Surgeries…

The word is in. I tore the LCL in my right knee and need to get surgery. My right hand will likely need surgery too.

The damage…

I seem to have a boxers thumb, oh a boxer’s fracture on one hand and a skiers thumb on the other hand, neither of which are very painful but a little…seem to get in the way when I’m typing. Other than that, hobbling into work with a really badly injured knee and two bandaged hands, I looked like the poster child of why your mum told you never to ride a motorcycle ever.

I’m coping – The weekend wasn’t that good. I did get my hair done on Saturday which was nice – life never feels too bad when you’re having a good hair day. Went out to a barbecue at my manager’s manager’s house which was really nice. Made me wish I was a Microsoft millionaire too, although I’m glad I have simple needs so it wasn’t too bad.

Sunday was just pretty much sit around, try to watch all the TV shows I could. Didn’t do a whole lot, didn’t change out of my jammies. Glad that day was over! Today I’m back to work, looking forward to another gruelling week of pretending to be OK when I’m not. But just gettting through, it beats staying at home and getting bored to death.

I got the MRI done on Saturday so the doctor should probably get back to me about it this week. I’m really hoping it’s good news. as the knee’s still swollen, the swelling doesn’t seem to have gone down at all and it seems to be hurting more than it did last week. So, good to see what comes of it. I’d like to say this crash was an educational experience but I don’t know, I just want it to be over and want to get back on my bike. Bike’s going to cost less than 60 dollars to fix which is, I guess, a little bit of good news. So the bikes going to be fixed a lot earlier than I am. I wish it were the other way round. The weather’s good which sucks because I don’t want it to be good, I want it to be rainy and gloomy and really crappy to match my mood but that’s never how it works out, is it? Hope I don’t sound like too much of an idiot on this voice post. Most of you, I hope, can understand what I’m saying and hopefully someone will transcribe it. That’s all I got. I better go now.

Memorial Day photos…

After the previous two gloomy posts, here’s a more cheery one. Photos from my 4 day Memorial Day weekend to the Pacific Ocean and along Columbia River. I cannot do the long writeup I intended on account of fractured finger, but photos under the cut!

My route was roughly:

Day 1: Bellevue -> Centralia -> Elma -> Aberdeen -> Pacific Beach -> Copalis Beach
Day 2: Copalis Beach -> Cosmopolis -> Astoria
Day 3: Astoria -> Longview (via Hwy 4) -> Castle Rock -> Mt. St. Helen’s -> Toledo -> Morton
Day 4: Morton -> Elbe -> Parkland -> Bellevue

Overall only a little over 600 miles and change (including seven Destination Highways). I was sick most of Saturday and Sunday so I couldn’t ride as much as I had hoped to.

Just a week ago… those were happy times…

All loaded up and just starting out.

The SV in Astoria. For some reason i really like this photo.

Astoria coffeehouse

Astoria Bridge in the background

On the Destination Highway from Seaview to Longvew along the Columbia river

View from the top of the Mt. St. Helen’s ride

The green room of the St. Helen’s manorhouse where I slept. (reputed to be haunted. Full story here.)

Okay so it’s a little immature. :P

The weekend was replete with twisties. :)

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

The damage…

Just got the bike back and am a little depressed now at the list of things that need to be fixed From what I can tell it needs:
1. New rear brake
2. New radiator
3. New handlebar
4. New right turn signal
5. New gas tank (although I can put that off for a bit)
6. New headlamp bracket

I also need to get a new helmet, gloves and armor for my leathers. :(

Not to mention that I’m worrying again about how long it’s going to be before I’m healed up and “normal” again. I was able to walk down the street and back today, so it feels like it’s healing up, although it was still painful. Even so, I still don’t know the extent of the injury yet for sure, and i’m going to go a little nuts thinking about it. I feel like my life has come to a screeching halt. :|

My first crash…

So it appears that I had my first “track incident”. Yesterday I did my first trackday of the year with NESBA at Pacific Raceways. I had this whole LJ entry composed in my head about how I started off a bit slow, but steadily improved throughout the day until I was flying through the laps towards the latter sessions. Until the last session, which found me following a control rider through turn 9. I was following a bit closer than usual, as I’d  been told repeatedly in previous sessions that I needed to get my speed up and the control riders would never take you into a turn “too hot”.

Turns out that the red flag  went up mid-turn because of another incident on the track, the control rider saw it before me, and he abruptly slowed down and started toward the exit. Suddenly i found myself right on him and I braked instead of swerving to avoid a collission and went down. I’m not aure how fast I was going, but the bike was on me, and I remember sliding with it for a few seconds. I had the wind knocked out of me, like I’d been punched in the stomach and and my right leg really hurt.

The medics got my helmet, jacket and gloves off, and later my leather pants. I had massive bruising on my right knee and it hurt to even touch it or walk. They said that they didn’t see any immediate need to call for an ambulance, although I should certainly go to a hospital to get my leg looked at.

One other girl there followed me to the hospital and got me to the emergency room, which was a huge ordeal of rude, uncaring people, long waits, and cold rooms which had me shivering violently. They took xrays to determine the damage. The verdict was that the little finger on my left hand is fractured and would take about six weeks to heal. It’s in a splint now to prevent movement and although it doesn’t really hurt, is really restrictive. My right leg has no fracture, but I have massive bruisng and swelling, which I need to keep icing, and they say that it should be better in a few days. They said that the xray doesn’t reveal torn cartilages and if my leg is still hurting after a week, I might need to get surgery for the cartilages. I am really hoping that doesn’t happen. :(

So there it is – after 2 years of inicident free riding, it finally happened. I feel like a right idiot and am inevitably replaying the scene in my head a million times, thinking of “what-if”s. Mostly I feel like such an invalid. I’m not in pain when I’m stationary but it hurts like blazes to move, and I realize how every tiny action, like shutting a window, picking up a dropped fork, fetching an ice pack from the fridge require excruciating movement. I’m hoping and praying that it is over soon, and all worst case scenarios never come to pass. I hate being alone at times like this when it’s so hard to be independent.

Anyone want to come over and give me TLC? :(

(Oh, and this entire entry was typed with one hand.)

125cc bikes rock!

The April issue of the AMA’s American Motorcyclist was one of my favorites as it had a whole feature on motorcycling related things to do that you’ve never done before. I added quite a few of those to my todo list for this year, which I won’t share quite yet, but I checked off the first one today after my first ever experience with riding a dirt bike at the Puget Sound Safety Dirt Bike School. And it was a BLAST. :D

Worth the 1 1/2 hour drive to Roy, WA and back through a rainstorm. Not to mention the fact that after a week of sunshine, this was the one day that it had to pour down continuously throughout the class. It didn’t rain enough to dampen my spirit though.

My street bike habits kept taking over, and it took me a while to get the dirt bike riding posture, and a much longer while to be able to stand on the footpegs for longer intervals. But it was *incredible* to be able to ride such a light, maneuverable bike! I couldn’t believe how easy it was to ride figure eights and tight circles on it. My street bike’s going to feel mighty big and clunky after this. :)

Speaking of Roy, WA, a conversation I had with my trainer last week:

Me: I’ve got a dirt bike class coming up soon at Roy, WA
Her: Where’s that?
Me: Next to Yelm, WA
Her: Where’s that?
Me: Next to Lacey, WA
Her: Where’s that?
Me: Next to Olympia, WA
Her: Oh. Yeah, it really is in close proximity to Nowhere, WA.

Doing turns…

I’m especially proud of this one, because the thought of going over that obstacle had me mentally screaming “IcantdoitIcantdoitIcantdoit… oh, I did it… OW”. This last being the outcome of not standing high on the footpegs so that
the bike smacked me in the butt after it bounced off of the log.
Now I’m hankering for a dirtbike of my very own, inspite of the fact that there are hardly any roads close to where I live, where I could ride it. The BMW F650GS I have my eyes on could meet part of this craving, but I highly doubt that it would be anywhere near as manueverable as the Yamaha I rode today.

Migration complete…

Finally finished migrating the majority of posts from my journal… still trying to get the hang of WordPress to make the new home a little spiffier though. Hopefully I’ll have most of the glitches sorted out before too long.

Happy New Year to anyone who happens to stumble onto this.

Funniest video ever…

Danny Pedrosa taking Nicky Hayden out

Ok, so it wasn’t that funny for Hayden. Wouldn’t loved to have been a fly on his helmet after he picked himself up though.

Because this deserves to be reposted and carved in stone…

There is this myth that if you’re a woman traveling alone people will instantly want to kill you. This is an example of where you shouldn’t listen to anybody. So much of the way we live and the decisions we make in this world are based on fear. It’s amazing.

Sure bad things happen. They always have…

…And check it out – I highly doubt you’d find a traveler pumping you full of psycho-killer fear. No. Only people who stay at home and watch too much TV will pump you full of that shit. How the fuck do they know? Look at their doors: they probably have fifteen deadbolts and an alarm system to protect their rhinestone horse sweatshirts.

– Erika Lopez in Flaming Iguanas

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you, , for the quote. Co-incidentally, this was one of the “birthday presents” I bought myself and now I’m really excited about reading it. :)

Adrenaline Freaks 9/8/2006 trackday update

Finally time to write a post about my trackday on Friday in words, rather than just pictures. So this was my second track day, in a manner of speaking. I did ride at Pacific Raceways on July 27th as part of Mike Sullivan’s Women-Only Day, but that was more of a performance school+trackday, with a lot more coaching and one on one attention than I got this Friday.

It was organized by Adrenaline Freaks, and I only really booked it because my friend Liz had won a free trackday and picked that date. Until that moment, booking a day was something I continually postponed as it meant taking time off, and actually dealing with transporting my bike to the track on my own. As usual, fear of the unknown equated to constant procrastination. It’s a good thing I finally did decide on a day, because there is only one more day on the calendar (Oct 6th) before the Pacific Northwest rains and doom and gloom descend onto this lovely city.

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Adrenaline Freaks trackday pictures

Now those are tires to be proud of. :)

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Back from the Palouse…

I got back an hour ago from my long weekend trip to the Palouse, or perhaps I should call it the Motorcycling Adventure From Hell? I ache all over and my right hand seems to refuse to want to straighten up. I’m pretty sure I’ve messed up my back all over again, negating the effects of the muscle relaxants I’ve been taking over the past couple of weeks. And I am tired as heck.

Let’s backtrack though to the beginning, especially to the part where was I was having jitters about riding again after a two week break. I was worried then that I was riding like a n00b all over again, and I stubbornly decided to follow through on my Palouse plans to prove myself wrong. Matter of fact, what I did was prove myself right in a big way.

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Labor Day weekend plans…

It’s been a while since I last updated, and for a good reason. I’m back though just in time before being out for the next three days. A lot has happened over the last month or so and I’ll update about it when I get back from my Labor Day vacation. I have good and bad feelings about the next three days.

The good: I’m thrilled to finally be making the roadtrip I’ve wanted to, which is to ride to the Palouse in Eastern Washington. It has many incredible rides, listed in Destination Highways, WA (this link actually has links to video clips of the rides). All the pictures I’ve seen of this area remind me of the Shire. :) The best part though would be riding the Old Spiral Highway in Idaho. Here’s a great pic/description of it. You have to click on it and tell me you do not completely envy me. :) I’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning and riding toward Clarkston/Lewiston (named after Lewis and Clark, of course), and staying the night at the Guest House Inn in Lewiston. The next day I’ll be doing all the good rides in the area and riding back toward Walla Walla where I’ll spend another night at the Capri Motel, maybe even take time to do some wine tasting, like once recommended to me. Monday morning I’ll ride on home. Depending on how I’m feeling I might either just take the direct route home, or go past Yakima or St. Helen’s.

The bad: My bike’s been in the shop for two whole weeks now, waiting for the cam chain tensioners to be shipped. Adrian did my 15000 mile service as well, while it was there. I could only just pick it up today at lunch. While two weeks doesn’t sound like a lot, I feel like I’m riding like an effing n00b now. It’s as if my body has forgotten how to react to things. I forced (yes, forced!) myself to take the long way home past Lake Sammamish just so I could get a longer ride in, but that didn’t seem to help any. I just couldn’t get my mind off of how uncomfortable I was, how tight my gear seemed to be, how tall the bike seemed, and how hot I was in the 80 degrees heat. It’s insane! To add to this, he fixed my bike so well that it seems a lot more uhhh… powerful now? Which sounds idiotic, I know, but I guess it really didn’t run very well for the past few months that I’ve had it. Earlier this evening, I was this close to just cancelling the reservations and calling off the trip. But the stubborn part of me stopped me from doing so and I’m going to go through with it. I’m just hoping that after the first hundred miles or so, I’ll be okay.

Secondly, I got a shock when I actually looked at a map and realized that I’ve never ridden this far before. It’s practically 300 miles from where I live, clear across the state. It means 6 hours of riding, which probably won’t seem like much to most riders, but is a bit daunting to me. I’ve ridden that long and longer before, but it usually included the return journey. Fortunately, when I started writing down directions and breaking up the 300 miles into smaller intervals with breaks planned in, it doesn’t seem all that bad. Oh, and it’ll probably be about a hundred degrees in that part of the state. I’ve dealt with that kind of heat before though, and I have an evaporation vest this time too to make it easier.

In any case, I’ll know how it’ll turn out as I do it. I have the same queasy feelings in my stomach that I have before every major ride, wondering why the heck I’m doing this, and pushing back thoughts of unmentionable worst case scenarios. I know I’ll be fine once I hit the road and am on my way.

Hope y’all have a wonderful Labor day weekend too! Too bad I’ll miss Bumbershoot this year, but hopefully it will be well worth it.

Ride to Work 2006 – Bike Show

Yesterday was Ride To Work Day 2006, and we organized a bike show at work to promote awareness of how many people ride.

Pictures of pretty bikes here: http://schmi.net/Photographs/Motorcycling/BikeShow2006/

Mike Sullivan’s Women-Only trackday

I attended Mike Sullivan’s Performance School‘s Women-Only event late last July and have held off on posting an update about it for various reasons. A small part of it is that I didn’t have the pictures from it, but they are finally up here, courtesy of .

OMGZ I have a racer’s eyes! I always wanted my eyes to look like that. :P

The rest: http://studio819.smugmug.com/gallery/1762241/1/87412638.

My favorites:
http://studio819.smugmug.com/gallery/1762241/1/87412721
http://studio819.smugmug.com/gallery/1762241/1/87413606
http://studio819.smugmug.com/gallery/1762241/1/87412971
http://studio819.smugmug.com/gallery/1762241/2/87415276

The pictures are copyrighted and I need to pay to get the digital originals. I might wait until my trackday on Sep 8th to decide which pictures I want though. Still, these are brilliant images, and the very first ones I’ve had of me actually riding the bike, rather than posing on it. I always wondered what I looked like when I rode. :)

A brief list of the pros and cons of the event, in no particular order:

Pros:

• It was my first ever time on a race track and a great learning experience. It was oddly exhilerating to not have to switch on turn signals, look out for left-turning idiot drivers, dodge crazy traffic, but just ride, ride, ride on a safe enclosed circuit.
• I got 1:1 instruction with one of the trainers, and got a lot of valuable feedback. If you look closely at the pictures, you will see one particular bad habit I had that was pointed out to me.
• It was great to practically have the track to myself, seeing as there were only 26 riders out there – far less than a typical track day.
• My riding style improved dramatically after this day.
• I won some freebies! A $50 gift certificate to Skagitt PowerSports, and a 50% discount off of a rear tire from Seattle Cycle – pit I’d already broken the bank for brand new tires the week before. :|
• I got to hang out with Wendy Leber – ranked 104 at WMRRA, and according to Mike – the fastest woman he’s seen on the track. I’d met her before and chatted, and she’s such a lovely person! It was also cool to have three brilliant female instructors.
• I was sick the day before, and practically collapsing when I woke up at 5:30 that morning. I got my leathers on and made it to the race track on sheer willpower alone. Strangely enough, I felt perfectly fine at the track although I felt like I was holding back a little. I felt sick again an hour after I got back home in the evening. Guess someone was looking out for me that day – it would have broken my heart if I hadn’t been able to make this event.
• The instructors said that I had very good, clean lines. :) They also said that it was great how I anticipated every turn and looked far into it. It was nice to get some compliments where I was beating myself up for being so abyssmal.
• I have started studying Keith Code. I love Twist of Wrist 1 and am beginning to critically analyze my riding and mentally correcting myself. All the racers recommended TOW2 as they thought TOW1 was more “philosophical” than practical, but I like it a lot.

Cons

• We were instructed to get to the track at 7:30 am, but we only got out there at about 10:00. We wrapped up at 4:00 PM with a one hour lunch break. I was rather disappointed at not having enough time on the track, and didn’t feel like I got my money’s worth. I would have given up the freebies and catered lunch for more track time. :|
• I felt like such a squid. Some of the women on the track were so young and so fast that I cringed at how bad I was. This woman especially is someone to watch out for. You can see from the pictures how good she is. Do any of you feel this way on the track? The feeling that you got into this way too late and the young ‘uns have everything going for them? This was one of the few times in my life I felt like I was old. :|
• I wish I had done a few trackdays before this school. My form was so bad and I never really pushed the limits of my bike. Part of this was the fear of wrecking my only bike – I think I really need to get an inexpensive race bike that I don’t mind crashing and losing for next season. The track was also unfamiliar to me, and I spent the major part of the day just learning it and getting used to it, rather than improving my riding abilities.
• At the end of it, I still didn’t master shifting my weight on the bike, getting my butt off of it, sticking out my knee, or shift gears without using the clutch. I know it’s impossible to learn everything in one day, but I wish I had made some progress in each of these areas. I have however started working on the former while commuting to work everyday. I look like a right tool with leaning and shifting my weight while going 20mph on city streets, but it’s really the only place I can practice until my next trackday.
• I know everyone goes through this, but I am still concerned about just trusting riders behind me to not collide into me and overtaking me safely. The instructors said that I need to get past this mental block and just concentrate on the road ahead and trust my fellow riders on the track. It’s hard for me to do though. I’m reminded of the last horrendous accident I heard about at the WMRRA novice races a couple of months ago, where there one of the riders lost control of his bike, flew up into the air and his motorcycle landed on another guy ahead of him, who had to be airlifted to the hospital. :| Scary shit.
• I need to get in shape and really build up my core strength and endurance. I just know that it’s going to improve my riding.
• I didn’t ride two-up with Mike Sullivan. I just couldn’t get past my mental block of never doing two-up with anyone, but I felt a little wistful when the other women who did it said that it was the scariest thing they had ever done, and they were that close to vomitting in their helmets. Maybe next time?
• I think I hit 100mph, but I’m not completely sure as I was trying my best not to look at the speedometer. It was sobering to realize that while my bike was upto hitting 120+mph, me – the rider – was not.

In conclusion, I love the little motorcycling community. I really got a sense of that on this day, the same as I do when I attend WMRRA races. When I rode away from the track, I felt so empty – heading back to my normal life in my normal city seemed like such an anti-climax to the day.

I was hoping that I would be able to decide on this day as to whether I want to race next season, but I’m still not there yet. I don’t know if I’m able to spend that much money and time on something that could potentially get me killed. It’s not the getting killed part that I’m daunted by as much as the time and money bit though. Add to this my insecurities about my abilities although even this I could work on. I remember the first time I tried riding and how terribly bad I was, and how far I have come since. I know I can do this, and I know I can be good, but I am a little haunted by the thought of how good those other racers were – I don’t know if I have it in me to putting in the effort to get to that level. Perhaps I’ll settle for just doing trackdays regularly, rather than club racing. I’ll give myself some more time to decide. I have another trackday with Adrenaline Freaks coming up on Sep 8th. I’ll just concentrate on having a blast there, and let the decision-making rest until then.

Cascade Loop pictures…

I’ve come to accept the fact that I will never do a write-up about my 4-day solo trip to the Cascades. Well maybe never is too strong a word, but as of now, I suppose I’m just going to share the pictures for now.

Click here for North Cascade Loop pictures

I really need to find myself a nice, cheap, portable laptop that I can take with me on trips. Make it far easier to document things.

New boot woes…

The good news is that after a month of waffling, I finally decided on which new boots I wanted and got the Frey-Daytona Ladystar GTX ones – handmade in Germany, they say. They look really good – even better than on the website. There is a sort of inner leather boots, in addition the outer boot. There have lots of velcro and zippers to adjust them to your calf size. They feel stiff in all the right areas. And most importantly, the sole is thick enough that it increases by height by at least 11/2 inches. I’m planning to add a Dr. Scholl’s lining which is another cm thick.

The bad news is – I wore them for the first time today to ride them to work, and I had a hell of a time shifting gears. The front part of the boot is at least an inch thick and re-inforced on top, so I had trouble getting it under the shift lever and figuring out whether the heck it actually did shift up, having to relying solely on the sound to confirm it – good thing I wasn’t wearing earplugs. I made a complete ass of myself out on a busy street with struggling to shift gears, and waffling between 1st, 2nd and neutral over and over, when I should have been in 4th. So this is what I looked like when I was a n00b. :| I think I’ll call Helimot today and ask them if there is a trick to this that I am completely missing. I’m afraid they are only going to tell me though that I’ll get adjusted to it in time. :|

(Once I do get adjusted to the new boots, it’d be time to sell the old Oxstars methinks. They are pretty good boots, although used and a bit scuffed. How on earth does the right toe get scuffed anyway? O.o)

Edit: Adjusting the shift lever did the trick!

Post-trip blues…

I’m back. Tired and disoriented, and my mind is protesting a bit after being thrust into work-mode so abruptly, but back nonetheless. I need to catch up on everyone’s journals to see what I missed. For me, it was a glorious four days of riding through mountains, desert, plateaus, and covering lots of incredible backroads in WA state.

Trip report with pictures coming soon, but for now I’ll leave you with a teaser:

If a picture could have a soundtrack, this one would sing “Perfect Day”.

My long weekend plans…

My brief itinerary for this weekend:

Saturday morning: Leave early and ride to Leavenworth
Saturday afternoon: Ride some of the Destination Highways around Leavenworth
Saturday evening: Check into the Haus Rohrbach and spend the evening in the pseudo-Bavarian town that is bound to be awash with tourists
Sunday morning: Leave whenever and ride to Winthrop
Sunday afternoon: Ride some of the Destination Highways around Winthrop/Twisp
Sunday evening: Check into Chewuch Inn and hang out in pseudo-cowboy town of Winthrop
Monday morning: Leave early and head out to Okanogan Highlands and ride as many Destination Highways as possible
Monday evening: Try to get back whenever and spend the second night in Winthrop
Tuesday morning: Leave early and start the last leg of the journey to ride the northern part of the Cascade Loop to Sedro Woolley
Tuesday afternoon: If there’s time and energy, ride north toward Bellingham and explore some of the rides up there (very much doubt I will do this as I want to get home in time to relax before heading back to work the next day)
Tuesday evening: Relax at home!

I’m trying to leave work early today so I can beat the peak hour long weekend traffic and head to Seattle Cycle to pick up my tailbag and chain lock/alarm. Then back to the Eastside to pick up last minute things for the trip like cash/cigarettes/chocolate/money and to plan out my routes in better detail.

I’m excited! This is the first long journey I’ve taken since last November. :) I’m a bit worried about dealing with drunk tourists and crippling heights with my vertigo, but I figure I can’t let that stop me and not do the ride I’ve wanted to do for so long. And unfortunately, I’m “credit-card camping” so it will set me back a good bit, but it’ll be money well spent.

Wishlist…

On my motorcycling wishlist –

– New tires – more like a necessity than a wish unfortunately :(
– A Gorilla alarm (or possibly an alarm+immobiliser)
– A chain + padlock
– A tail bag (still not sure whether I’m getting hard luggage or just a soft bag that bungees on)
– Heated grips
– A Bagster tank cover
– Modulating headlights
– Those blinky high-vis tail-lights
– A center stand

Of course on the other hand, I wonder if there’s any point in investing so much money into a bike that I’m planning to sell next season anyway. It’s really an amazing bike, but I’ve caught myself looking longingly at every passing BMW so often now, that I think I’m just going to have to get one of those next year. If I still have the racing bug after doing a few track days this year, I’ll probably just get a really cheap, sportsbike and fix it up.