New Bikes, New Year, New Me!

HELLO LATTE!

Meet my new ride, Latte.

Ever since I rode this bike 2 years ago at DC Dirt Camp, I fell in love with it immediately.

July 2021 on my super friend Marjorie’s XT250 (also before working at REVIT) at DC Dirt Camp during an Adventure Bike Class

It was lightweight, easy to ride and super comfortable. Unfortunately I don’t have any pics of me sitting down on the bike, only standing up! :) :)

IS IT TOO SMALL?

No. Absolutely not. Yes, I have almost 20 years of motorcycle experience under my belt but I am absolutely positively new to dual sport riding and I would be fooling myself to think that I could easily conquer a mid size 750cc ADV bike to learn on.

When I took the Adventure class with DC Dirt Camp, riding this bike felt fairly easy since my bike is 400lbs! So jumping on a sub 300lb bike felt super easy. Of course, learning some ADV skills was challenging but I’m so glad I had a little bike like this to try things on.

For me personally, here is my intention with a dual sport motorcycle (which GREATLY affects an individuals’ bike choice)

• Short, day trips, possibly overnights with minimal highway / freeway riding (max 30 minutes if possible)

• 80% offroad / 20% on road focused riding (thus the need for a smaller bike overall)

• Build AS MUCH confidence as possible while I increase skills

• Accelerate my learning / skills so that I can master this small bike to where an upgrade is going to feel easier, less intimidating and feel more confident

Doesn’t everyone want to become super proficient and highly skilled at motorcycling sooner than later? For me that happens quickest when I’m on a bike that’s smaller, easier to manage and super comfortable.

If my experience level on the dirt were much higher, say 10+ years of dirt riding maybe, AND I wanted to do long distance, 50% onroad, 50% offroad type riding then of course a larger displacement bike would be necessary. I’ve never heard anyone say “Oh no, I don’t want to get really good at this quickly, I want it to take months / years to get better and feel confident”.

I also have a rear hitch carrier on the Jeep, so I may take it places to go riding. But I am not planning anything pavement focused unless I’m riding on the street with my Triumph to do a pavement focused ride.

So there you have it, my little 250 is going to be perfect for me and my riding needs. Always, always write down what your needs are for a new to you motorcycle, if you want to be as certain as possible that you are making the very best choice. I also know that if I need to move onto a different bike, I can easily sell Latte and get it to someone else very quickly. So I’m not worried about that.

Remember, motorcycles are like kleenex! There’s always another one waiting! They’re also like dating, you aren’t necessarily going to marry the first person you meet, right? :)

TALLNESS

But I can tell you that yes, it’s a bit tall but remember, taller and lighter. Please revisit my short tips to understand how that does work when you’re 5’2”! I also modified my boots like this ==>

That didn’t give me flat footing, but it didn’t need to because for me, I’ve been One Footing my motorcycles since the very beginning, even when I was riding a taller scooter.

The XT was my little dream dual sport bike, super capable when I did the BDR ride and I knew I had to have that bike!

I looked at many others including:

• Kawasaki KLX250 and KLX300

• Suzuki DR200S

• Yamaha TW200

• Honda CRF250 and CRF300

But it always came back to the XT250. Mostly for the fact that I already rode it, and it just felt right. You know that feeling? When you meet the love of your life, or the perfect pair of shoes or the perfect motorcycle? I also read lots of reviews of the XT250 against these other rides and the XT always won.

There are also lots of upgrades and parts available and I can’t wait to start collecting parts! But for now, it’s going to stay stock other than proper dual sport tires:

Dunlop D650 Tires on Latte

UPGRADES

The only upgrade for now are proper 50/50 tires : Dunlop D605’s .

PROTIP for PARTS SHOPPING:
When you are shopping for bike parts, you can ALWAYS visit the manufacture website because they will usually have a bike / part finder to enter your bike into their website and see what fits / is compatible!

This bike came from a local motorcycle school outsider of Denver so it had pavement focused tires and I need something just a bit knobbier that will also handle ~30 min of freeway riding to the mountains (I LOVE DENVER).

Also, tire shopping for offroad bikes are a whole thing. Sizing isn’t normal metric usually (e.g. 120/70/17) like on my street bike, so you may need to translate sizes. Grab your owners manual (or download one), LOOK UP your recommended sizes and then go from there. There are also lots of tire size translation resources on various website, but if you just scroll to the bottom of this page for the Dunlops, checkout the handy chart!

Looking at dual sport tires was super confusing for me until I found translations like this that told me what my size was in width (inches) and metric so I could understand the translations from metric to regular inches.

So that’s where I’m at for now, I’ll be posting another one soon about the gear I’m going to wear and why I chose it so stay tuned!

For Sale: Used Womens Premium Riding Jeans, Size 2/4

UPDATE JAN. 9, 2020: Blue SOLD

Both of these jeans are roughly a Dress Size 2-4, 30 Waist/XS/SM.

So I have two pairs of Worse for Wear Riding Jeans for sale, which unfortunately are no longer available.

The company shut down last year, but I have two pairs that I know someone else could use more than me right now.

Unfortunately, I broke my foot (walking down stairs) last week and I won’t be riding for 4-6 weeks anyhow. But I also grew out of one pair and am not riding enough to need the second pair.

I’ll revisit riding jeans next Spring, but for now I know someone else could really use an excellent pair of riding jeans.

One pair is blue and one pair is black. Full descriptions and photos below.

The photo on the right is of me wearing the blue pair when I first bought them. They fit so well, but then my waist decided to grow a few inches and they simply became too uncomfortable to wear.

Me wearing Blue Pair #1

WORSE FOR WEAR JEANS #2, BLACK, 30 WAIST x 32 INSEAM:

Price: $150 (retail was ~$395) + shipping

Condition: Pre-owned, barely worn, never crashed

Worse For Wear Womens Riding Jeans 30x28

Gently Used. 

Condition is Pre-owned, never Crashed

• Size: ~US 2-4

• Color: Black

• Measured waist of the garment: 30". These are a little looser in the waist and hips than the blue ones, and should fit up to a 33” true belly/waist and 37.5” hip. These are also looser in the calves by a good inch.

• Inseam: 32" (easily hemmable by a good tailor)

• Materials: 100% Armalith. It's one of the most abrasion resistant jeans for women, same material as these Rokker Women’s Jeans.

• SINGLE LAYER construction; that means the entire jean is constructed of Armalith, instead of cheap riding jeans with Denim + a Second Layer of Kevlar or similar material

• Seam strength and construction is reinforced along the outseams on the knees and hip pockets

• Hip and Knee Protector pockets:  Knee and Hip armor included for FREE, I'll happily include whichever you prefer (thinner knees or thicker knees). You'll just have to add a strip of velcro to the back of whichever knee armor you want and then you can position it on the inside of the pocket as high or low as you need it! Brilliant, eh?

• Waist is Medium to High Rise

• Leg line is slim BELOW the knee, but just barely fit over a pair of Dainese Torque Out Women’s Boots. But they will go over sneakers and casual shoes

• Please feel free to email me any other questions you may have

How Confidence Affects Women and Motorcycling

Me, feeling supremely confident on my '12 Street Triple R. But it wasn't always that way.

Learning to ride a motorcycle is certainly about confidence. The majority of mine came from learning to ride the right bikes and increasing my skillset dramatically from bike to bike.

But there was always a small chunk of it that came from me telling myself that I could and "eff it". If something happens, I'll deal with it or call for help or whatever. I'm not going to be afraid of it anymore.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-gap/359815/

But keep in mind, that absolutely has to be within reason like when I decided to take the Ninja 250 to work instead of my scooter. I just went the 40 minute route to work (avoiding busy thoroughfares like Van Ness Avenue and Steep ass hills like Gough Street). I had already been commuting on my scooter to work for a year. This wasn't a huge jump from what I had already been doing. It was totally realistic given my experience and what I had been doing previously.

Me in 2006 on my first "long" ride outside of San Francisco to Half Moon Bay, a whopping 50 minutes one way!

This article says what I've witnessed and experienced personally in my 15 years of riding and helping other women learn to ride and talking to them about riding. And certainly my work life too. Why aren't we as confident from the get go? What is it about many of us (not all, I know, but more than most I'm sure) that holds us back from succeeding other than some of the most common mistakes new riders make ?

When all of our ducks are in a row, we still feel like we don't deserve it or are that good. I still feel like I'm terrible at riding at times. I'm terrible at nailing my lines every time I go riding, I'm terrible at braking. I'm terrible at cornering. I mean, okay I'm not horrific in that I crash every time I ride, but when I do go out I'm constantly critiquing myself and trying to figure out what I could've done better to take that particular corner better/faster/smoother. Is that just a regular aspect of riding? I'm guessing many of my male readers are going to argue that "of course, I think that too".

But how many of you think that way in your everyday life as many women have experienced per this article?

Riding as many of us know is 90% mental, 10% physical (that's why YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ABLE TO PICK UP YOUR MOTORCYCLE to ride it).

I recently joined this cool interactive panel of my fellow women riders about how we got into riding and some of the barriers we ran into along the way. There are some really great tips and advice here that I think many of you can relate to:

https://www.cake.co/conversations/HKn99Mb/a-panel-of-women-who-motorcycle-what-it-s-like-in-a-sport-with-a-bad-boy-vibe

So if something is holding you back, what do you think that is?

12 Days of Winter Deals

Follow me on Facebook for my 12 Days of Winter Deals. I'm sharing some of my favorites for jackets, pants, boots, gloves and helmets that will save you money and time. 

Like this Olympia Expedition Jacket on sale for $267. 

You don't have to log into Facebook to see my deals, but if you're already there....

Give me a follow! 

facebook.com/gearchic