VILR, WWR, and the "Canada Day" Ride!

After my first ride, I'm surfing around the internet as my friend

said that there was a women rider's site and that I should check it out. So I finally stumble across the Women Who Ride site (WWR) which was the beginning of many great relationships with other ladies. The forum moderator, Donna welcomes me into the group as well as a bunch of other wonderful ladies. While I am being welcomed I notice a lady named "Flo" who has a link to

 her Vancouver Island Lady Rider's site. Well, life just gets more interesting all the time! I click on the link and introduce myself. This is before Flo is back from her Conga, but being new I did not know this and posted if anyone goes out for rides together. Dragon says that Flo's away "on the adventure of a lifetime" but something will happen when she gets back.

I'm sad to say that I missed Flo coming back for the conga, but she comes back and the talk begins about a "Canada Day" ride to meet Baby (me) in Victoria. I got the nick Baby because I was the youngest of the group at the time, also probably because I was riding a little 250cc bike. Jos, Flo, Dragon,  and a few others are madly trying to set up dates. Of course my wonky work schedule always makes it interesting!

I'm still waiting to take my course, and don't have my MST at 

this time so I'm just a noob. I'm excited that I'm going to meet some of "the girls", little did I know that I would be arriving to a large group of motorcycles!

Now that's a sight to see!

It was quite an eye opener for me as I had never seen so many bikes (seemed like it to me!) in one spot.

Dragon and I had discussed the route earlier and decided to go down Munn's road. Munns is a great twisty, windy road. Six of us set out to have a good time and a great ride!

We navigated Munns and decided that we were going to take Flo down to Esquimalt Lagoon for a look-see.

The scenery from there is breathtaking. You can see across the strait to Seattle from there on a clear day.

Left to right: Dragon, Flo, Me, Tazz, Janice

From there we took Metchosin Road, to Happy Valley Road, then to Kangaroo Road which is very scenic and twisty. We stopped at the 16 mile pub for a bit of relaxation and some dinner, then rode from there back into town. Now, as I only had a learners permit, I was not allowed to go over 60km/hr. Well, we blew that right out of the water as we were going back to town at 80. Meanwhile my little 250 was giving her all trying to keep up with the "big girls". I could have sworn that it was going to explode! So, we get into town and I split off from the group as we are all going our different ways. It was a great ride and a memorable time!

Next: My class, My MST test, and my Road Test

My birthday and my first real ride!

June 1, 2008

Happy 37th birthday to me! I had lots of practice in the driveway and up and down our little road but hadn't been able to get out for a real ride as our friend Bob had surgery on his wrist and had been unable to ride at that point. For a birthday gift he said that he would supervise me while I practiced at the Juan De Fuca parking lot. He was going to meet us there I didn't want to ride the bike there so Peter rode the bike for me and I followed him in the car.

Bob asked me to do a few things like an emergency stop, and some u turns so he could see how I was doing. After about 10 minutes he told me to go out of the parking lot and ride down the road and turn back into the parking lot. There are 3 lots connected together by this one road.  As long as he could see me it was okay for me to do this. Meanwhile I was trying to remember to look after I stopped and use my turn signals (and remember to turn them off). After about half an hour of riding all over these 3 lots, Bob and Peter looked at each other then looked at me. They agreed that I was ready to ride in traffic. I asked them if they were sure and they told me that I was more than ready to ride the bike home!

So, they all hop in the car and they follow me out of the parking lot. That first ride was a bit scary but I was confident that I could do it. I didn't even stall the engine! Now I just had to take my course and my road test and I was ready to ride my own!

Next...VILR and the Canada Day Ride!

I get on the bike and my dumbass moment

So now I have all my gear and Peter starts to show me all the controls on the bike. It's a little overwhelming at first trying to be coordinated enough to use the clutch, throttle, and back break but the start of the practice of going up and down the driveway a billion times has begun.

Thankfully the driveway at our house is about 50 feet long, 12 feet wide, and straight so it's great for practicing slow speed riding and wide enough to work on my u-turns. I always did really well at the top of the driveway, but when I got to the bottom I was always getting psyched out by a flower pot. I always told myself, "don't look at that flowerpot!" because I knew that just by looking at it I could run into it! Don't look at what you want to avoid! That was the first lesson. I finally got tired of looking at the flower pot so I moved it out of my line of sight!

So, I rode up and down the driveway for a couple of weeks just getting used to how the controls work and the bike feels and thought that I was doing well. By this time it was getting closer to my birthday so we decided to insure the bike so I could actually get out of the driveway. This was very exciting knowing that I was going to finally go further than 50 feet! I was doing well until I learned my second lesson.

The second lesson was a mix of the first lesson and learning the hard way to wear my gear at all times. I went from riding in the driveway to riding up and down our street. The first time went well and the corner that I thought would be a challenge really didn't turn out to be one. So I get back to the house, cheer, and start out again. I wore all my gear except for my pants thinking that I was only doing low speeds so it wouldn't matter. Boy was I wrong! This time I forgot to shift down from second and started to turn out of the driveway. The bike starts behaving badly and in the process of trying to figure it out, I looked down. When I looked down I looked at the gravel on the side of the road. The next thing I knew I was busy inspecting the gravel. Of course this had to be in front of not only my husband, but my kids as well. Boy was that embarrassing! The bike landed on my leg and thankfully I was wearing my boots but I wasn't wearing my pants with the protective armour and ended up with my first (and hopefully last) road rash on my knee. Peter came over and picked the bike up off of me while I was laying there and telling the kids that I was okay. Lesson learned. No more dumbass moments for me! I wear all my gear at ALL times!

I've always taught my kids that if you fall down, you pick yourself back up and keep going. That's what I did, flaming face and all. After about another 20 minutes of riding, I limped into the house to fix up my knee while Peter of course had to take photos of the whole thing. Sheesh!

next...my birthday and my first real ride!

so now what?

So it's early May by this time and I have this bike sitting in my driveway. It's not insured or registered and i don't even have my learners licence yet so I decide to start cleaning up and polishing up the bike. I never imagined that it could be that much work! 

The first thing on the list was to give her a nice hot soapy bath! She had been sitting around for a while and she was DIRTY! I found some rust in places and found out that wet aluminum foil works wonders on rusted chrome without scratching it! So after getting the rust under control I started to polish her; for hours!

After putting about 10 hours into it, hubby tells me to try the dremmel tool. Well, the corrosion on the engine case started to fly! I couldn't believe how much faster it went using the dremmel! It was a matter of personal pride and the fact that the bike wasn't going anywhere until I had my gear! By the time I started to get into riding her I had put 35 hours into detailing her. She started looking pretty respectable.

Meanwhile I was on the hunt for some decent gear. Peter and I had gone to SG Power to try on and price some gear. I fell in love with my Yamaha Luv jacket! Since I had such a nice jacket, I HAD to have a matching helmet! Sadly, when I asked SG Power if they had my pink Mainframe helmet, they told me that I couldn't get it anymore. It must have been last year's stock. Well, that wasn't going to stop me! I came home and started browsing around on Ebay to see if I could find it there. Not only did I find it, but I also found out that I could get my gear just as new for less money! I ordered it all from Ebay and ended up saving myself over 350 dollars! Not only did I have gear that I needed, but I had gear that I LOVED! I was waiting anyway to register the bike, so it wasn't a big deal to have to wait for the gear. When each piece of gear arrived in the mail, it was like Christmas! Talk about fun!

Next...

I get on the bike!

What it's all about

How it all began...

I never in a zillion years would have imagined riding my own, but here I am 9 months later and loving the riding lifestyle and the new friends that I have met along the way. 

It really began in May 2007 when gasoline went up to 1.35 per litre. It was starting to cost me dearly just to get to and from work every month! I don't have a new car, it's a 1982 Oldsmobile Omega so you can see that she's a huge gas guzzler! 

We were wandering around Action Motorcycles and I kept saying to Peter, "I think I should get a scooter". He told me that I should get a motorcycle because the distance that I have to travel doesn't really make a scooter the best choice plus I wouldn't be able to go on the highway with it. I kept stalling about that as I thought it was a pain in the butt to have to get my licence but eventually logic won out. So, I booked the riding class with Learn To Ride motorcycle training. A couple of weeks later, there is a little Kawasaki KZ250 sitting by the side of the road on the way home with a for sale sign on it. I looked at it on the way by but didn't think much of it. Peter on the other hand, stopped, checked it out, called the guy, and took it for a spin. He gave me a call and told me, "I think we found you a bike. The guy doesn't want to take the effort to clean it up so it's yours for five hundred bucks." My response was, "SOLD!" Peter came home and we ran out to pull the money out of the bank because Visa is "everywhere you want to be" and we wanted the bike to "be" in our driveway. We brought the bike home and I was now a "biker chick"...well kind of....

to be continued...