Friday Fives: 5 reasons to ride pillion

In celebration of Women Riders Month and Biker Chick News‘s fifth birthday, I thought I would invite a fellow biker-chick blogger to write the companion to last week’s “Friday Fives.” So, while I provided my “5 reasons to ride your own,” here is Stephanie (aka Iowa Harley Girl) to take the flipside with “5 Reasons to Ride Pillion.”

A big thanks to Janet at Biker Chick News for asking me to write 5 Reasons to Ride Pillion/Passenger!

1)  When you ride your own motorcycle you are unable to see all of the scenery going by because you have to pay so much attention to the road and the crazy people driving cages around you.  Being a passenger you get to see it all.  Plus you may also see hazards that the person you are riding with hasn’t noticed and can alert them of them.  One of my favorite memories being a passenger were the beautiful sunflower fields I saw on one of my trips home from Sturgis Bike Week.

2)  If you are afraid to ride your own motorcycle you can still experience a freedom like you have never experienced before even on the pillion seat.  Being on two wheels even as a passenger is such a spiritual experience and you have someone to hold on to if you need that extra sense of security.

3)  Maybe you are unable to afford your own bike so riding as a passenger is the next best thing to riding your own.  This is the reason I don’t ride my own.  I can’t afford a motorcycle right now.  Riding with my husband fulfills the passion that I have for motorcycles and the open road.  And we have such great memories of our travels that it makes up for me not having a motorcycle right now.  I can’t imagine not riding just because I don’t have my own.

4)  You may enjoy the thought of the risk factor involved in riding on two wheels but you don’t want to be responsible for piloting the motorcycle down the road.  It’s like skydiving with a partner except you are on a motorcycle.

5)  Riding Pillion usually stops you from getting hit with rocks or getting bombed by bugs because you have someone in front of you shielding you from all the hazards of the road.  The one hazard that you might have to put up with is being whacked in the head with an antenna if there is a radio on the motorcycle you are a passenger on.  Make sure you get the person that you ride with to change that because it really does hurt getting whacked with that when you are going 65 – 70 mph.

Ride to eat with Struthers Bros. Dinner Rides

I post a lot of information here about events and rides hosted by my local HOG chapter and/or Big Barn Harley Davidson, because those are the ones I get notices for and because that’s my bike brand and home dealership.

But some of the other dealers certainly host rides and events too. My friend Cassie sent an email recently reminding me about the season’s schedule of dinner rides hosted by Struthers Brothers Suzuki-Kawasaki-Triumph here in Des Moines, so I thought I would share the info – hey, bikers are nothing if not hungry, right??

All rides leave Struthers promptly at 4:30 p.m.; Struthers is located at 5191 NW 2nd Ave. in Des Moines, just a half-mile north of Interstate 80.
May 23 – Ride to Georgio’s in Colfax.
June 6 – Ride to Drifter’s in New Virginia.
June 27 – Ride to Matt’s Smokehouse in Dallas Center.
July 11 – Ride to Boone for BBQ
July 25 – Ride to Just Ethal’s in Yale.
August 8 – Ride to State Center.
August 29 – Ride to Hickory Park in Ames.

Although I haven’t been on a Struthers ride yet, it sure seems to me that “dinner” is a great reason to ride! In fact, some of my favorite days on the bike have included stops at similar locally-owned eateries in Audubon, Kellogg,  and even Pisgah!

It’s Women Riders Month – let’s ride!

The Harley Davidson company has proclaimed (among just a little bruhaha) May to be Women Riders Month, with a variety of events and celebrations planned to call attention to the number of women riders now on the roads.  As I’ve pointed out in some of the discussions about the value of a celebratory month, this is HD’s way of celebrating and catering to their growing female ridership. While some don’t see the need and feel like HD is pandering to them, I say that this kind of attention is good.

For one thing, it raises the visibility of motorcycling in general. As HD spends time and money promoting its products and programs aimed at women riders, it calls attention to the very facts that a). motorcycles exist and share the road; and b). in the seasonal states, it’s now motorcycle season so drivers should be on the lookout.

For another thing, it encourages women who aren’t yet riders to get out there and follow their dream to learn. If a women wants to get off the passenger seat and take control of her own machine, she should absolutely be encouraged to do so. Maybe seeing more women riders on the road will convince others that it’s time to ride.

Finally, this celebration should not be and does not need to be limited to the Harley Davidson company. With HD having taken the step of publicly acknowledging and celebrating their share of the women’s market, other groups should follow and grow Women Riders Month to include safety and educational components, local riding celebrations for all makes and models, and more. Just because HD said it’s Women Riders Month, doesn’t mean they’re the only ones who should be celebrating. While HD may dominate the celebration this year, it would be great to see other companies and organizations add more components to it for next year and beyond.

Okay gals, enough talk – it’s a bright blue sky, and reaching for almost 70 degrees today. It’s also Demo Days at Big Barn Harley Davidson. Think I’ll go for a ride. How about you??

Friday Fives: 5 reasons to ride your own

This week on Friday Fives, I offer five reasons why I love to ride my own motorcycle.

Accomplishment – I’ve been riding seven years, and still today every single time I’m on the bike I feel so good about myself for having persevered and learned this new skill. The fact that I’m still in the minority of women makes it extra-special.

Independence – I’m very lucky: my husband Steve is a safe, smart rider with (overall) good habits. Still, I like being in charge of (or at least responsible for) my own destiny.

Freedom – Sure you love the house, the husband, the kids… and all you do every day to keep them all comfortable and functioning. But wouldn’t you love to be able to say something like, “Hey family, I’m headed off on the all-women’s bike trip. I love you, and I’ll see you next week.” And mean it?

Rebellion – Similar to freedom, but taking into account that lingering bit bad-ass the general public attaches to riding a motorcycle. Trust me: it feels good to be different, to buck the status quo.

Community, support, and encouragement – Okay, that’s three things, but they’re all related. I believe that women, moreso than men, seek community, support and encouragement throughout all of life’s challenges. Riding is no different, and the woman-centered communities that exist around riding are as strong as – or stronger than – any you’ll find anywhere. If you want to rebel, but belong, ride your own.

What about you – what got you started riding your own, and what keeps you in the driver’s seat

Coming next week, IowaHarleyGirl Stephanie will guest-blog with “Five Reasons to Ride Pillion.”

It’s International Female Ride Day

Motoress.com proclaims May 1, 2009 “International Female Ride Day” – if you’re a woman who rides, I encourage you to get out there and make a spectacle of yourself (um… in a good way, ok?)!

Image courtesy www.motoress.com.

And another thing: two bikes NOT for learners

As a follow-up to this week’s post about good bikes for beginners, I wanted to point out that I had read recently where someone recommended the automatic-shifting Ridley as a “great first bike.”

I respectfully disagree, for the simple reasons that it’s expensive and doesn’t teach you all the necessary skills.

Sure you don’t have to learn to manage the clutch, but what if you decide someday that you want a different bike? You certainly couldn’t test-ride anything if you haven’t mastered shifting.  And, if you were in a situation where you were needed to ride someone else’s bike, you’d be useless. Learning to shift is part of the challenge of learning to ride, and you should tackle the challenge. Besides, I can’t imagine shelling out that kind of money, or taking on that kind of loan, for a “first bike.”  

Same for custom choppers – choppers are engineered quite differently from, other bikes, including the learner bikes they use in the MSF courses. For one thing, the turning radius is drastically different. Why put unnecessary obstacles in your way when you are still learning how to manage operating the bike, riding defensively, moving through traffic, etc.?  Plus, again, the cost is extraordinary compared to a basic small-cc bike, especially if you don’t know whether riding is “for you” just yet.

Of course, once you are riding comfortably you can have any bike you want, and can adjust your riding skills accordingly.

Best beginner bikes – start small, move up

With women now comprising just over 12 percent of the new-bike market, it means that more gals are thinking about learning to ride. (After all, who doesn’t dream of being a free-spirited biker chick?) If that’s you, or your wife or girlfriend, one of the first questions to come up is most certainly going to be: “What kind of bike is best for learners?” (See my “No B.S. Guide to Learning to Ride” for more common questions.)

While it’s true that some women will be comfortable managing a bigger bike right from the start, it’s more likely they’re facing quite a bit of uncertainty or even fear.

For that reason, I recommend learning to ride on a smaller bike, i.e. a Honda Rebel or Yamaha Virago (125 and 250cc, respectively), preferably used so you don’t shell out a lot of money only to find you don’t enjoy riding. 

A woman who might be able to readily maneuver more bike at slow speeds, or one who’s more confident going into the task of learning, might start out on a 600 Honda VLX or the Yamaha 650 V-Star. These are a little more powerful and you might keep them a few more seasons than the smaller Rebel or Virago. 

All of these are readily available in the used market.

Once you feel comfortable riding, you’ll notice that highway speeds feel like “work” on a small (250cc) bike. At that point, you’re probably ready to move up to something a little bigger. You can easily sell the learner bike and move up to the Honda Shadows, Yamaha V-Stars, Harley Sportsters, etc. in the 650-883 range. Suzuki also makes comparable bikes in its Boulevard line – I’m not as familiar with them, but the older Suzuki 800 Intruder is also a great “move-up” bike. Eventually you may move up yet again into the largest classes, but I know many women who have ridden comfortably for years on these mid-range machines.

The advantages of this graduated method are several: 

• You get used to the manual operation of the bike without feeling like you can’t maneuver it easily (such as into and out of parking spaces or through large crowds).
• It’s easier to pick up a smaller bike via the proper method if you drop it.
• And speakng of drops, it’s less heart-breaking to drop a small used learner bike (likely to happen when you’re a new rider) than it is to drop your ultimate dream bike.
• It’s much easier to pass the licensing test on a smaller-cc bike.
• You probably won’t have a financed bike to “get out from under” if you decide you don’t want to continue riding.

I’ve said it often: women learn differently from men – they are more studious and often more cautious. If you want to learn to ride and want to make it as un-intimidating as possible, start small and work your way up to the larger bikes.

April is helmet awareness month, part 3

April is Helmet Awareness Month so I think it’s only fitting to end this series of posts by sharing my view of the helmet law debate.  If we get out of the first 100 days of the Obama Administration without a federal mandate, I’ll be amazed. (Hell if we get out of the 2009 runaway Iowa Legislature without a mandate, I’ll be amazed.)

Proponents of helmet mandates state that helmets “work” – meaning, they save lives. Let’s look at that statement:

Helmets might save lives, but only in those cases where head trauma would have been the cause of death. About 37 percent of all accidents involving riders not wearing helmets, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (Note: that’s not 37 percent of all accidents. It’s 37 percent of all accidents where riders were NOT wearing a helmet and where head trauma was the cause of death. You can further dilute this by noting that the helmet would only have saved the life if it prevented a sufficient degree of the trauma.)

Understanding that even a very small percentage still represents actual human beings with families and friends who love them, it’s important to note that every life is worthwhile. But, it’s equally important to note that helmets only prevent head injuries. The vast majority of motorcyclists who die in accidents do so as a result of body trauma – blunt-force injury to vital organs other than the brain. Helmets, therefore, do nothing to prevent the vast majority of motorcycle fatalities.

When you couple this with the fact that about half of all motorcycle accidents involve another vehicle, it seems more logical to argue that accident prevention should be of greater importance than taking away personal liberty from all riders because a small percentage die from one type of injury.

As I said in my first Helmet Awareness Month post, I wear a helmet and I’d love it if you did, too. But, I don’t think our government should step in and force everyone to wear them.

A clean, fresh look for our little five-year-old!

Decided that BCN deserved a new outfit for her fifth birthday, so I gave the whole blog a lean, clean update with a beautiful peacock-themed logo and coordinating color scheme – hope you like it! (The neat thing is, that peacock is actually the finished tattoo on my left shoulder, which I’ve had since last fall.)

A few changes to the layout of the site will make it even more interactive than before. Most notably, it’s much easier to find the “Comments” link to either read existing comments or post your own comment about everything you read!

Also, I added easily-found links to some of the most popular “sharing” websites at the end of each article, so you can stumble, digg, or tweet anything you wish! (Note: I’m working on a better solution for Twitter, because the code I’m currently using doesn’t automatically shorten the URL of the article you’re sharing. With Twitter’s 140-character-per-message limit, you could easily use up all your characters just with the URL – not good!)

Finally, you can now see “tags” at the end of each article. If you click on a tag, it will show you a list of other articles from elsewhere on the site that relate to that same tag. Right now, the list is a little skimpy – I’ve only tagged a few of the most recent posts, so I’ll have to revisit the older stuff and tag articles individually.

Still to come, I’m planning to clean up the category list so there aren’t so many. It will make the whole page look a lot cleaner, but it will be time-consuming – I’ll have to review every post and re-assign some to other categories. I’ve also got plans for adding occasional guest-posts from other authors, so be on the lookout for some new “biker chick voices” in the months to come!

Thanks as always for reading and participating in this blog – I’m so thankful to have you here!

P.S. – If you’re a WordPress blogger, the theme I’m using here is by Eric Hamm and it’s called Frugal. I love its simplicity and easy customization. Plus, Eric’s the first theme author I’ve ever encountered who a). has created a user’s manual for editing the code in his theme and b). makes me want to stand up and cheer whenever I read his blog.

Friday Fives: 5 must-have biker accessories

In addition to setting up my bike with accessories that improve my riding experience, I also accessorize myself with some must-haves for the road. Today’s Friday Fives is all about the five personal accessories I can’t do without:

Leather jacket, chaps and lined gloves – By the time winter ends, I’m so ready to ride that I’ve been known to get the bike out if temperatures get to 45. (That feels SO warm when you’ve been in the months-long deep freeze, but when moving through the wind it’s really quite chilly!) There are some who go by the mantra, “All the gear, all the time.” This means they wear full leathers (or armored textiles) on every ride. I can’t claim to be that protective, but I wear my leather jacket, chaps and lined gloves for anything under 55 degrees; and, the jacket and gloves for anything under 65.

Helmet – Although in truth a helmet only provides limited protection, I wear one every time nonetheless. It’s gotten to the point where I feel naked without it. My current lid is a pink-and-pin-striped Fulmer half-helmet; it has the added bonus of being distinctive and memorable. (I swear: someone recently said to me, “I remember you – don’t you ride with a pink helmet?”)

Solid-gripping, ankle-protecting footwear – I used to wear a really nice pair of HD boots that were comfy even for all-day wear. Their only disadvantage was that they were lace-up and a pain to put on. Then I acquired a pair of red Ariat cowboy boots with good rubber soles, which I adore. And recently, I acquired another pair of HD boots also with rubber sole, but this time they lace AND side-zip for easy-on/off. A side benefit of all these boots – for me, anyway – is that they all have some degree of higher heel, which puts me flat-footed on the bike when I might otherwise not be.

Cell phone – do I even have to mention why this is important? Side benefit: mine has a built-in camera, in case I forget #5:

Digital Camera – Okay, sometimes I forget the camera. But I always kick myself when that happens. It’s important to me to document as many of our rides as possible, so that when I’m 90 and in a nursing home I can point to my pictures and tell the nurses, “You see? I used to be interesting too! And look – this hummingbird tattoo on my cleavage wasn’t always as close to my navel as it is now!”

What are the personal accessories you can’t live without?

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