Happy Birthday to BCN!

Biker Chick News turns five years old this year – its inauspicious beginning came on August 23, 2004 when I posted a short blurb about a local event called “Bikers in the City.” That event has since evolved into the totally awesome East Village Bike Night, and BCN has evolved into a fully interactive blog that seeks to inform, entertain, celebrate and encourage women who ride.

So, any plans for your birthday?

I’m glad you asked, because the answer is YES! I’m still formulating much of the celebration, but do be on the lookout for the new “Friday Fives,” a continuing series of bike-related lists beginning Friday, April 10.

Other than that, only two requests for now:

• Save the date for Sunday, August 23. I’ll be hosting some sort of local event.
• Consider how you’d answer this two-part question: What made you decide to learn to ride, and how has your life changed since you began the journey?  

That’s enough for now – if you want to keep up to date on birthday plans, be sure to subscribe to site updates in your favorite RSS feed reader or by email (links at right)!

Awesome nostalgic bike rally pics, ca. 1965

Oh my gosh, I just HAD to post this link for you. Frank “Skootch” Pennucci shared this over on one of the motorcycle forums – pictures from a wonderful old photo album purchased at a swap meet, and originally posted/shared on Stretch’s Nostalgia On Wheels blog.

Be sure to click through to the front page of the blog, too – there’s some amazing stuff there!

1965 Rally photos

Full Blog – Nostalgia On Wheels

Thanks to Skootch for sharing the link, and thanks to Stretch for preserving the photos for all to see.

Some don’t want us to celebrate being woman bikers

This year, I’m finding it interesting that in addition to the usual articles in the media about the increase in female riders, there’s also some backlash against the women riders’ “movement” (if it can be called that).

It’s not backlash against female riders, per se (though there is likely some of that too); it’s backlash against companies that are beginning to cater to women riders, host all-womens’ rides, make products for women riders, etc.

And I ask myself, why would this not be a good thing? Why does Lizzie at Rippen-Kitten so vehemently oppose the new WildKaT bike, engineered by women, for women? Why is BikerNewsOnline critical of International Female Ride Day?

The answer is, I think, that these folks reject the idea of being seen as a woman rider. They instead favor being seen as merely a rider.

Okay for them, but I say, screw that! Blending in with the guys is not why I chose to start riding. Co-ed events are great, and yes I have my favorites and do enjoy riding with my husband. But being part of a women’s ride – that is something special. Why? Two reasons that come to mind immediately:

• Women seek community. In all facets of life, women seek out those who share a common bond, so we can gather support, share experiences, and learn from each other. An all-women’s ride feels like more of a community, which is a key reason I started riding.
• Women don’t always want to be wife and mom. Yes, we cherish those roles. But on a women’s ride, we can leave those roles behind for a time and just enjoy each others’ company – as women, as adults, as independent spirits. Good God, why would we NOT celebrate that?

Hey, I truly believe, “to each her own.” If you don’t like the idea of a bike built by women that takes our unique engineering challenges into account, then vote with your wallet and don’t buy one. If you don’t like the idea of a women’s informational motorcycle event, or of an all-women’s ride, then please don’t participate. And feel free to express your opinion – I will be reading, voraciously, in my quest to understand more points of view than just my own.

But hear this: there ARE some things about being a woman that make me a different rider than my male counterparts, and I choose to celebrate them and to applaud those who try to encourage my celebration.

A nice evening ride

Normally I wouldn’t bother to mention “just another ride up around the lake,” but for some reason our evening ride this week was especially relaxing. We took off shortly after 5, right after work, and decided to head up to Big Barn to shop and socialize. After about an hour, we were ready to leave but not quite ready to head home so thought we’d do our usual loop around Saylorville Lake to the north.

The weather was just starting to cool down after a day that hit 71 (not bad for mid-March!), and because it’s finally daylight savings time we knew we had about an hour of daylight left.

The first part of this loop is a really nice road, lots of curves and nice homes to gawk at, with a 45 mph speed limit most of the way.

At the end of this first leg, we turned right and crossed the “mile bridge”over Saylorville Lake – the colors, even though it’s very early Spring and nothing has greened up yet, were beautiful: the lake appeared as a rich sapphire blue and there were large floating chunks of flat ice, creating a “caked earth”-type of texture to the surface. The shoreline is still brown but in the setting sunlight it looked golden – stunning next to the blue appearance of the water.

The next leg of the loop is highway 415, not as pretty, and faster-paced, but still some good sweeper curves. Normally we’d turn off and head down to check out the lake level and spillway, but by the time we got close we knew we only had about 30 minutes of daylight left so decided to just head home. Northwest Sixth Drive is the most scenic of the homeward routes, so we took that down from the Lake area, through the Craftsman-style Oak Park and Highland Park neighborhoods, through downtown and then home. 

It was just an interesting combination of light traffic, evening light and barely-warm weather that made for a really nice ride – the kind where you’re reminded why you enjoy riding so much in the first place.

First ride of the season – 2009

I was bumming today because I put my daughter on a charter bus bound for NYC – missed her before they even left the parking lot, but of course am so glad she has the opportunity to go and do some sight-seeing. Went to breakfast, came home and did some yard work, then decided as the temp climbed above 50 that we’d take the first ride of the season. I’d been out to the garage a couple weeks ago and started the bike, so knew the battery was good and she was ready to go.

We decided to keep it simple, just a jaunt down to Carlisle to see Garry and Shirley (and their new dog, Buddy). That’s a much shorter ride now that we are on the south side of town! It was wonderful to be out, had a great visit (CUTE dog!) and then took a slightly more scenic route home where we skipped the highway and instead wound our way around the Easter Lake area. VERY pretty, slower speeds, less traffic. Seemed like it only took 15 minutes tops to get home, but by then it was cooling off already so good enough.

Heard Kristin, Hollie & Howard were out for a bit today,too – sorry we missed you guys! Where’d ya go?? :)

2009 Des Moines, Iowa, and National bike events calendar

A word to Mother Nature: YOU CANNOT BURY THE DESIRE TO RIDE UNDER TWO FEET OF SNOW. (so please quit trying…)

Now that I have that off my chest, just thought I’d offer up a list of known dates for upcoming 2009 area and national bike events. Think of this as your “gardening catalog for Iowa bikers.”

(UPDATED March 25, 2009 – Read Carefully, some dates have changed!)

April 4 – Blessing of the Bikes, Big Barn Harley Davidson, 11 a.m. followed by Chili Feed benefitting CMA
Indianola Bike Nights – Third Fridays April thru September. First I-town bike night is February 17! (www.bikedowntoitown.com)
Memorial Day Ride to the Wall – “Iowa Thunder” annual ride to the State Capitol and Viet Nam Memorial. Info still to come!
July 2, 3, 4 – ABATE Iowa Freedom Rally at Algona (www.abateiowafreedomrally.com)
July 17, 18 – Iowa State HOG Rally, Sioux City. (www.iastatehogrally.com)
July 24-27 – DATE CHANGED. SEE SEPTEMBER. Estrogen Ride (women only).
July 31 – East Village Bike Night, Des Moines.
August 3-9 – Sturgis Motorcycle Rally – www.sturgisrally.com
August 15 – Bikers Against Diabetes Ride (BAD), www.ripsbadride.com.
August 20-23 – Hawgstock, in Winterset www.hawgstock.com
October 2, 3, 4 – Ride for the Cure supporting breast cancer research (www.rideforthecureiowa.com – site coming soon!)
ABATE Iowa District 4 Toy Run – date TBA.
October 15-18 – Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach, FL. (www.biketoberfest.org)

And of course, BIKE NIGHT every Thursday night at the new Porky’s Pub/Radical Cycle Shop, 5125 NE 14th St., Des Moines – let’s fill that parking lot!

If you know of a Des Moines-area bike night event not listed here (and there are MANY), please add the info by leaving a Comment. Specify night of the week and at least approximate times if you can. Thanks!

The butt-puckering ride from Peru

We took our next Passport trip on Sunday, May 25. This time we were headed southwest, through Madison County to the town of Peru. (Actually, East Peru.)

The thing about this is, although these towns share the names of famous cities, the names are often pronounced differently. In Spain they call the city muh-DRID, whereas in Iowa it’s pronounced MAD-rid. Peru, in Iowa, is pronounced PEE-roo, which I cannot say or hear without giggling.

Anyway, on Sunday the 25th we again gathered up Hollie, Kristin, Howard, Garry, Shirley, and new pals Austin & Shanon and Nate & Kate. We took off down Highway 28 through Norwalk and Martensdale, then headed west on Highway 92.

It had been my intention to then head south on County Road R35, which should have been an intersection in the town of Bevington. We missed the turn, though – in fact, never even saw the sign for it – so we headed west along 92 til we came to Winterset. Attempts to read and interpret Austin’s GPS device were frustrating, but Garry thought he knew how to get there and finally a local resident stopped to admire our bikes and gave us clear directions to what he called “PEE-roo Road,” which of course made me laugh. (You know how even familiar words can sometimes sound strange if you repeat them over and over? That’s what I found myself doing – repeating “PEE-roo, PEE-roo, Pee-roo” all the way down the highway.)

We headed south through Winterset on the main road, County Road P71. Having maternal ancestors from this area, I know that tucked deep back in Winterset City Park, there is a stone structure called the Clark Tower. You can climb to the top and look out over much of Madison County. It’s quite a stunning view. On the bikes, heading south out of Winterset, it struck me that we were “riding the view” from Clark Tower, and that it was just as beautiful from the ground as it was from the tower. (Really, Madison County offers some incredible riding, especially if you think that Iowa is flat.)

Howard took some great scenic pictures from his bike along the way – the shot at the top of this post is my favorite from all of last summer.

We turned off P71 at G68 and took that into East PEE-Roo (*snicker*), again a tiny town with a tiny post office and perfect photo opp for our passports.

After a short break to celebrate our serendipitous “missing of the turn” that had led us to the road just traveled, we reviewed the map and determined that we could actually pick up our missed road, R35, outside of Truro – and take it north into Bevington as part of the ride home.

We left PEE-roo and cruised east on G68, finally intersecting at the elusive R35. Heading North, the last part of R35 turned out to be the stuff of day-ride legends.

There was a point where the main road curved off to the east, but R35 itself actually went straight North – across the oncoming traffic of the curve, without benefit of traffic control devices.

Leading the pack, I made the switch off to the straight road with no problem – but in doing so, I noted two things: 1). Austin, a few bikes behind me, had missed the straight road and taken the curve instead… I hoped he’d catch up with us; and 2). Around the curve to the east a quarter-mile or so, there was a white mini-van approaching from the opposite direction. Someone in our group was going to meet them at the switch-off – I prayed the van would see us and slow down.

Add to these anxieties the condition of R35 itself, and you have one butt-puckering stretch of road.

To its credit, R35 here was still paved – at least I think it was paved, it was kind of hard to tell. The posted speed limit was 35, but you could catch some pretty good air coming out of the ruts and craters if you went that fast. And you didn’t dare slow down too promptly because of all the loose bits of pavement and “under-gravel” that had come to the surface through the craters. (Later, most of us reported Knievel-style landings before each having found the proper speed. Shirley reported the predicted near-miss with the white van. And, Austin had thankfully rejoined the group.)

Finally, after a few miles, we mercifully came to rest at the intersection of R35 and Highway 92 at Bevington – the turn we’d missed earlier in the day. And it was no wonder we’d missed it: Not only was it not marked at all, it was also completely unrecognizable as a viable intersection. Even if I’d seen it, I would’ve assumed it was an interior town road and wouldn’t have taken it.

Thankfully, the rest of the ride home was uneventful, but this little stop was the kind of moment that makes you stare blankly at one another in disbelief and check each other for broken ribs.

Unfortunately, this would end up being our last passport ride of the season – in the coming days, my dad would become gravely ill and flood warnings would become increasingly dire, and the rest of our summer was consumed with the aftermath of those developments.

I did find our “passports” the other day while going through some rescued flood stuff – that’s what prompted me to finally write up these two rides. I think maybe we’ll hang onto the passports and use them for destination ideas this spring. We can still take the rides, even if we missed out on the prizes.

Though it seems like we should get something for surviving the butt-puckering ride to PEE-roo.

Jamaica? No, she wouldn’t let me

With temperatures below freezing around here for the foreseeable future, it seems as good a time as any to do a little “wishful remembering” about a couple of nice rides we took last season.

Our local Harley dealership, Big Barn Harley Davidson, had put together a riding challenge wherein they created a passport booklet containing a list of cities that you could ride to, document the rides, and then submit all your documentation at the end of the season for a chance to win prizes. The cities on the list were all named for famous places around the world. (I feel compelled to point out that I’d had a similar idea several years ago, only I just made mine a one-day adventure called the World Tour.)

It was our intention to complete as much of the passport as possible over the course of the riding season, but we had barely got started when our summer went to hell. We did, however, get in a couple of nice rides toward the end of May that I really enjoyed.

The first of them took us to Madrid and Jamaica, both small towns to the northwest of Des Moines. It made for a nice little day-ride, and in each town our “assignment” was to simply snap a photo of each person with their bike and passport in front of something that identified the town.

The ride to and from Madrid is actually one of our favorite shorter rides – it’s the trip we take when we only have a couple hours but really want to ride. We took the slower-paced “scenic route” past Saylorville Lake and Big Creek State Park, and once in Madrid we used the city’s landscaped welcome sign as our marker for documentation purposes.

We then headed west out of town on Highway 210, which T’d at 141. We took 141 to Jamaica, which turned out to be probably the quietest little town I’d ever passed through.

Once in Jamaica we didn’t have to ride more than a couple blocks before we found the post office, just off the main street and next to a little pocket park that contained a well-kept community garden. Easy to imagine that this intersection, with the community center on the opposite corner, was probably the social hub of the town.

We lined the bikes up in front of the post office and snapped our photos. Steve and Howard had traded bikes for the trip over from Madrid, so they compared notes about Steve’s HD Heritage Softail Classic and Howard’s Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad 1500.

The ride home was peaceful and took us through Panora, down P28 and then east on scenic F59 and F60, into Adel and then east on Highway 6 for the final leg into Des Moines. When we got home we noted that, prizes aside, the passport would provide an easy answer throughout the summer each time we’d want to ride but didn’t have a particular destination in mind. 

Next report: our trip to Peru.

Update: Someone who went on this ride, please chime in! Is this the one where Kristin & Hollie peeled off in Adel for dinner? Or is it the one where we actually took the lonnnnggg way home  and had our last stop in Altoona? My mind is playing tricks on me… guess I should write these up while my memory is still good! LOL

BCN: The Big Nuts Blog

As a blogger, I pay some attention to the number of visitors that come to this site.  Biker Chick News started the year with just over 13,000 visitors in January, peaked at just over 20,000 in October (that’s a record!) and will end the year with about 18,300 in December.

Some of those folks, of course, check in regularly – either through Favorites bookmarked in their browsers or by subscribing to my RSS feed. I really do thank each of you who come to this site again and again!

One of the other things I can learn from my traffic reports is which words and phrases visitors typed into the search engines to get here. Because this blog is focused on motorcycling, the search terms normally aren’t too surprising – every month there are myriad variations on the ‘biker chick’ phrase, including “biker chicks,” “sturgis biker chicks,” etc.  As August approaches, I begin to see the phrases “Sturgis pics” and “Sturgis Bike rally” appear in my results. And, each month there are usually a few readers who got here having searched for “sportster ape hangers” – apparently that’s something that needs a little research before making a final decision!

There are sometimes unusual phrases too, phrases that have nothing overtly to do with motorcycling, but that happen to be reflected in something I’ve written. I always wonder what people think who come here having searched for “Alton Brown,” the Food Network host. But by far my favorite of the many search phrases that appeared in my traffic reports this year was this:

“Big Nuts.”

This phrase appeared not once, not twice, but several times over the course of the year, in several different months. I’m not sure if people were looking for guys with big nuts, or those fake big nuts you can hang from the back of your car, or what.  But I certainly know which article people find when they come here looking for “big nuts,” and since it’s one of my favorite rides, I’m okay with that!

Wrapping up another year – where the hell’d it go?

Well I can’t say I will be sorry to kiss this @#$ year good-bye! The Picky Bitch is put away in the new garage (which isn’t heated like the old one so Santa needs to bring me a battery tender…), and we just attended our local HOG chapter’s annual Christmas party. I wanted to mention a few things that deserved mention this year, but that I never got around to mentioning:

First, a few of the gals in our HOG club organized a really neat event this year – they put together a scavenger hunt, where you were supposed to ride to various towns in Iowa (based on clues), and figure out a “theme” that bound each of the towns together. Well turns out the theme was music, so you also had to tell what each town had to do with music. While I didn’t get to participate to the extent that I wanted to, it was still a great idea and a real challenge for those who did it – and a lot of work for the organizers. GREAT JOB!!

Also, our chapter’s sponsoring dealership, Big Barn Harley Davidson, had a neat ongoing project this summer – it’s an idea similar to one I had a few years ago, and never put together. I called it a World Tour – there are several towns in Iowa that have the same names as famous Places: Jamaica, Peru, Orient, etc. Well the dealership put together a little passport booklet and the idea was for you to ride to each of these towns and snap a photo with your bike against the backdrop of a welcome sign or other town marker. We were able to do a few of these, and although those days seem really far away now (heck they were back in May!! LOL), they were absolutely the best days of this past summer. We rode with some awesome folks, including new friends Nate & Kate and Austin & Shannon. 

We also had a nice ride to Pella back in May (li’l windy, right Garry??), and of course the Toy Run closed the season for us.

Needless to say, riding took a backseat to flooding… and then moving… in 2008, so we are definitely looking forward to trying again in 2009!

More soon… for now, here’s wishing you all a warm, happy and beautiful Christmas, and a safe, healthy and prosperous new year!

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