Ah, the Ducati.  There's a picture of me on a red Ducati in a previous post at the Women's Motorcycling Conference in Keystone, Colorado.  I didn't ride the bike there, too chicken, but have lusted after it for 3 years.

The stars aligned for me and I finally got my dream bike on Easter Sunday of 2012.  My darling husband bought it for me and calls it my Easter Egg.  It's the first bike I feel really comfortable on, able to put my feet on the ground, and it feels perfectly sized just for me.

So the blog isn't pink anymore.  Ducati red is my new favorite color.

 Carly Foulkes, model and rider from the TMobile commercial with her matching motorcycle and leathers.  FYI, that's a Ducati 848 EVO.






Another T-Mobile commercial using motorcycles and the stunning model and rider Carly Foulkes called, “See It Again”. This time they compare the iPhone on the AT&T network to an older motorcycle just cruisin’ along.  Yeow!

Bike update & Big Bend trip

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted on this blog.  Time to get it back up and running.  Way time for a new picture too, since I've been through about 4 bikes since then. 

Here's one of them.... The Yamaha FZ6.   It was a great bike, very powerful.  I loved it but it was a little tall for me.

I sold it and bought a BMW F650 Classic from a friend.  That thing was a tractor.  It sounded like one and pulled like one.  I rode it to Big Bend over Christmas in 2012.  It was okay but not my dream bike.

Nice trip....long way to Big Bend.  Got a nice look at the Rio Grande, the mountains, and some rest stops on Hwy 170 covered with teepees.  Great riding on Hwy 170.  Had to stop to be checked out by the Border Patrol and their doggies near Presidio.  Kind of scary but uneventful.

It's nice to live in Texas and have good riding weather year round.  There was a little rain on the way out but sunny and good temps coming back.

I wasn't much impressed with Terlingua.  Everybody goes on and on about how great it is.....looks like a bomb went off down there and nobody ever bothered to clean it up.  To each his own, I guess.

It's rough country, long way between gas stations, bring your own water, ride with a buddy, hope your cell phone works better than mine did.

It's worth going and seeing.  It has a kind of desolate beauty.  Be mindful there.

Song for the day is.....Viva Terlingua by Jerry Jeff Walker....of course

 

1st Day of Winter Ride

I knew I had to ride today when I went to retrieve the mail and saw a green anole basking in the warm sun on the wall beside the mailbox. We have had a wet, cold fall, which bodes well for the wildflowers, but gives me a raging case of cabin fever. I had my bike in the shop for a 10,000 mile tune-up and I was anxious to scrub in that new back tire.

My regular riding buddies were AWOL so I went by myself which turned out to be AOK since I've been cooped up riding herd on a teenager doing last minute projects and high school finals and nursing a post-op knee surgery my DH had last week. Along with the usual "tis the season" preparations, I took a look at everything that still needs to be done and said, "Looks like a good day to ride."

I couldn't get outta there fast enough.

My last ride was miserable and I was ready to redeem it.

The temperature was a blessed 65 degrees and sunny with a slight wind. My new gloves are great, Windshielder gloves from Harley, took some getting used to since I already have fat grips, now I have a handful of grips, leather, and lining to deal with, but my hands aren't cold.

I rode out to my favorite twisty road, only to find a brand new BMW X5 meandering slowly down the road. The driver, clearly unaccustomed to the performance capabilities of such a car, braked at every curve, thwarting my efforts to scrub the chicken strips off my new tire. Such a waste of a fine machine. I blew their doors off with my little 805 cc engine with a scathing look as I passed by. Sorry about that, but I had riding to do and I didn't want to spend it in 3rd gear.

My mechanic is a genius. The once clunky gear shifting now slips into gear with barely a touch of my toe to the shifter and a soft "snick". What once was a cold starting wench, now fires right up on the first try even on the coldest day. And it runs like a bat of out hell. It truly is Fabulous!

After a bit of highway riding and a short stop for gas, I took the run home through the Brazos River Bottom. The temperature was falling so I stopped to add another layer at the tree beside the cutoff to Washington on the Brazos State Park. A raccoon, apparently sitting at the base of the tree, scrambled up into the tree as I got off the bike, startling me mightily! Wow, he was big.

I passed the Brazos River and turned onto the Allen Farm Road and was surprised to see all the tractors working in the fields. The fields have been so wet the tractors leave huge clumps of dirt on the road as they leave the fields. Thankfully it was all dried up so it was just a bumpy ride and not a slippery one. The air smells of wet, molded maize that could not be harvested. They are out in the fields now, turning it under. The birds are feasting on it.

If it's not the mud on the road, it's deer. Several deer challenged me on the side of the road between the railroad tracks and the cutoff to Wellborn. I crept through their territory without incident and made it to the highway back into town.

I got into the fast lane on the highway to get past two gravel trucks and the first one was either overful or didn't have it's bay shut completely because it was dropping kaliche all over the highway. That's extra exciting when you're on a motorcycle. I hope someone called it in, that size rock could easily break a windshield. I know the 3 rocks that hit me wouldn't have felt so good had I not been wearing full armored gear.

Life's little blessings and challenges, all condensed on a motorcycle ride. Good and bad, joy and terror, problems and solutions.

The song for today is...Roll Me Away, Bob Seeger

MotorcycleBelle

CHICKFEST FALL '09 Ride

We had 10 chicks and a chicklet participate in our fun filled all girl's ride to Las Fuentes Mexican Restaurant in LaGrange, Texas last weekend. It was a beautiful fall day with gorgeous weather and temperatures in the high 70s.

We had ladies come from Huntsville, Katy, Kingwood, Houston, Dallas, and College Station.

We had a great time getting to know each other by our real names after talking on-line under our screen names for so long. We all agreed this should not be a "once a year ride.

It's a Ducati!!

Here's the picture of me at the Women's Motorcycle Conference yakking it up with Kathy Jo Porter, owner of the Ducati dealership from Eugene, Oregon. If you remember from one of my earlier posts about the conference, I had mentioned that Genevieve Schmidt had interviewed me while I was talking to Kathy about the Ducati. I didn't realize she had a photographer with her. But here's the proof! Is that a great looking bike or what!!!

Here's the caption from the article on the WomenRidersNow website.

Kathy Jo Porter (white jacket), co-owner of Bend Euro Moto in Eugene, Oregon, talks to Jan Mikeal of College Station, Texas, about this Monster 696 that Jan is thinking about taking out for a test ride.

Song for today....Rock Me.....Steppenwolf, of course

New Friends and 9,000 S)miles!

The sun finally showed up this past weekend for the first time in three weeks! Fall is in the air and the leathers have come out with the falling temperatures. Friday was chilly with a frisky wind blowing the fallen leaves across the road. It's an interesting sight, the falling leaves and the second flush of wildflowers on the side of the road, thanks to the recent heavy rains. My new friend, Jackie and I scooted up the twisty and scenic 390 to LaGrange for some great Mexican food. It's was a great girl's day out.

Saturday was a lot warmer and an afternoon ride over to the Antique Rose Emporium escorted between two Harleys made it a treat. The two jokesters driving them made the day even more fun. Matt even got to go along riding pillion for the first time on a Harley.

If Friday was the "too cold" day, and Saturday was the "too hot" day, then Sunday was the "just right" day, if you're Goldilocks. The weather was perfect. I rode by myself through the Brazos River bottom and checked out the cotton crop, looks pretty good to me. Looks like one more picking and they'll be done. I'm sure they rain was too late for the corn though.

I met up with my riding buddy Steve, and we went on a spirited ride through the Navasota bottom land and finally hung it up after I turned over 9,000 miles on the bike.

Great weather, great new friends, great riding, as usual, can't wait to do it again!

MotorcycleBelle

Song for today...Shiny Shiny by Amelia White