First Moto Trip - Part 1

Holy impromptu day trip!!  This morning I just wanted to ride like 30 minutes away, check out other bikes, and head home.  My BF suggested Monterey, ride along the coast, no twisties, and clam chowder.  Damn that sounded good!  Monterey is about 90 minutes and 75 miles from my house.  It was 10am and my brain needed food!  Eating really does help me focus and with my first upcoming moto trip in 30 minutes, I ain't gonna mess around!  For breakfast we had eggs, sausage, and coffee.  PROTEIN POWER!

Geared up and we're ready to go!  My usual butterflies started kicking in.  It was a combo of nerves and excitement this time.  I rode in traffic and the freeway recently, so I'm feeling pretty good about the road ahead.  First stopped at the gas station to fill up and check my tire pressure.  What??  14psi??  That's crazy!  I could've died!  It's supposed to be at 34.  After things get fixed, my BF said, "LET'S ROCK!!!"  I give him a nervous smile and we're off!  We're on the freeway and my bike is going 75mph!  I've never felt my bike do that before!  It feels buzzy, but I asked about it and that's okay.  I'm following behind my BF and I notice he's going 80.  Then I start going 80!  OMG there's so much wind resistance.  On my bike you're pretty much sitting up straight so of course there's more surface area for the wind to knock against.  To fix this, I really lean forward.  I feel like a racer!  Cool!  But ouch my back!  Okay I can't keep going 80.  It's a little freaky and my bike gets REALLY buzzy.  I tell myself, "Ride your own ride.  Ride your own ride."  It's a mantra used a lot by the Two Wheel Females forum.  It means, don't feel pressured to go outside your comfort level.  Do what feels good to you.  I'm positive that my BF didn't realize how fast he was going and wasn't trying to get me to hurry up, but I still went back down to 70-75.  Ugh!  All this freeway riding is making me tired!!!  My triceps are bulging!  I practically yell at myself, "RELAX!!!"  That's when I loosen the grip on the handles and my arms feel better.  Of course 2 seconds later I'm back to super-tense-I'm-riding-fast-on-a-major-freeway arms.  Good workout though.  40 minutes later we need a stretch break.  Riding tired can be risky.

Pulled over to the side to stretch, say "yaay!", and take pics.

BF posing with our sexy bikes.

My first picture with my bike!

Heading further down 101 south.  Pretty drive after the freeway ends.

We got back on the road, halfway there!  I saw my BF do the wave to a motocyclist riding the other way.  I was so jealous!  I wanted to do it too!  I felt like a chump when they would wave at me and I couldn't wave back.  I was worried that if I lifted my left hand too much, I would lose my balance and crash.  So while riding, I practiced my wave.  Haha.  First I lifted my hand off the handle a couple of inches...whoa that was a little scary!  Okay let's be a bit braver.  Lifted it off 4 inches...yikes!  But it was alright.  Okay this time let's extend the arm outward a bit.  I slowly lifted my hand off and reached outward, but then I felt the wind against my hand and it freaked me out so I grabbed the handle!  Whew that was a rush haha!  I'll get the hang of it soon.

No crazy mishaps happened.  Just achy hands and back.  I gotta make sure to keep the blood flowing in my hands because one time my hand was so used to the throttle position after riding for a long time like that.  When I had to brake, my hand forgot what to do and it took me longer to squeeze the brake than it should have.  We made it to the wharf and I was thrilled to finally get off that bike.  That feels sad to say.  I didn't get any rush while riding.  I just felt tired, impatient, and anxious.  This isn't what I signed up for!  I learned to ride to feel tingles, adrenaline, and liberation!  I'm feeling disappointed.  Maybe riding isn't for me...

Starving for food, we head to the docks and look for...FREE CHOWDER SAMPLES!  Probably my second favorite thing to do at Monterey (aww-ing at the sealions is first).

"I'm a chowder freak!"  Just kidding, he didn't really say that.

Tried chowder at 4 different places.  Would've been more...

View of the wharf

While deciding which restaurant to go to, I wanted to visit my animal friends.  I love sealions!  I swear I make sealion calls everytime I go to Monterey.  Owr owr!!!  This time we saw pelicans and seals too!

How freakin' adorable!!

Trying to get close to the pelican for a picture.

OMG it walked right past me!

It started to circle around me.  It was scary!

What the?  Around AGAIN?

Haha.  Crazy-ass bird.

I wanted to get close to this one, but the end of his beak looked sharp.  Not worth it!

Okay enough of playing with the animals, I need food!  We settled on a place that we've never been to before and had nice outdoor seating.  FYI:  Eating comfort food after a long and tiring ride is THE BEST.

Super thick chowder!  Filling enough to feed two.

Close up of the deliciousness.

We also ate complimentary calamari and fish tacos.  But who cares?  It's all about the chow-dah!

Part two of the trip is soon-to-come!

Happened on 8/21/11

My First Commute!

It was my usual Friday morning routine...alarm...snooze...whine for a bit...get ready for work.  I get in my car and it won't start.  Awww crap!  I have a meeting in 30 minutes!  I call my mechanic and he says it might be my battery.  So I guess using my car is a no-go.  At this point I have two choices:  1.  Take the day off and kick myself for being a wuss.  2.  Take the bike to work.  Feeling a bit brave this morning, I decided to take the bike.  Luckily, I did a test drive of the route earlier in the week to see what I would have to look forward to if I took the motorcycle.  The butterflies are flapping their wings in my belly.  Ahhh am I really doing this??  I get on my bike, and off I go to ride in the middle of morning traffic 12 miles away.

So far so good.  I take an "expressway" to get there.  I see actual traffic for the first time on my bike.  Why are all these cars here???  It's almost 10am!  Shouldn't they be at work already??  I tensely drive in the right lane hoping that no one is going to bother me.  And no one did!  Well okay except for this one a-hole that decided to share a lane with me at a stop light.  I got there first, jerk!  The entire time I could feel my muscles all tight and my arms begin to ache.  20 intense minutes later I made it to my office!  I get off my bike and my hands are quivering!  Adrenaline maybe?  No.  My nerves.  I walk up to the building and approach the front desk.  The usual front desk lady asks me, "Liezl, you look like you're going in the snow!"  Hahaha I think my gear confused her.  I got to my meeting and my heart is still beating super fast and my extremities still shaking.  After a few deep breaths I calm down and celebrate my new adventure with my co-workers.  They were proud of me!  During the meeting all I could think about was, "Aww man.  I gotta ride back at some point!"  I wanted to avoid the It's-Friday-I'm-bouncing-out-of-work-early rush so I left extra early.  I have to fix my car after all!  The ride back was uneventful but at least I was a lot more relaxed.

My stupid car not working was a blessing in disguise.  If that didn't happen, I wouldn't have forced myself to ride my bike to work.  After that ride, it gave me even more confidence to take my training further.  It even gave me confidence to take a moto day trip!  Details on that day soon-to-come!

Thanks for reading y'all!

Happened on 8/19/11

Hand me a diploma! I just graduated again!!

Whew big day for me!!!  I've had some crazy-ass momentum since my "All Coming Together" post and wanted to take advantage of this newly found confidence.  One night I returned to my old stomping grounds from where I practiced basics to work on u-turns and swerves.  Guess how I got there?  Taking the freeway!  If you read a previous post of mine, I defined a freeway as a fast paced 5-lane road like 101 or 880 (if you're from the Bay Area).  Sure I only drove it until the next exit, but it felt damn good!  In the parking lot, I got a feel for how my bike leans and became less freaked out about it.  Win!

A couple of days later, I had plans to visit my family in Union City (about 25 miles away) and I thought, why don't I just ride there??  Before that, the farthest I've ever ridden was probably like 10 miles.  To get there I took two major freeways going 70mph.  I've never felt my bike go that fast before.  Holy wind resistance!!!  I sat upright (I have a 250 Ninja) and all the wind was knocking against me making my muscles tense.  I was already tense from the nervousness!!  The whole time I stayed in a middle lane and noticed that people didn't want to drive behind me...which I thought was good!  Turning my head to switch lanes was sorta hard with all that wind pushing.  My palms started to ache because I was gripping on the throttle so tightly.  I noticed my body getting tired...it felt like a long ride!  Also, riding motorcycles isn't as fun by yourself.

I did have one mishap.  Okay two.  I exited the freeway and started to downshift (or so I thought) at an upcoming red light.  The light turned green and I think my gear was too high for the speed I was going because I heard clicking and felt jerky and I wasn't going very fast.  Once my gears caught up, I sped up to 40mph quickly and was like "oh crap, I was in the wrong gear."  I could feel the trembles after that.  My upcoming green light turned yellow, soon to be red, and I felt that I wasn't going to make it, but didn't want to stop hard.  So I totally blew that red traffic light.  Whoops!  No cops thank god.  The rest of the way was good.

I arrived to my family's house and showed off my bike.  My adorable 4-year old nephew said that my "motorcycle was awesome!!!"  My cousins took it for a joy ride and I felt proud that it was mine =)

Pretty much the whole time at the house I was like, "Oh my god I have to ride back at some point."  I felt so exhausted already!  After fun with the nephews, coffee, and food, I was ready to head home.  Planned it so that it was before the sun began to set (crazy sunlight in my eyes!).  Things went smoothly on the way home.  At one point another motorcyclist was riding next to me on the freeway.  Even though it was a complete stranger I felt like, "Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!"

What a fantastic (and damn tiring) day!

The Wave!

I'll never forget my first motorcycle ride.  I was riding on the back of my friend's (who's now my BF, teehee) R6 and were on the way to Skyline with a buddy from SF.  It's a beautiful drive with curvy roads and rolling hills in the background.  We passed by a motorcyclist going the other way and my BF stuck out his left hand.  "Uhh, what?"  I thought.  "Are you trying to signal something to him?"  Then I noticed that he did it again to another biker...and again...and so did my friend in front of us.  I was confused.  When we stopped to eat, I asked him and my friend about it.  They explained how you just do that to other motorcyclists on the road as a friendly gesture.  "HOW COOL!!" I thought.  I love the idea of being part of a community and that acknowledgement of "hey you have a bike too."  What I also learned is that you DON'T stick your hand up and start waving side to side like a dorky "hello there!!" (although I'd love to do this anyway).  It's a casual extend your arm and open your palm kind of thing.  When we got back on the bike, I was tempted to start waving too.  I didn't care if I was on the back!  I wanted in on some of the action.  Soon enough a biker passed by and I wanted to wave, but I was too afraid to let go of my rider.  I still felt like I needed to hang on for dear life.  Eventually I summoned the courage to offer a stick-out-my-hand-super-quick wave.

Courtesy of TimeRider's Blog

What I learned not too long ago is the head nod.  This is done when you're on more local roads and you're at a stopped at a light.  You see a motorcyclist next to you or across from you.  One does the head nod of acknowledgement and the other returns the gesture.  When I'm on the back of my BF's bike and he gets the nod, I return it from the backseat, heehee.  The reason I bring is up is because of last night.  I was at a stoplight and I saw a biker pull up in a lane across the way.  I actually had a lot of thoughts in my head, "Oh my gosh do I nod?  I was here first so am I supposed to do it first?  What if I do it wrong and I look stupid?  Do I wait for him or is that rude??"  While I was thinking all these stupid questions, sure enough, he gives me the head nod.  I return it back.  If you could see inside my helmet, you'd see a big grin.  It felt like, "OMG.  He thinks I'm one of them!"  Oh man that totally made my day.

Update:  Okay just found out that my BF actually did the head nod first, then the guy, then me.  So not as cool, but I'm still in the club =)

written on 8/11/11

All Coming Together

When you're learning something new, do you ever get that feeling when things finally come together, like an "A-ha!" moment?  Things click in your head and you say to yourself, "Ooohhh now I get it."  I definitely had one of those last night.  I think it's becoming a regular thing for me and my BF to ride to the ice cream shop.  It's my favorite way to practice!  Lately there's been a lot less stalling (me, not the bike) and fewer butterflies.  Instead of ice cream, we got bubble tea.  I packed the laptop and wore a backpack along with my gear.  I felt like real rider!  Cooool...

While we were hanging out at the bubble tea joint, I started fantasizing about where to go for my first moto trip.  I didn't want it to be too mountainous because I'm still terrified of unexpected things on curves.  My BF made a good point...think of your trip as part of your training.  That made me realize that if I was going to wait until I was 100% comfortable and confident in my riding skills, I'd be waiting forever.  There will always be something I want to work on.  Don't worry friends.  I'll challenge myself but will still listen to my gut feelings of risk. 

I asked my BF (for the 20th time) about how to take turns and he explained it to me (for the 20th time, thanks for your patience!).  I don't know why the heck it took me so long to understand it, but I finally did.  On the way home I took the turn I was dreading and made it through smoothly.  CLICK!  My body and my brain finally got it.  I went home and said to him, "That was fun.  I'm actually enjoying riding now."  Ahhh...that felt good to say.



Just a visual to explain how I felt that night =)