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I
am a freelance writer. Although my specialty is motorcycle
travel writing, I have also been published in areas totally
unrelated to motorcycling. I have two main passions in life:
motorcycles and writing. Well, maybe three - music.
Simply,
I like bikes. I've liked motorcycles since a very young
age - I used to go to the corner store, around age eight
or nine I guess and purchase Canadian Biker Mag. Nobody
in my family rode..

My First Bike, 1979 185 Honda Twinstar
Bike Number Two, 1984 Honda 250 custom
taken 1984
Bike Number Three, 1986 450 Honda
Rebel, taken at Smugglers Notch, Vermont in 1989

Bike Number Four, 1986 Harley Davidson
883 Sportster, taken at borderline between New Mexico and
Colorado in 1995

Taken Somewhere in New Mexico on
my way to Grand Canyon, Arizona , 1998

Bike Number Five, 1997 Harley Davidson
FXD Dyna Superglide taken at Lake Louise Area, on my way
to Alaska, 2003

Same Superglide, painted
Incognito Black - taken at Matchedash during my music album
shoot, 2005
My
first ride was on the back of my friend Terry's bike, a
Yamaha RD 350,and Oh, I had to be around the age of eleven
or so. I remember the feeling of freedom and the wind -
something about the wind- and we were flying across the
railroad tracks - airborne, you might say. When I turned
sixteen, I held my dad to his promise of letting me buy
a bike from my education fund. And so I did, and it was
on that very same Twinstar that I got my license - and strangely
enough, shortly before that my mom won a brand new Yamaha
Beluga scooter from the local TV station - her summertime
postcard had been selected out of thousands of entries for
the giveaway. And there we were, all three of us - my mom,
dad and myself - doing our road tests together, towards
our M license. Back then, all one would need to do to get
a bike license was to write a 60-day test, which allowed
one to ride legally, a motorbike for 60 days while you learned.
After that there was a road test - which consisted of a
pylon maneuvering test, followed by a ride around the city
blocks using only your hand signals - far from the graduated
licensing system in place today.
And
so I went on - as did my parents. I soon wanted a bigger
bike, as did my dad . And before anyone could stop this
foolishness, I had sold my Twinstar (after all, business
is business) to my father, and I went out and bought a brand
new 1984 Honda 250 Custom. So my father began teaching my
mom how to ride a "real" bike, as he called it.
As a matter of fact, the both of them were learning how
to ride a "real" bike. By now I had grasped the
concept of gears and clutches, thanks to the help of my
boyfriend, and was well on my way to motorcycledom.
I
rode that 250 back and forth to hairstyling school on the
400 series highway of Ontario. After a couple or years of
experience, the "fever" (as I call it) overcame
me again, and I traded the 250 in for a 1986 Honda 450 Rebel.
Following suit, my dad then turned around and bought himself
a brand new Honda 250 Custom - yes - the exact same model
of bike I traded in. This motorcycle thing had really become
infectious! Well, one crazy fever hit after another, and
I decided to go on a road trip. By now I had married that
boyfriend who taught me to ride, and we struck off for the
East Coast. Haven't looked back since... That very first
road trip was the beginning of a fever that would never
break.
I
believe that a true biker has it in their veins - the fever,
that is. You just can't be without a bike! A summer without
a bike would be like a snowboarder without snow. Or a Canadian
winter without Hockey Night In Canada. And we found out
the winter of 2004/05 what that was like. I have not been
without a bike since my first day riding - and I had that
Honda Rebel flamed out eventually, and some extra chrome
bits put on it, rode it around the continent for nine years,
then one day realized that getting a Harley would broaden
my horizons a bit - yes, I had it bad. Custom Chrome magazines,
saddlebags, you name it (we all know about parts & accessories,
don't we?).
Now,
Japanese bikes are great, don't get me wrong. They're dependable,
last forever, and today they make 'em look much like the
Harleys. Key word here - look like a Harley. However, customizing
a Harley is practically endless, compared to a Japanese
bike, when it comes down to availability of parts and chrome.
And looking like a Harley does not mean sound and vibration.
This is where Harley got me by the crotch - literally.
My
older Sportster took me to many a destination, reliably
so I might add. Then my Dyna took over. So far my Superglide's
taken me coast to coast, North and South - several times.
In the summer of 2006 she rolled over the 100 000 km mark.
In
addition to riding, I also write. I've been writing
since age eight - poems, short stories etc. Writing came
so naturally that it even found it's way into my music.
Playing the piano since age 4, I wrote my first song at
age 11. Even as crude as it was, I wrote my first book around
age nine. After 21 years of riding, I had decided to write
a book about life as a biker chick. That was three years
ago. It's still being written - there's just so much to
chronicle. In the meantime, this website will have to do
for gettin' the message out. It's not fancy. It's intended
to be just a general interest, family-friendly website,
by a biker, for bikers. However, life as a biker chick is
still not quite the same as life as a biker dude...
© 2005-2007
by Roadgypsy Innovations. SOCAN. All rights reserved. Unauthorized
reproduction a/o duplication of content in any form is prohibited.
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