Skip to main content

Get this party started!

Okay, less of a party and more like a huge expenditure, some hard decisions, and a lot of sweat with a little bit of blood.

So here's the back story: I've been riding sportbikes since I bought my first bike - a '99 ZX6R, used, but it got me going. Unfortunately, it also played to a lot of my "stupid," but we both survived and are both still here to tell the tale, although the bike's life is getting short having rolled over 78,000 miles on the odometer lately. Since then I've had other bikes, up to and including my current street bike, a '05 ZX10R. Nasty little piece of motorcycling heaven, and I love it.

I've been riding for about 7 years. Although I always wanted to try track days, I never got around to it due to financial reasons. Last year, I won a hosted spot at Zoom Zoom Trackday's  Women's VIP event in June. I learned a ton, had a blast, and went from slow to less slow (although probably shouldn't have been playing in C group by the end of the day). Thing was, I had previously known I was missing out on something good - now I really knew it. I started saving up for the next year, as I couldn't manage another trackday that summer.

Enter 2012. I finally came to the agonizing decision to sell my horse trailer (step one). This meant I was getting out of horses, and not going to be adding a riding horse to go with my retired horse. Understand, I've had horses since I was 5 years old, and have loved them my entire life. This was a HUGE decision for me to give up a dream I had held onto for over 30 years. But I couldn't ignore the fact that motorcycles were my passion, on days off I'd pick riding my bike over horses, and I really, REALLY wanted to get back out onto the track with an eye on racing. So, I sold my trailer. Right now, I'm busy selling off the rest of my horse stuff (other than the few items I'll need for my retired horse - which isn't much).

After paying off the horse trailer, I started investing in a few things I was going to need if I am going to pursue motorcycle racing: good tires; tire warmers; a custom 1-piece suit (nothing off the rack fits me, even with expensive alterations); spare rims; and a track day package for the summer. I could only swing a 5-pack, but am hoping to scrape together enough to piece meal in another day or two here and there.

Made the decision to sell my saddle - the one thing I was really hanging onto. That's given me enough money to pick up an older, mildly beat up, but functioning perfectly fine track/ex-race bike. I got a screaming deal on a '02 R6 - it's not going to be an agile bike compared to the newer machines, but it's perfectly capable of getting me through a track season or two, those first few races, etc without a huge expenditure. And the total cost of the bike wouldn't be much more than 1 crash on my street bike would cost me in repairs (picking it up for $1200). I get the bike Sunday morning.

So, I've plunged in, with Z2's David Ben-jamin planning a program for me to get me headed in the direction of racing. This summer will have a lot to tell....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WERA Cycle Jam - Road Atlanta - May, 2024

Road Atlanta rapidly became my favorite track on the east coast thus far. Even though I've only been there a few times, I was excited to head out there on a race weekend and see if racing lit more of a fire under my tail.  This track has tons of elevation, is extremely fast, and has a nice variety of corners with opportunities to catch a breath or two in between. All things I love after "growing up" on the northern California tracks. Coming in to the weekend I was excited, but also a bit nervous. I have never raced here, none the less at Cycle Jam which brings in a ton of riders and overflows the entire paddock, shelf, and beyond. I knew my times here were still slow, but if I found a little time I wouldn't be dead last - there are some fast people around here, but figured another couple seconds would at least give me some good battles. Coming in, I had some specific goals outside of just have fun - I wanted to work on some of the feedback I had gotten at the end of t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Winter Set-Back

    Knowing that I had a lot of work in front of me in order to learn to ride the bigger bike, I had made plans to attend some of the Ken Hill Dirt Days. They are training classes designed for road racers, using the same terminology and principles in a (supposedly) lower risk environment. Despite never having ridden a dirt bike, I was looking forward to the weekend and knew I would leave having learned a ton.      I arrived Saturday morning excited to get educated from the best. The first couple sessions were really a struggle for me in terms of trying to get used to being on a dirt bike. The adjustment was not coming easily and I was feeling slow. Advice on how to ride the machine was incoming, and then finally I made a connection that worked for me - it was like riding a barrel horse. All of a sudden I was starting to "get it" and riding the bike wasn't so difficult and my speed was increasing because of that.     As fate would have it,...
Post a Comment
Read more

AFM Round 7, 2018 - End of a Season

If you’ve followed my race reports at all, you know there have been some struggles. If you’ve talked to me in person, you probably have a better feel of just how much of a struggle things have been since I decided to move on the ZX10R. Between my leg and mechanical issues, it’s been a rough two years. Things were finally sorted out, at least for the time being. The leg is what it is at this point, and I’m familiar enough with its shortcomings that it’s not much of an excuse anymore. The bike is running well and is no longer actively trying to kill me, so that excuse has taken a hike. The last part was bike set up. On these big bikes it just really seems like proper set up makes a massive difference, and little things that are unknown or missed just crush (at least my) confidence. This has finally started to get moved in the right direction, and with a quick re-spring on the front this weekend, I felt like things were finally “getting there.” Coming into the weekend was a rush...
1 comment
Read more