Allllll-moooosssttttt…..

SPRING! I can’t believe we didn’t have a day to ride in March… or at least, I didn’t – I know a few who did, those who do not have the same days off that I have… anyway, it’s been a long winter and the groundhog is a LIAR, and I feel like I’m babbling already. So I’ll just say, it looks like this Saturday might be the day. Fingers crossed… how about you? Where did you go in March? Where are you going in April?

Tickets now available for Iowa Grand Motorcycle Rally

Straight from the iron horse’s mouth, folks – here’s a news release I received March 5 from the Iowa Grand Motorcycle Rally, May 30 thru June 2 in Newton, Iowa!

 

Officials at Iowa Speedway announced that tickets to the 2nd Annual ‘Iowa Grand Motorcycle Rally’, slated for Thursday, May 30 through Sunday, June 2 at the Newton facility, are available for purchase.

Responding to numerous inquiries from Iowa motorcycle enthusiasts, Iowa Speedway Director of Ticketing Operations Jason Christofferson has placed the event on the track’s Ticketmaster system, and ticket orders may now be placed through the speedway Ticket Office.

“We are pleased to offer our customers the opportunity to buy Iowa Grand Rally tickets in advance this year,” Christofferson said. “With the line-up of entertainment we have on tap, and the enthusiasm I’ve heard about our new dates this year, I anticipate a very big crowd will be on hand for our second annual Rally. And we look forward to announcing our music acts in the very near future.”

Individual ticket prices for the 2013 Iowa Grand Motorcycle Rally are $20 for Friday, May 31 ($25 with a rider), and $25 for Saturday, June 1 ($30 with a rider). Two-day tickets are available for $40, or $50 with a rider, while the Thursday and Sunday activities are free and do not require a ticket.

Tent camping is free in designated areas, while RV’s are $50 per site with no utility hook-ups, and $150 with water/electric included, for the four days. Vendor spaces are still available, starting at $200 for a 10’ X 10’ area, as well as many advertising and sponsorship opportunities for businesses catering to the motorcycle marketplace.

“With the return of ‘Sons of Anarchy’ star Charlie Hunnam for another meet and greet with rally-goers, the ‘Wall of Death’ experience, body painting, amateur talent contests, vendors, displays and lots of good music, we think this year’s Iowa Grand Rally is going to be nothing but fun,” said Luke Clement, Director of Track Services and Rally Coordinator for Iowa Speedway. “This isn’t a ‘motorsports’ event; it’s about celebrating the lifestyle of bikes and bikers, and a place where even people who don’t ride can come out, relax, and let their hair down.”

Tickets and camp sites for the 2nd Annual ‘Iowa Grand Motorcycle Rally’ are available online at www.iowaspeedway.com and www.iowagrandrally.com, or by calling the toll-free ticketing hotline at 866-RUSTY-GO (787-8946). Patrons may also visit the Iowa Speedway Ticket Office to purchase Rally tickets, located at 3333 Rusty Wallace Drive in Newton.

Additional information about the 2nd Annual ‘Iowa Grand Motorcycle Rally’ may be accessed on the Rally’s official website, www.iowagrandrally.com, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/iowagrandmotorcyclerally. Vendors and potential advertisers may reach Iowa Grand Rally Coordinator, Sabrina White, at swhite@iowaspeedway.com for details.

 

Iowa Speedway is a state-of-the-art 7/8 mile asphalt paved tri-oval race track and motorsports facility located just 30 miles east of Des Moines at I-80 Exit 168 in Newton, Iowa. The track is owned and operated by U.S. Motorsport Corporation and designed by NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace, now an anchor and analyst for ABC-TV/ESPN. Call 1-866-RUSTY-GO, or visit www.iowaspeedway.com to learn more.

Why I ride, part two: a lime green Honda, and the ex-wife’s riding jacket

I started riding two motorized wheels when I was 15.

In 1978, after much begging, I convinced my parents that I should have my first “motorcycle”: a lime green Honda Express. A moped without the pedals. (God how I wish I had a picture of it! Sorry to say the photo at left is not my ride, but it looks JUST like it! Photo courtesy www.mopedarmy.com.)

I talked about wanting one for a year before my folks finally relented – my Dad offered to split the cost, and my mom insisted that I wear a helmet. (The helmet I picked out was purple and glittery – “metal flake,” I later learned it was called.)

I loved that thing. The exhaust had a distinct smell that I associate with the exact spot in my parents’ driveway where I’d wheel it out into the sun, checking it over and prepping for a ride.

The day I bought the bike was the day I learned that the cheap-ass dealer had only put a miniscule amount of gas in it, because I ran out of gas on the way home from the dealership, at the foot of our long, steep hill.

I also remember going around a curve in the neighborhood and hitting a patch of sand, and the whole bike suddenly went out from under me. I hit the pavement and watched the bike skid a few feet on its side, right before my head bounced off the curb. (Point taken about the helmet, Mom.)

And of course, I remember riding the damn thing all over the place for the next couple of years: to the skating rink, up and down the street in front of a certain boy’s house (maybe multiple boys, okay? Don’t judge me!), back and forth to my job reading newspapers to the blind lady.

The thing was, I was about the nerdiest moped rider in town: scooting around in my “Let’s Get Small” t-shirt, ripstop nylon jacket with the NBC (television network) logo on it and my purple glitter helmet. But I didn’t care – I loved riding it, and it suited me perfectly.

Eventually, of course, I bought a car and sold the Honda. As much as I’d like to claim that I knew one day I’d re-emerge as a Harley-riding Rebel Biker Mom, I can’t. The Honda was awesome, but it was just something I owned at the time. When I sold it, the era had ended without fanfare and without any real hint of what was to come.

It was almost ten years before I sat on another motorcycle. By that time I had graduated high school, and college, and had been in the workforce for a couple years. I met my future husband at the TV station where we both worked, and as soon as we started seriously seeing each other, he invited me to take a bike trip to Colorado.

It sounded like a blast, and it was – 10 days riding pillion behind Hot New Guy on a Yamaha 1100 around Rocky Mountain National Park, Leadville and Colorado Springs, and of course back and forth across Nebraska. No doubt, I was still a nerd: I had no gear of my own, so I wore his ex-wife’s jacket and helmet. But the trip planted the seeds of true appreciation for the different landscapes that make up America and the adventure of finding lost little towns, great local eateries and beautiful landmarks.

Still, no sense that one day I might ride my own bike. Even after tooling around on my Honda Express, even after that first glorious “real” trip, the day when I would learn to ride my own was a long way off.

 

 

Why I ride, part one: the telephone booth

I once had an idea for collecting up some of the stories from this blog into a book, but when I shared that idea with a new acquaintance in the midst of a conversation about our experiences as writers, she shook her head “negatory” and said, “Uh-uh, I don’t want to know where you went… I want to know where you came from. I want to know why you started riding.”

Now I’ll be honest, she kinda took the wind out of my sails, briefly, and here’s why: the fact is, I have no long-buried, deep-seated, book-worthy urge or need to ride that suddenly worked its way to the fore when I hit a certain point in life.

I know there are gals (and guys) who do have that, who went through years of trying to please Mainstream Society before they finally said “f*ck it, that’s not who I am and I will no longer be denied.” (I know a couple of them who are truly fearless, and all I can say is, do not cross the woman who has been held back from her dreams, her gifts, and her self for too long!)

But I am not a Phoenix rising from the ashes. I’m more like the kid from “The Wonder Years” who narrates his white-bread suburban childhood from that nostalgic, first-world-problems-are-real point of view.

All that said, there are a couple things I can point to in my own history that might have been considered harbingers of what was to come.

The first is a telephone booth.

When I was in sixth grade, my dad brought home an antique wooden telephone booth – the kind that sits in a hotel lobby and contains a pay phone. Dad’s phone booth included the working pay phone (albeit with the guts taken out so it was more of a piggy bank than a pay-per-call mechanism), and this contraption served as our second phone, or “teen line,” until the day my folks moved out of the childhood home many years later. Anybody who spoke to me on the phone from sixth grade until they day I went off to college was talking to a kid in a phone booth.

What the phone booth taught me was that it was fun to be different… to have something in my life that made me stand out from my peers, something that they thought was cool enough to remark upon, ask me about, tease me about. (Years later, as I reconnected with some of those kids on Facebook, it amused me to learn that the phone booth was also something I had been remembered for.)

Now certainly, I can’t say I’ve lived my whole life being different. I was never the purple Mohawk swimming upstream in a sea of Big Hair. But the phone booth was one thing – the first thing – that showed me there’s value in standing out from the crowd… that it’s okay to be a little weird sometimes… and that having, or being, something unexpected can bring a lot of satisfaction on a lot of levels.

The other thing… well, more on that next time.

 

 

 

Spring is almost here!

This weekend, Feb. 16-17, marks the “corner” we turn in Iowa as riders when we say, “I think we’ve turned a corner and Spring is on its way.”

And no, it’s not the Girl’s State High School Basketball Tournament, which I swear is like a religious experience around here (GO DES MOINES ROOSEVELT, 4A!)… no, it’s even better: it’s motorcycle swap meet weekend!

It’s the weekend where we wake up, take a stretch, look in the mirror and go, “Holy CRAP – what the hell happened to you?” And then we venture over to the Iowa State Fairgrounds so we can pay $10 to get in to the 4H Building and look around at bike-related junk for sale (isn’t this kind of like paying the people at McDonalds just to look at the menu?) and give a big hi-dee-ho to all the folks we haven’t seen all winter.

I am really looking forward to it and plan to take a zillion pictures – which of course I will share with you all!

Speaking of getting in the mood for a ride, here’s something else that caught my attention this week: a short, simple video made by my friend Tim, who recorded a ride last Fall around Madison County and posted a wee bit of it on Facebook and YouTube. Yes, I know it’s just a video of Tim cruising down Highway 169 toward my favorite Iowa small town… but you have no idea how much this video – AND the sunny 50-degree day we had on Wednesday – made me want to ride!

 

Here is a link to Tim’s Youtube channel, just for good measure… in case you want to check out a couple more riding videos and/or videos of “puppy play time” with Bertha the Biker Dog!

Okay yes I’m rambling a bit… I’ve had a little too much Valentine’s Day chocolate, and I’ll be crashing from my sugar high very shortly. So… enjoy your weekend, I’ll see you on the “other side” of the swap meet!

More soon!

 

2013 Des Moines, Iowa and National bike events

Hi friends! I hope you all thoroughly enjoyed the holiday season and are ready to tackle a new year! I have to admit, I am finding it a little difficult to get my mind right so far this year. No doubt, I am looking forward to Spring and going for a ride… but, I can’t help but wonder what the year will bring economically. We shall see!

Meanwhile, I was SO surprised to receive a beautiful white mesh HD jacket from my hubby for Christmas… can’t wait to take it for a two-wheeled spin!

In other news, I’ve begun compiling my annual calendar of area events (plus a few national rallies), so take a peek and let me know what’s missing. Remember, this is primarily a Des Moines-and-Iowa-focused list. While I can’t list every Bike Night, I would love to hear about any day- or weekend-long events that I may have missed.

Capital City Custom Bike Show & Swap Meet – February 16-17, Des Moines IA

Daytona Bike Week – March 8-17, Daytona Beach FL

Indianola Bike Night – Third Friday of the month, April 19 thru September 20, Indianola IA

Winterset Bike Night – Third Saturday of the month, beginning April 20 in Winterset, IA

ABATE District 4 Blessing of the Bikes – April 20, 11 am at Big Barn HD in Des Moines

Iowa Dept. of Transportation Motorcycle Safety Forum – April 26 at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines

Gathering on the Grounds – Second Thursday of the month, April – July at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines

Kelley Bike Night – Thursdays 6-10 pm, as shown on flyer linked at left, Kelley, IA

Knoxville Bike Night – First Friday of the Month beginning in May through September

Fatboyz Bike Night – Second & Fourth Friday of the Month beginning May 10 in Grimes, Iowa

Struthers Brothers Dinner Rides – Saturdays May 11, June 8, June 22, July 13, August 10, August 24, August 25, September 7

Hartford Bike Night – Second Friday of the Month, actual dates TBA

St. Charles Bike Night – Second Friday of the month, beginning in May

International Female Ride Day – Friday, May 3, worldwide!

Thunder Nites in Newton – Second Friday of the month, May 10 thru September 13

18th Annual Blessing of the Bikes – 10 am Saturday, May 11, at the American Legion in Marshalltown

Vintage TorqueFest – May 3-5 in Dubuque

7th Annual Motorcycle Awareness Ride – May 4 in Cedar Rapids

Iowa Grand Motorcycle Rally – May 31-June 2 at the Iowa Speedway, Newton IA

Angels for Sam Ride – June 9, Des Moines IA

Mississippi River Motorcycle Rally – June 12-15, Davenport IA

Whitetails Bar & Grill Poker Run – June 15, Marble Rock, IA

Iowa State HOG Rally – June 20-22, Clinton IA

J&P Cycles Open House – June 22-23, Anamosa IA

ABATE Iowa State Freedom Rally – July 4-6, Algona IA

Sturgis Rally – August 5-11, Sturgis SD

Iowa State Fair Motorcycle Day – August 18, Des Moines IA

Sydney’s Wish 2nd Annual Benefit Poker Run – September 7, Des Moines IA

Hogs for Dogs – September 8, Ottumwa IA

Bikes Blues & BBQ – September 18-21, Fayetteville AR

Biketoberfest – October 17-20, Daytona Beach SD

Wishing you a very happy new year !

Don’t mind me…

… just sweeping out the dust and cobwebs as I prep for an AWESOME new year! Hope your Christmas was beautiful!

Wishing you all…

… a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! More soon, I promise!

In remembrance – eleven years

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