Strange, unknown rider, who are you?

There are still mysteries in this world. A rider from work posted this a little while ago to the riders DL:

I met this gal in Baja out in the middle of nowhere. She was from Japan had been travelling the world for 5 years. This was her second bike, she wore out her first bike which I believe she said was a DR200. I have a DR200 and would definitely pick the xt225 over the DR for adventure riding. The DR is a 5speed and the 6th gear on the Yamaha would definitely make things a little less buzzy at 60. She picked this Yamaha up in Russia. She was just coming out of the salt flats on the west side of Baja which has some sanding spots. She was able to make that bike go where she needed and the bike appeared stock.

We didn’t have much time to chat so I have no idea what type of highway speeds she would cruised at.

There were 3 of us on a 2 week trip and we all had luggage related issues/failures. I am sure if we were out for a 5 year run our luggage would have evolved to what she was running.

She was running bent rims in the front and back and her helmet was a little scrapped up. I got the sense she would run with bent rims until she was done with the dirt section of her current trip and could find an inexpensive country to get new rims.

She was a bit lost when we met her and was getting low on fuel. We gave her some fuel and helped her with directions. Later that night we talked about “what if she didn’t meet up with us?” Would she have been stuck? We quickly came to conclusion that she was probably a very resourceful rider and had probably dealt with being lost/off track before. We also thought this probably wasn’t the last time she was low on fuel in the middle of nowhere.

We were humbled by this small woman on her little Yamaha.

The email we copied down from her didn’t seem to work so we never were able to make contact.

A few months later, a picture of her showed up in a slideshow done by MotoQuest Tours about their tour in Peru which I attended in December. At least, I think it was her. There might be lots of Japanese women riding small dirt bikes down there. :)

This is her (I love her navigational system):

I was curious and dug a little on the internet and found this on page 13 of American Motorcylist:

I dashed off an email to Skip Mascorro to find out if it’s the same woman and if he knows anything else about her and he wrote back saying – “I know nothing of her background other than she humbled our group of macho riders. I believe I was wrapped up “working” at the time ofthat enounter so I didn’t have a lot of time to visit.”

And thanks to Bluepoof, I found a couple of entries on Horizons Unlimited about a woman named “Miki” who answers to the description:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/newsletter/2007-03.shtml
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/newsletter/2007-01.shtml

Outside of that, she remains a mystery. If anyone knows anything more about her, do let me know, would you? :)

Austin Vince at the Georgetown Stables…

I watched Mondo Enduro a couple of years ago and was of course immediately won over by that ragtag group of men who rode their motorcycles around the world back in 1995. So when I heard that both Lois Pryce and Austin Vince were going to speak at two separate locations in Seattle in the space of a week, I had the distinct sensation that Christmas had arrived early.

Austin’s talk was on a weekday, making that a slightly more difficult commitment, but I ended up going after all with Kris, my rider in crime. The talk was held at the Georgetown Stables, a little south of Seattle. I arrived there about 15 minutes before the talk began, thinking I’d just buy tickets at the venue. Kris informed me that they had a waitlist because the turnout was so huge. Who would have known? I guess Vince has quite a following in Seattle. We put our names on it and waited around until we got in.

The venue was tiny and crammed full, so we squeezed into some seats against the wall to the left of the podium area, which had a projector screen set up and the man himself in his trademark red jumpsuit.

Now it had been a while since I saw the movie and I had no recollection of him or what kind of a person he was. All I knew was that he was Lois Pryce’ husband and I secretly hoped that it wouldn’t be a stodgy, dull talk. I needn’t have worried though, because for the next three hours, I proceeded to laugh my head off. Austin’s talk was replete with witty stories interspersed with hilarious imagery and jokes that had me splitting my sides. It wasn’t a traditional slideshow with chronological images of a ride with commentary on the side. That would have been a bit dull seeing that I had already seen the movie. Instead he focused on the kinds of bikes they rode, the gear they carried, chance encounters on the road.

To my surprise and astonishment , and well… delight, his narrative was peppered with snarky references to what “adventure riding” has turned into today –  buying a big, expensive motorcycle – preferably a GS or KTM Adventure, outfitting it with expensive Touratech accessories, and then riding forever on tarmac and rarely going on dirt. Okay, he said it a lot more crudely than I’ve put it, and I wonder how much of the audience cringed inwardly at those remarks. He flat out said that if your riding has been only within North America and West Europe, you shouldn’t dare to call yourself an adventure rider.

He especially seemed to have a big bone to pick with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman about Long Way Round. I could understand where he was coming from. Him and his Mondo Enduro friends  and riders like Lois Pryce and Ted Simon – have proved that it is possible to travel the world on cheap bikes, minimal gear and nothing more than your wits and an open mind. While I loved Long Way Round for a number of things, the things that bothered me about it were the same things that Vince vehemently spoke out against the fact that they had ridiculously expensive, heavily overloaded bikes, a ton of gear they didn’t need, a team of people who managed all the trip logistics for them, a support crew, and an obvious attitude of suspicion and at times mockery of the foods and customs of the people they encountered during their journey. While the movie was inspiring to quite a few of us, it also seemed to have given the idea that you needed to have a lot of money and privilege to be able to go have an adventure. It is saddening that people like Lois and Vince do not get recognition and acclaim for their remarkable achievements outside of the niche of motorcyclists who recognize their names.

During the intermission, I bought a copy of the book Mondo Enduro and got it signed by Vince and got my picture taken with him.

He spent most of the rest of his talk speaking about the Zilov Gap in Siberia – the Russian equivalent of the Darien Gap in South America. This was a 400 mile section of road between Khabarovsk and Chita that they had attempted to ride and given up on, finally hopping the train, only to discover that the rest of the train journey paralleled a neat little dirt track which they could have been on, if only they had known. During Terra Circa, they made it their mission to find that road and ride the entire length of the gap without taking recourse to the train. He ended that story with a photograph of a dirt road leading to a river, with a bridge above it. He said that he had one thing in common with Ewan McGregor in that they had both been at that exact same location, except that he had ridden all the way to the end, and Ewan and Charlie had taken the train on that bridge.

From here, the talk went on to going towards North America and LA. By now it was well after 10PM though, and Kris and I decided to leave because we had to be up early the next day to get to work. I wish I could have stayed for the whole thing, especially the Q&A. Maybe next time. Although judging by how acutely uncomfortable he must have made Touratech his sponsors with his incessant lampooning of their products, I’d be surprised if he ever got a return invitation. ;)

In conclusion, I’m glad I attended the talk. Austin Vince is a funny, funny man who you wish was in your close knit circle of buddies because you know there would never be a dull moment with him around. I cannot wait to watch Terra Circa and read the Mondo Enduro book.

An evening with Lois Pryce

Two Saturdays ago, Shubbu, Mark and I drove down to Southsound BMW in Fife to go see Lois Pryce talk. The one and only Lois Pryce who rode her motorcycle across the Americas alone! I was super stoked and excited about it, but I managed to curb my enthusiasm enough to get us there in one piece. On the way, Shubbu couldn’t stop talking about how guilty she felt about not riding to the show. Me, not so much. It’s about 30 minutes on I-5 to get to Tacoma and I wasn’t particularly interested in riding the XT on a bunch of boring freeway miles going 65 on roads where the speed limit was 70.

I had brought with me my hardbound copy of her first book Lois on the Loose – the one that had started it all, where she rode solo from Anchorage, Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego down south in Argentina, an epic journey covering 20000 miles in 8 months on a Yamaha XT225 (no co-incidence that this was the dual sport bike I eventually bought as well). I planned on getting her second book at the talk if they were selling it, and get them both signed by her.

We arrived there about twenty minutes before the talk started, giving us enough time to purchase tickets and get food. Kudos to SouthSound for having really good food available! I’d never been to this dealership before. It was huge – almost three times the size of the BMW dealership in Seattle. In the center, there was now a projector screen with a graphic of Lois astride a bike. The seats looked like they were filling up quickly.

Lois, an unmistakable redhead – was actually sitting in one of the seats in the audience signing books. I went and stood next to her for a little bit, quite possibly with a dazed expression on my face. Then I snapped out of it when my friends went to go look for seats to actually sit down in. We found some seats and I bought a copy of her new book Red Tape and White Knuckles which recounted her solo ride through Africa.

Armed with both books, I went over to her and waiting for a couple more people to get their books signed before finally sitting down next to her and handing over my books. She asked me whether I had any big rides planned, and I told her that I was trying to decide between South America and Australia next. I told her that my friend Sarah and I had wanted to contribute to her video Ladies on the Loose, recounting female adventure riders in the world, but we hadn’t because we didn’t have any HD quality footage. She was strongly encouraging of the fact that us women riders must film ourselves more, because  “When you look at what’s out there, it’s all blokes! Fair enough. I pondered out loud that this would be a toughie because it was all I could do to stop riding long enough to take pictures, never mind video. She empathized “I know, you just want to keep riding, not stop!” But maybe this is something I need to think about for future rides. She’s right in that I see a lot of men filming clips of their rides. It’s just not a medium that I’m particularly fond of due to my ultra-short attention span, but the videos do serve to make you more visible, and that’s something that most of us women bikers could use a lot more of. I asked her what her next big ride would be, and she mentioned a possible upcoming trip through Iran, Pakistan and India. How cool! Shubbu and I told her that she had to take us with her when she went. I mean, she’d need guides who spoke the language, right? ;)

We chatted in that vein for a little bit more before I reluctantly got up and let other people have their turn.

At around 7PM, they made an announcement asking for people to take their seats because the talk would be starting shortly. I wished there was some sort of podium that she could have stood on because I had a difficult time seeing her from the middle row seats we had. I was a little surprised to see that her slideshow was about her first book, and not the second. I had assumed that she was on a book tour of the latest book. Since I’ve read the Lois on the Loose a couple of times, I was quite familiar with the story she recounted. The pictures were new though, and her narration was peppered with lots of little jokes that had me laughing.

I remember at one point when she was talking about how people were horrified that she picked a small 225cc bike for her journey, and she responded with yes, it’s pretty slow but it was totally fine for a cross-continent journey. Shubbu whispered to me – “You didn’t even want to ride it to Tacoma. I choked back my laughter at that.

After the talk, there was Q&A where a bunch of people asked a bunch of daft questions, as is the nature of these things. One of them was – “You’re married to Austin Vince, right? Isn’t he too old for you?” (echoing my thoughts somewhat, I have to confess). She replied that they had 8 years between them but that he was a fantastic guy and they had a blast together.

I asked how many miles on average she rode during that trip and what her top speed was. Apparently she rode about 200 miles per day at a top speed of about 60mph. From my experience with the XT, this sounded about right, even downright excessive on dirt roads, but of course she’s a far better rider than I am.

Overall it was a great evening. Even though I had read the book, it was quite something to hear a firsthand account of her experiences and meet the woman herself. I loved how down-to-earth and charming she was. And yet, behind all the jokes and stories, there was no hiding the fact that she is also tough as nails. You’ve got to be, to have done the things she did and lived the life she leads.

If ever I needed encouragement for my next big ride, here it was! Now excuse me while I go recharge the battery of my XT, replace the starter cable, fill up gas and break this three month hiatus to go ride! :P

No riding for a while…

Have you seen a sadder sight? :(

Seattle was hit by a storm two days ago which brought loads of snow and heavy winds. The temperature dropped to well below freezing leading to ice on the roads (and pretty much everywhere). We don’t salt or sand our roads since this sort of weather is most unusual for us. This essentially means no riding of any kind. *sigh*

Photos from Slovenia…

I found some photos from that last day’s ride in Slovenia when we rode down to the Skocjan caves. These were from Lejla’s camera and I forgot all about them until I found them the other day.

What a gorgeous day that was!

Trying on GoGo Gear

This afternoon I rode to Tacoma to visit NW Motor Scooters to check out their LA based GoGo Gear line of protective gear. Go Go Gear claims: Motorcycle and scooter jackets no longer have to be unattractive! Harley Davidson or Vespa, motorcycle or scooter, biker men or women, scooter girl or guy, GoGo Gear brings fashion to protective, armored, abrasion resistant riding gear and accessories.

Naturally, I was curious. Protective gear for women that’s functional and looks good?

I tried on their Military Jacket (liked it a lot!), Trench Jacket (didn’t quite work for me) and Hologram Jacket (I’ll let you decide for yourself). :P All jackets had solid armor in the back, elbow and upper arm area (all CE approved). The armor in the shoulders didn’t quite fit snugly on any of them. Their size 6 was slightly bulky on me especially in the shoulder area, so I tried a size 4, which was a bit snug in the arms, but I like my jackets tight so that it doesn’t shift in the event of a crash.

Speaking of crashes, my biggest concern was of course how well these designer jackets would hold up in worst case scenarios. The jackets are made with either 600 or 1000 denier cordura, which is then covered up with the nicer material – wool, knits or acrylic. This appears to be in keeping with the specifications of the average, mainstream motorcycle jackets out there. I could see myself wearing one of these jackets for in city low speed riding when the option might be to skip gear altogether, but I definitely wouldn’t make any of these my main jacket for either touring or dual sport riding. I can’t imagine how long this elegant designer wear would hold up on a wet, muddy ride. I’m also a gear nazi and I wear only the best protection I can buy – dual layer mesh kevlar custom made by Motoport (not big on looks but very functional).

My other concern was the hip length of the jacket which is fine for scooter riding, but might be awkward for swinging a leg over a motorcycle. Fortunately they had a Kymco 250cc motorcycle on display, which I sat on, and the jacket seemed to be fine and the length didn’t appear to get in the way. They did after all ride motorcycles wearing those big great coats back in WW2. :)

To summarize, I didn’t buy any of them, but I *am* tempted to get the Go Go Gear Military jacket for casual around town riding. With a $375 price tag though, I’ll have to think about whether I’d rather spend my money on one of these or that retro RevIt jacket that I was eyeing a few months ago.

Here are some photos of me in some of the coats that I tried. This one was my favorite by far.

Click below to see the remaining images.

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Dirt riding in the Snoqualmie Falls area…

Click to see Route

I haven’t gone dirt riding since Memorial Day weekend when I went riding up in the Leavenworth area. This was almost five months ago, so I’ve been chomping at the bit to take the XT out on some dirt. The hard part is actually getting to the roads. Most of the really good ones are almost a couple of hundred miles away via freeways and riding the XT that far isn’t very much fun. This leaves the option of taking the bike there via truck/trailer which involves enough logistics that I never really tackled it. Which is why I was delighted when a couple of co-workers mentioned that there were several forest service roads in the Seattle area that we could get to via backroads. We decided to meet on Saturday morning at Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie Falls and set out from there.

I left home at 9:00AM (this used to be the norm back in the day when I rode all day every weekend, but is more of a rarity now). I took 520 and 202 towards Snoqualmie. As I passed Fall City, I started feeling the bike sputter and realized that I was on 120 miles and I wasn’t going to make it all the way to Snoqualmie. I’ve always wanted to find the exact range of this bike and I guess now I did. Either I don’t have a low fuel indicator or it doesn’t work. :P I knew there was a gas station in the neighborhood that I always fuel up at, but I couldn’t find it. All of a sudden I was out of fuel and coasting down the hill without power. I managed to turn left into a parking area and turned off the bike to think. I had passed a gas station half a mile before and I really should have stopped there instead of looking for the other one. Unfortunately it was uphill and pushing it all the way up was not going to be fun. And then I had the brilliant idea (:P) of checking to see if I had a reserve. The last two bikes I have owned didn’t have one, so it’s not something I’m used to thinking about anymore. Turns out that the XT did, so I rotated the knob to RES and it started right up. Yay! I rode back up the hill, found the 76 gas station and refueled. I mentally calculated that I had gone 120 miles in 1.8 gallons, meaning that I was getting a good 67 miles to the gallon on this bike. Not too shabby!

It had started to rain now, although it was Seattle rain, more like a light misting and drizzle which didn’t bother me too much. I got to the parking lot in Salish Lodge in ten minutes and found Dave and Nikolas waiting, the former with a Husqvarna and the latter with a DRZ450. I’ve never seen a Husky up close. Those are some fun looking machines! Of course, I am partial to red and black bikes. ;) Nikolas’ bike was neat looking too, looking more like a dirt bike that had been ridden unlike mine. He had a bunch of gadgets hooked up too, which I made a mental note to get for myself in the future.

Dave led us to the start of the forest service road. The entrance was full of loose gravel and I felt the bike starting to slide around alarmingly. As always, I had that feeling of “Why the hell am I here again?” and “There are people who do this for fun?”. After a little while, we emerged onto more packed road and the bike settled down. Nikolas passed me and they both sped on. I lingered and went slow. They waited for me at intersections, of which there weren’t very many, so for the most part it felt like I was out for a ride in the forest alone, which is a rather nice feeling. :) I think I kept a steady 25-30 mph pace, painfully slow for those roads, but more within my comfort zone. The route itself wasn’t very technical, but it was a good place to brush up on my (mostly non-existent) off-road riding skills. We stopped in a few places, tried one side road that was uphill, gnarly and to my relief, blocked by a landslide so that we had to turn around. We ended the ride at the end of 5700 where we parked, got off and walked a little and climbed onto a broken bridge to catch a glimpse of a waterfall. As with hiking or snowshoeing, I always do like to have a little “reward” at the end of a trek.

The ride back was mostly downhill and I found that going uphill was a lot easier than going downhill. It was here that I finally started standing on the footpegs and was amazed at how dramatically I felt so much more stable. No more sliding all over the place and veering around puddles and potholes. The bike’s suspension took everything the road could throw at it and I barely felt any of it. Theoretically of course I know that standing is better than sitting, but it still feels so unnatural to me that it takes a while before I can muster up the courage to do it. I also get tired and my legs cramp after a little while of standing. More reason to work out those quads!

We reached the end of the trail and Dave slowed down indicating an area off to the right, which I understand is usually closed off. It looked like a good place to go practice dirt riding skills. Unfortunately, it was sandy and I wasn’t going fast enough and I washed out. We got the bike up, but then it wouldn’t start!!! We tried and checked everything we could, with no luck. Press starter button -> nothing happens. No sound of even trying to turn over, indicating a faulty switch somewhere. It boggles my mind how a little tipover could cause something like that. Push starting didn’t help either. It made a sort of sound, but never fired. We think it could be a matter of a bad switch plus a fouled spark plug.

Dave lived pretty close by, so he offered to come back with his trailer. Nikolas and I waited on the side of the road, getting soaked in the rain until he returned. I was relieved to get a ride back to Seattle and secretly a little frustrated at having yet another bike that didn’t start!! I have had the damndest luck this year. :|

So I guess I’m delighted that I could go out and play in the dirt, but really bummed about not ending the ride in a more satisfying way. :(

Kikkers – who wants one?

Fun little motorcycling video. ;) Thanks to Brad for linking it.

Garmin mind-fuckery…

To be filed under the “Why I adore my Garmin Zumo so” section. Today I plugged the Zumo in while leaving work, only to find that it wanted to speak another language. Observe.

First off:

Uhh… no. Not really.

And then:

But I could at least continue to listen to music all the way home.

I rebooted and it fixed itself. Why it chose to crap out is anyone’s guess. The weather perhaps?

Faint of heart?

I had lunch with my friend Dmitry today who told me about this Russian motorcyclist he ran into who just rode around the world over 100,000km. He had quite a few colorful stories to recount, involving biker gangs in Australia and being sliced up by machetes in Africa. Unfortunately I missed meeting him because this happened around August when I was gone from Seattle. He does have a blog though, although it’s in Russian, which I don’t suppose any of you read: http://www.filosof.md/route/. Clicking on the US flag appears to bring up an English version of the blog that someone appears to have translated: http://filosof.md//eng/. There’s just a few entries though, and the translation is rather sketchy. It’s a shame – it would have made for pretty entertaining reading.

If nothing else, watch this video of him stitching up his face in a hotel room with a needle, floss and pliers. I made it about halfway through before I started screaming. :P

http://www.filosof.md/faint-of-heart/