In a volley of spirited chat at the BMW Riders of Oregon’s Chief Joseph rally, here is an overview of what I took away from my time with Walt Fulton and his assessment of what he sees in women riders through his vast experience.
Growth
Start small and work your way up. Motorcycling is a big skill that requires patience to evolve. Don’t expect, or be pressured, to jump right in like you’ve been riding for years.
A lot of women don’t know what they want starting out. Leave space to discover what you want out of motorcycling. Be open to different styles.
Be realistic about where you are with your skills and where you want to take them.
There are countless courses out there to help you grow as a rider. Ongoing skill-building is essential to staying safe and elevating confidence.
Train
Be methodical about building your skills. Take a variety of classes as you work your way up.
Never succumb to the hubris of thinking you know it all or have seen it all. Even if you’ve been riding for years, there’s always something new to learn or surprises just around the corner.
The learning process never ends. Even Valentino Rossi has a coach. Walt himself had already taken three courses this year when I spoke with him in June. This is a man who races fiercely and has ridden over a million miles. Yes, he still trains.
Don’t learn from a loved one. Take courses offered by outfits with trained instructors. They have proven coursework and training skills that will elevate your riding—things your loved one probably doesn’t have. Plus, you’ll be focused on learning, not carrying your relationship baggage into your training.
Walt Fulton coaching me during a Streetmasters course.
Equipment
Don’t let someone else choose your bike. Your partner or friend may have good intentions, but that person is not built like you and can’t feel how a bike feels to you. Only you can decide what fits and what feels right.
Earning your license endorsement doesn’t qualify you to buy a big bike. Know that your first bike will not be your final bike. Start at an appropriate size, especially with regard to engine power, and know you will grow out of it as you train and gain experience.
I haven’t always ridden a BMW R1200GS. Give yourself the time and experience to work your way up.
Relationships
This is where the women in motorcycling conversation gets a bit sticky because it’s where riding spills over into other parts of life. Relationship advice is way outside the scope of this blog yet it impacts women in riding in a big way. Because one of the biggest obstacles for women is often male partners, the subject can’t be ignored or glossed over.
Walt’s message? Get out from under the male thumb.
That may sound harsh but it’s all too common to see women riders being held back, undermined, and dominated by their male partners. Your riding can’t thrive in that setting. Walt has seen vast impacts of the male partner dominating women riders. As have I and almost every other woman rider I know.
If your partner is a man and he’s running the show on your riding, it’s time for an evaluation of that dynamic, to see where changes can be made. The first step is to be honest with yourself and acknowledge the problem. Again, how you handle that depends on your particular situation and I’m not a relationship counselor. But if you truly want to ride, you’ll need to address it in some way.
I’m fortunate to have a supportive male partner. But many women face challenges in their riding that come from male partners.
Options
Remember that your greatest success in riding will be from you owning your ride. Some things to think about and consider on that path are:
Seek out women’s riding groups. Having experienced women riders who can help you build your confidence and understand the challenges of motorcycling from a woman’s perspective is invaluable. If those don’t exist where you are, mixed-gender clubs with the right attitude work as well.
Take training classes without your partner present. Nope, not even watching from the sidelines. If it needs to be a women-only class to achieve that, then embrace it.
Patronize dealerships and shops that treat you well as a woman rider. Don’t spend your time and money in places that don’t. There’s no need to support businesses that don’t support you.
Trust your gut. If you’re feeling pushed into a ride or equipment that doesn’t feel right for you, trust your feelings! And do what you need to do to make changes. Motorcycling is amazing. It’s also high risk. It’s your life at stake if you are put in a bad position by someone else’s decisions that aren’t right for you.
Women’s training courses like those offered at the BMW Rider Academy can help lady riders train on their terms.
Helping women riders
Ladies, if the relationship dynamic issue doesn’t apply to you, that’s fantastic! You’re in a position to take a struggling woman rider under your wing and help her on her way. You’ll be doing that woman and the riding community a great service.
And if you are one of the many tremendously supportive male riders out there, you can help too. Help a woman rider get what she needs. Or help her male partner realize his impact on her riding and show him how to be a better partner.
I’m often the only woman rider in my local BMW group. But it’s no matter when you ride with men who don’t see you as anything but another rider.
Go forth and ride
So ladies, embrace your position as a growing force in the motorcycling industry. Get out there and ride. Ride your way. And be smart about it.
Ride your own ride isn’t just a saying. It’s crucial to confidence and success in the saddle.
Welcome to Part Four of my ongoing quest to create awareness and understanding between motorcyclists and drivers. I’ve written many thousands of words on the subject — in Part One, Part Two, Part Three of this series as well as talking about ambassadorship and managing risk on the road.
If you’re not inclined to read those or any further in this post, at least have a peek at these 10 basic things from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation “For Car Drivers” program that you should know. I hope that will inspire you to come back here and read more about the completely avoidable risks and challenges we face in sharing the road with drivers.
This driver was halfway over the center line and didn’t begin correcting until they saw the oncoming traffic. A common and unacceptable driving habit on a straight road, much less in curves with obstructed sight lines.
Stay in the lines
For Pete’s sake, stay in your lane! You’d think this would go without saying. Of course you need to maintain your lane discipline to avoid hitting another vehicle, right? But you’d be amazed how many times a day I encounter drivers drifting over the center line. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. But even with just a little, I’m already planning how to avoid you if I can because I don’t know if you’re going to correct in time or not.
Lack of lane discipline stems from two sources: distraction or laziness. Both are easily preventable. So stop the distracted driving that is causing the problem. What you consider a little “oopsie” has dire consequences for the people around you, especially those of us not surrounded by a steel cage. Even if you don’t hit us, you’re causing us to take evasive action. That can be equally problematic for us if we are forced into a scenario that’s nearly as dangerous as you barreling into us.
Maintaining your lane also goes for not cutting into the shoulder in curves. Did you know you drag all sorts of debris and rocks into the roadway when you do that? That sucks for motorcyclists and bicyclists. It also forces us into narrower travel paths, reducing our options for choosing a safe line. Not to mention, it erodes shoulders and road edges, creating ongoing hazards for everyone—and more tax dollars to repair. Quite unnecessarily.
Too lazy or too distracted to stay in the lane? Either way, this creates road hazards for those who follow.
Standing and weaving
We riders are often subject to knee-jerk criticism with regard to our actions. But what non-riding drivers often perceive as show-boating or recklessness is anything but. Let me be perfectly clear. If I suddenly stand up on the pegs, change lanes quickly, or move my position within my lane, I’m either avoiding a hazard or I’m trying to help you see me.
Those lateral and vertical movements get your attention because they’re incongruous to the motion of a vehicle simply moving straight towards you. Hopefully along with my lighting and hi-viz gear, you get the message.
Behind the load
You may see us staying way back from trucks carrying loads—gravel trucks, pickup trucks with cargo, livestock trailers, and the like. You may be annoyed how far back I’m staying but trust me when I say I want to pass as soon as I’m safely able.
Anything that comes off of those types of vehicles is bad news for us riders. We can’t stay behind them without great risk so the best thing we can do is to allow extra space until we can get around them.
Don’t worry, though, once I do pass, I will do it decisively. You won’t be held up one bit since I can get past way that vehicle more quickly than you can.
This tractor trailer was blown into the shoulder by a huge gust of wind. Just one of the many reasons to give them lots of space.
Tractor trailers
The situation with tractor trailers is similar. The wind buffeting we take off of them can be hellish. So again, I’ll stay way back until I can pass. Being next to a semi is tremendously dangerous for any vehicle but infinitely more so for a motorcycle. Truck drivers don’t want any of us hanging out next to them, either.
So I’ll pass in a quick burst once there is no vehicle blocking my ability to completely pass a semi. I’m not going to hang out and lackadaisically pass a massive truck, waiting for the car in front of me to get serious about passing.
Semis are also at high risk for tire blowouts. I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in being on the receiving end of one of those. They also can’t maneuver quickly to compensate for wind or hazards.
Those big rigs may not be nimble. But I am. So I’ll use that to my advantage when sharing the road with them. They need space. I’m happy to give it to them.
Motorcycles and cars alike need to give tractor trailers respect and space.
Yard waste
It’s becoming illegal in more and more places to blow your wet grass clippings into a roadway. For good reason. It’s a storm water pollutant, for one. And that debris is slicker than owl shit. For those of us on two wheels, it compromises our traction greatly. Don’t do it.
We’re all in this together
I’ve written a lot on the whole sharing-the-road topic. And without fail, someone points out that riders can be shitty, too. Yep. Without a doubt.
Riders are not infallible. We are not saints. And we do not all share the same mindset and values. Just like any other group, there are those few that set a negative tone for all of us. Trust me, it’s frustrating. Just remember to calibrate for negativity bias before relieving yourself of the responsibility to understand all road users and be a decent driver.
Many drivers don’t have that awareness, though, for themselves or those around them. For drivers, there’s a disconnect because you’re in a steel box. For riders, we are out there in it every moment, completely exposed.
My Moto Guzzi at the intersection where I was almost killed by a driver who “didn’t see me.” There’s only so much I can do to ride defensively. You need to be a part of the process.
Remember your humanity
I hope my words help bring a little bit of humanity back to the roads.
There’s a common wisdom in the motorcycling community —
Motorcycling, is not, in and of itself inherently dangerous. It is, however, extremely unforgiving of inattention, ignorance, incompetence, or stupidity.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t only apply to we riders. It also applies to drivers we share the road with. Our own mistakes will cause us harm, yes. And that’s on us to manage. But we’re more likely to face that lack of forgiveness at the hands of drivers. We are always the ones who lose in car-versus-motorcycle encounters. As I’ve said before , don’t be the person who ruins someone else’s life.
I’m watching the road closely so we can all get home safely. I need to you do the same, my friends.
You know what’s not fun? The constant battle to stay safe on the road. In a sea of drivers who don’t prioritize the driving task or lack proper risk assessment, we have to make up that gap as much as we can. It’s an undue burden and the stakes are exponentially higher for vulnerable road users like us motorcyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
That’s why I write from time to time about the things we need drivers to know. Some folks would say I’m tilting at windmills but I’m not going to succumb to resignation that my message won’t reach at least one person who finds some enlightenment as a result.
But it’s time to add a bit more to the list. To that end, here’s another installment of some things you need to know when we’re sharing the road together.
Riding is my passion. I work hard to be a better rider. But there’s only so much I can do if the drivers around me aren’t doing their part.
Stick the stop
Embrace the gymnast’s mentality of “sticking the landing” when you’re coming to a stop. Stick that sucker! That means come to a complete stop. And stay stopped. Then don’t just look or glance at oncoming traffic—SEE the traffic.
If a rider is approaching, don’t move until the bike has passed you. If you never stop rolling—or start rolling again before we’re past you—we must guess your intentions. You may see the motorcycle and are planning on pulling out behind it. Or you may be about to pull out into us because you didn’t see the bike. There’s absolutely no way for us to know which.
I know having some momentum helps you get into the flow of traffic but if you are moving, that requires me to be prepared to take evasive action. At a minimum I’m going to honk and flash lights at you to make sure I have your attention. Or I may have to slow down, which slows you down too. Or I may make a sudden lane change if possible, putting myself at risk because I’m banking on the others drivers around me being aware. Let’s face it, that’s not a good bet, really.
If you are accelerating from a complete stop, I have more time to react and anticipate. The microseconds longer it takes you to complete the stop and begin moving again are exactly what we need. And that is the difference between life and death for riders.
A complete stop is necessary, especially when riders are going by. If you find that inconvenient, you may need to re-evaluate your priorities.
Cool your jets
Related to sticking the stop, is to not come into it burning hot. If you’re racing up, others around you don’t know if you’re planning to stop or slow at all. Hell, we don’t know if you even notice the stop ahead of you. We’re preparing for you to blow through. We may end up taking unnecessary evasive action which puts us at risk for no reason.
So consider how your movement looks to others on the road who have little means to communicate with you. You know your intentions but no one else does. We don’t know if you’ve seen us! We can’t read your mind—only your actions as we see them from afar.
That’s why we have the saying “Ride like you’re invisible.” I absolutely must assume that you don’t see me. That’s the default. So you have to show me that you do see me.
Stop. Look. See. And don’t move until we’re past you. In this scenario, I have nowhere to go if you pull out because you didn’t see me.
Give us some room
Leave some space! You’re the key to mitigating the far-too-common chain reaction pile-ups that are the result of the rear-end domino situation. If you leave proper space from the vehicle in front of you, that ends. It’s one of the simplest habits we can employ that would eliminate a huge amount of crashes for every type of vehicle every year.
That proper stopping distance certainly helps everyone on the road, but imagine being a rider in the middle of that pile-up. Obviously that goes way worse for us than someone in a car. The motorcycle sandwich scenario is why you’ll always see me checking my mirrors, even if you are completely stopped behind me.
I’m positioned to watch the vehicle behind you to make sure they’re stopping as well. I’m ready to (hopefully) slide out into a turn lane, shoulder, or in between lanes if it looks like they won’t stop in time and ram you into me. If you leave proper distance, I don’t have to be on high alert every moment of the stop.
We leave space so we have room to respond. We need you to leave space, too.
The take-away
As you can tell, I give traffic situations a lot of attention and thought. My life depends on it. The most important considerations I hope you take away from this are:
Be aware of how your actions look to other road-users and how they impact them. Mentally step out of your car-bubble and consider what you’re communicating (or not) to those around you.
Remember that when you mess up, we have to react. Quickly. And the likelihood that will not work out well for us is very high. You can cause someone else to crash even if you didn’t hit them, car or motorcycle alike.
I’ve found my unicorn—my ideal motorcycle. I’m late to the party, though. Others have known this for decades. There’s a reason BMW’s big boxer-engined GS is insanely popular. It’s an amazing machine.
As you know my friends, I suffered a substantial motorcycle conundrum last year. My fleet became too complex. That motorcycling existential crisis set the stage for bringing home the machine that I can now envision riding for as long as my body and mind allow me to pilot a motorcycle.
I did a lot of soul-searching (AKA hand-wringing) and mental gymnastics (AKA over-thinking) to get to the jump-off point. The R1200GS is a big investment. And I had misgivings about its physical size and my ability to handle it. It only took a multi-day rental test ride to open my eyes to how phenomenal this motorcycle is and how supremely unfounded my misgivings were.
On the road with my rental R1200GS that sealed the deal for me overcoming GS block.
Existential Review
The GS in all of its iterations over the years have been reviewed and picked apart by folks more knowledgable and technically savvy than me. There are countless reviews out there that cover the nit-picky details. My thoughts are more global. It’s really about whether to GS or not to GS.
The set of questions I ended up asking myself about the full-size GS platform in general were things like:
Will this bike do what I need it to do?
Does it fit me? Or can it with some adjustments?
Can I handle it—the size, weight, and power?
What does this bike get me that my others don’t?
Do the improvements justify the expense?
With that said, here are the things that stand out to me after my rental experience and now having put 5,000 miles on my own 2018 R1200GS.
The Upsides
Power
It has half-again as much power as the F700GS I was riding most often. I was suspicious about that much power being overkill for my purposes. But boy howdy, it’s nice. I feel much more in control of my situations on the road knowing how much more quickly I can blip out of questionable scenarios.
Suspension
The patented BMW Telelever front end is brilliant. I love the smoothness and consistent traction. (And no, I’m not going into the “technology makes you a weaker/lazy rider” debate. I have strong feelings about it but that’s a discussion for a different day.)
Wind protection
The R1200GS has considerably better wind protection than my other rides (the BMW F700GS and the Moto Guzzi V7ii Stone) which makes for less ride fatigue. It’s not like riding in a magic bubble but I’m pleased with the improvement without losing the visceral experience of wind and sportiness.
Balance
The balance is extraordinary. The weight is centered so much lower than my 700. That means pushing it around the garage and managing off-kilter moments are a non-issue. That also means I’m more confident in handling it. That’s invaluable.
Controls
The electronic throttle and hydraulic clutch are responsive and light. Having nimble controls is a game-changer for long stretches in the saddle as well as for low-speed maneuvers. Again, the R1200GS is a far cry from my other machines in that regard.
Cruise control
I have to admit that cruise control feels a little like cheating but it’s a fantastic luxury, especially on long days. It took some getting used to but I’m on board now, especially given that I love long rides.
Hill assist
This was initially a con because I’m pretty damn good at managing hills on my other bikes. It felt awkward at first. Now that I’m used to it though, I’m a fan. And since using it is, of course, optional, I can use it to my advantage, on my terms.
Saddle
Even the factory “comfort” seat is much more agreeable than the saddles on any of my other rides. Saddles are something you can customize, of course, but even fresh off the showroom floor, I’m starting with a much-improved setup.
Shaft drive
No more chain maintenance! Of course, that means more complex repairs when things go south but it’s a bargain I’m willing to make.
Suspension and modes
On-the-fly Dynamic ESA and ride modes means being ready for anything quickly. I find myself in enough different scenarios and unexpected conditions that I make use of this far more than I thought I would.
Ubiquity
The popularity of the boxer GS and the BMW brand means repair or maintenance while traveling is fairly accessible.
Accessories
Related to their ubiquitousness, there’s no end to the offerings to farkle this beast. So as I need to tweak and adjust things, I have tons of choices.
Tires and wheels
The combination of tubeless tires on spoked wheels seem to be the sweet spot for adventurous travel. I feel less vulnerable to being stranded. Denting a rim and breaking a wheel are very different repair scenarios. Ditto for plugging a tire compared to replacing a tube.
Long rides
Because of all of the features, luxuries, and improvements, big-mile days are much more achievable. My longer days on my other bikes left me exhausted. I now finish exhilarated for having a fabulous ride that was much less physically challenging. And that’s what’s so counterintuitive about this motorcycle. That such a “big” bike is so much easier to ride. The difference is dramatic.
I test rode a lowered 1200 at the national BMW rally in 2017. My F700GS was only a year old then. It was quite hard to justify making the switch so soon after getting it.
Downsides
Price
Ok, ouch!!! The value is there, absolutely. It is a hell of a lot of bike for the price. But at the bottom line, it’s a big investment. It’s understandable why many folks can’t justify the decision.
If the cost of a new machine is an obstacle, there’s always a healthy used market of pre-farkled GSs seeking new homes out there. And you’re likely to find one for close to what you’d put into a new F750GS or similar bike.
Complexity
It’s a very complex machine. That means more potential failure points in fancy electronics and other bits than simpler motorcycles.
Height
Yes, there are lowered versions but as a standard model, it’s a long way to the ground for us inseam-challenged folks. I’m at the point in my riding career where I can handle it just fine but I had to build my skills to get here.
High tank profile
With the high dome of the fuel tank, I can’t reasonably use a tank bag, still see the displays, and not run into clearance issues with the handlebars at full lock. So I rearranged my packing system to have an easily accessible tailbag-esque setup in front of the top case instead.
The more I ride the 1200, the more amazed I am.
Trying it out
My rental experience was a bit of a challenge. I had to separate my assessment of the bike itself from the need and ability to make adjustments to my own 1200 in the future. The reach from the seat to grips was quite a stretch for me. That made handling it difficult. I also had to quickly get used to a bike that leaves me holding it up on my tip-toes at stops. But that was a decision point in working towards my own. Did I need a lowered suspension? (Short answer, nope!)
So I rode about 500 miles on an ill-fitting rental bike trying to decide if I could make it work for me ergonomically. I also had to assess if any challenges I was having were because it didn’t fit me (a fixable problem) or if the bike as a whole was all-together the wrong choice for my stature. As you can imagine, there were a lot of machinations going through my head the whole time!
Foggy day in Big Sur with our rental bikes. Shout out to the wonderful folks at Dubbelju Motorcycle Rentals in San Francisco. They were awesome!
Making it fit and kitting it out
Despite the challenges during the rental, I came away realizing how phenomenal the big GS platform is and set myself towards bringing one home for good. I didn’t want to take years to put it all together again, though. I needed it dialed in from the get-go.
Fortunately the folks at Sierra BMW are not only incredibly knowledgeable, they’re also really patient. It took hours to sort the details, but with their help I had bar risers, auxilliary lights, aluminum racks and panniers, a skid plate, crash bars, an extra power port, a headlight guard, and a sidestand foot picked out and installed before I even took my new bike home for the first time.
The bar risers were the crucial part to fix my reach problem. Everything else was simply re-establishing the setup I had on the 700. In the end, I realized I didn’t need a lowered suspension and not even a lower saddle profile, both of which I embraced on the 700. I’m still planning on adding modulating brake lights but that’s a minor future detail.
Finally bringing my new adventure beast home! She looks so big but she’s as nimble as a hummingbird.
Recommendations if you’re considering
If you’re thinking of embracing the GS platform, here are some things I learned in my process.
Rent
If you’re in a similar position to me—deciding to change bikes or keep what you have—I highly recommend the rental scenario. Make sure you ride a few days and lots of miles for the full assessment. Not only that, ride your current bike to the rental shop if you can. Then hop directly back on your bike after renting. With no lag time, you get a dramatic and enlightening back-to-back comparison.
Take a class
Consider taking a class at a school that offers the bike. That allows you to put it through its paces before deciding. I rode the R1200GS briefly at the BMW Rider Academy a few years ago and it was an eye-opener. Sadly, I’d only just bought the F700GS and couldn’t justify the switch at that point.
I will credit the instructors for encouraging us ladies to give it a try, though. They know full well we generally suffer from a GS mental block. And they know once we get on it and experience how “not big” it really is, that we’ll be better riders for it.
Keep it in perspective
Remember that the rental won’t be exactly what you’d have. Take stock of what matters and what doesn’t. You’re assessing the bike itself. You’ll farkle and fit it on your terms.
A brief ride on a 1200 at the BMW Rider Academy off-road school was my first eye-opener to the magic of the GS.
Let’s have a huddle, ladies
For many, a GS is a no-brainer. But here’s the thing. We women are largely a bit more skeptical, timid, or less confident in our motorcycling skills than our male counterparts. That’s a broad statement, I know. It certainly doesn’t apply to all women but I see it so much among female riders, myself included.
The point here is that I encourage women not to dismiss the GS as too big. As Jocelin Snow says
Don’t use misinformation as a limitation in your motorcycling life, get on it and ride it—if I can do it, you can do it.
Jocelin Snow
I know it’s easy to look at that petite powerhouse, marvel at her epic badassery, and think she’s not talking about you. But she is. This bike is phenomenally well-balanced.
Yes, it looks big. But I can tell you it’s far easier to handle than my previous F700GS that carried its weight higher. My riding has improved exponentially in just a few months on it.
Don’t get me wrong, my other bikes were necessary steps in my riding growth. The thing to keep in mind is that the 1200 is a powerful machine at 1170 cc. So if you’ve got some experience with smaller cc engines, this could be an appropriate upgrade for you, my fellow badass lady riders. But I can’t recommend any bike of this size for beginning riders.
So I encourage you to keep this bike on your radar. Tell intimidation to take a hike. It’s completely unfounded in this case. This bike is a dream to ride.
For many, especially short-statured women, the 1200 is intimidating.
Fellas, let’s chat
Dudes, you might have noticed I’m a chick so obviously most my focus is addressing women’s issues in this pursuit. Having said that, if any of my thoughts here apply to you as well, that’s awesome. Fistbump to you, fellas.
Also, if you’re a confident male rider who has a lady rider in your life, don’t discourage her if she’s interested in this bike. Don’t fall in with the “too big” mindset and be an obstacle to her riding growth. That would be doing her a disservice.
The first camping trip on the new bike. Navigating dirt and gravel is actually easier on the 1200 than the 700.
Let’s ride
There you have it—my love note to the GS. I hope this less-technical review gives you some insight if you’re considering the GS platform in any of its iterations.
And by all means, drop me a note in the comments if you have a question I didn’t address here!
There’s a saying in the motorcycling world that the perfect number of bikes is always one more than you currently have, also known as the “N+1” formula. A lot of time it’s a matter of having different bikes that serve different purposes. Sometimes it’s simply that each machine is its own special joyous unicorn of form and function—embracing the different experiences of sound and sensuality that each one delivers.
My personal fleet currently consists of a Moto Guzzi V7ii Stone, a BMW F700GS, and a BMW R100RT/Ural sidecar rig. I love all of them. They’re fantastic machines that bring me joy in different ways.
The “little” one in my adventure fleet, my beloved Moto Guzzi V7ii Stone.
Motorcyclist blasphemy
So what I’m about to say borders on blasphemy in the “N+1” motorcycling mindset. I don’t like having multiple bikes. There, I said it. Maintaining them and switching back and forth is a complete and utter hassle. It sucks. They take up a lot of space. Every one needs different parts, maintenance, insurance, documentation. It’s more work than it’s worth and it grates on my minimalist tendencies. It’s too much mental overhead.
Even if I remove the sidecar from the discussion since it’s really a different beast from a two-wheeled machine, I still have two motorcycles that I fumble between and have to keep up with. Owning two bikes only arose out of my living between Georgia and Nevada for awhile. Now that my life is consolidated in Nevada, I truly have no need for the complication of two bikes that fill essentially the same niche.
Betty serves a unique niche allowing us to share riding with friends and the adventure dog, so her position in the fleet is safe.
So sell a bike, Val.
I know, it seems that simple. Clearly I ride and travel on the 700 way more than the Guzzi. It’s certainly the better bike for what I do most of the time. But there’s more to the story.
As great as the 700 has been for me, there’s a lot of room for improvement. Much of that has to do with my body and its challenges in the post-crash era of my life. On top of the unavoidable physical issues of getting older, I’ve got a lot of issues I manage that are the result of the tremendous injuries I suffered. I’m almost four years post-crash and my new normal is now fairly well established. I know what my body will give me, I’m settled into what brings aggravation and what brings relief, and I know what my strengths and limitations are. The 700 got me this far but I’ve maxed out what it can do for me.
Combined with my physical issues, my riding and travel have evolved to the point where the 700 isn’t the optimal machine anymore. Its size, wind protection, and ergonomics—once assets—are now holding me back. So here I am reevaluating my adventure fleet, its limitations, and the potential for improvement with other equipment, instead of simply selling one bike.
My F700GS is my workhorse adventure bike. Even so, there’s room for improvement.
But wait, there’s more!
Let’s look at the larger picture of our household shall we? Because my dear man also has three bikes in the garage. If you’re doing the math, you’ll see that we actually have six different machines that need all of the things that bug me about my three.
His motorcycles have a wider variety of uses across the dirt-to-street spectrum but he really only rides his Yamaha FJ-09 these days. Though it does have its limitations. It’s a sporty-ish bike that doesn’t handle dirt and rough riding the way my 700 does. His KLR 650 is the bike for that job. But it’s basically an old tractor, not a great choice for big-mile days on good pavement. And it’s so underpowered that it’s completely mismatched for riding together when I’m on the 700.
Now throw into the mix the fact that of all the machines sitting in the garage, my Moto Guzzi is the only bike both my dear man and I can ride comfortably. Hence, it’s the only one we can pair with the sidecar for traveling. So if I sell the Guzzi, we end up sabotaging the whole point of the sidecar rig and being able to travel with the adventure dog and share motorcycling with non-riding friends.
Hence, the motorcycle conundrum. What we need is good all-around bikes that have similar capabilities and ergonomics that suit both of us. Which brings us to scrapping our entire two-wheeled fleet in the name of simplicity and function. Because if we’re both riding the same bikes, it doesn’t get much simpler than that at home or on the road.
My dear man’s go-to travel bike, the FJ-09, has its limitations for him as well.
The next bike
I first sat on a BMW R1200GS two years ago in a dirt-riding skills class at the BMW Rider Academy, in South Carolina. I’d trained hard all day on an F700GS. Toward the end of our class, the instructors encouraged us to at least try the R1200GS that had intimidated we smaller-stature women. As I threw my leg over the 1200 one of the coaches asked how long I’d had my 700. “Six months,” I replied. He chuckled and said “Sorry, you’re going to be trading that in after you try the 1200.” Sure enough, after some brief exercises on the 1200, we all wished we’d been riding it the entire day.
The second time I sat in the saddle of a 1200 was at the national BMW rally, in Salt Lake City in July of 2017. I did a demo ride on a lower-suspension model. Struggling to keep from becoming misty-eyed over it, I convinced myself I couldn’t justify the change when my F700GS was perfectly fine at the time.
Yet here I am—having resisted going to a 1200GS for two years—making the leap. The turning point? A culmination of the realizations I’ve mentioned. Attempting to solve the motorcycle conundrum.
My travel has evolved such that the smaller 700 isn’t enough bike for how hard and long I ride while on the road.
My post-crash body has reached a point of stability and known long-term limitations.
I need to simplify the distractions of too many motorcycles.
My dear man has realized that the 1200 would be a good bike for him, too.
The 1200 fits both of us well enough that we can easily swap machines while traveling with the sidecar outfit.
The rental steed that shaped the future of my adventure fleet.
Gotta be sure
Realizations aren’t enough to jump into such an investment, though. The R1200GS is not an inexpensive prospect. There’s also no such thing as the perfect bike. As legendary as the machine is, it isn’t necessarily a good bike for everyone. I needed to know that it would be worth it for me and what I needed to accomplish in reworking my fleet.
So my dear man and I rode to San Francisco to rent two 1200s and ride the California coast for a few days. We were hinging our decision process around several days of saddle time to determine if having two 1200s in the garage, instead five other mismatched two-wheeled bikes, was the answer we were looking for.
Testing out the BMW R1200GS on the Big Sur Coast.
Is the 1200GS the answer?
Short answer: Yep. It filled all of our needs and some we didn’t know we had. Like a boss. Flat out, it’s an incredible motorcycle and there’s no question why it’s so popular.
Even amongst my female rider friends, the bike gets rave reviews. For us inseam-challenged ladies, there is a constant struggle to manage height and what seems like a huge bike. But women riders I’ve spoken with have unanimously said they’ve never looked back after taking the plunge because the 1200 just doesn’t feel as big as it appears to be.
None of this is news to those who already ride 1200s, of course. I’m just a little late to the party. The height and power is intimidating at first. With a left leg I couldn’t trust until now, I simply wasn’t ready for the 1200 when I was getting back to riding. I needed the Guzzi to help get me back into the saddle. I needed the 700 to work through the next stage in regaining my moto mojo. It was a process that needed to happen before I embraced the power and performance of the 1200.
Each bike was the right choice at the time. But times have changed. Cheers to simplicity and progress!
It’s been an amazing adventure putting 30,000 miles on my 700.
I’ll treasure the memories of traveling on my little Guzzi.
I’ll dive into the details of my new love affair with the 1200GS next time. So stay tuned for that as well as the unveiling of my new adventure beast. She’s being tricked out by the phenomenal folks at Sierra BMW so I’ll be ready to tackle a whole new set of motorcycle travel adventures.
A special shout out goes to the absolutely wonderful folks at Dubbelju Motorcycle Rentals for a truly fantastic rental experience.
Adventure on, friends! Keep moving forward.
I will soon be all grins traveling on my very own R1200GS.
