Spring Scootin'

Helloooo Ladies!
Well, another week... no embroidery... shame, shame, shame! I'm gettin to it, I'm gettin to it. But today was really fun and I wanted to share my adventure with you gals!

Early this morning I packed up my scoot and took a good long ride into the hills with my friend Richard. This was to be my longest scoot yet and it didn't disappoint. My part of the ride was 125 miles, round trip! That's a lot for a rookie, right? I'm gonna earn me an iron butt badge!!

So before we start, and since this is really my first post about riding, I would like to start by saying that I'm all about safety. I value my life, I don't do stupid things and I won't wear irresponsible clothing. It might look cute to ride a scooter in a skirt and flip-flops, but it's stupid (IMHO). One of the first pieces of advice I got when I got my first scooter 3 years ago was "you don't dress for the ride, you dress for the crash". I take that to heart. Lord bless me, I have never yet crashed, slid, lost traction or wrecked. Fear and a healthy respect for my body, speed and road conditions keep me a very careful rider. Besides, if I got hurt, my mom would kill me. Having the right gear was a priority, and in the month since I bought my new girl I have acquired all new gear for riding at the speeds it takes me to ride to work (19 miles each way through the country, city and if I'm ever brave enough, the freeway) and road trips into the country. Let's go through it quickly shall we?

First and foremost, a new lid. Here's mine... ain't she a beaut?

Secondly, a new jacket. Serious road protection, has shoulder, elbow and back armor. Textile and vented so I can wear it in our HOT California summers and still be fully protected.

And you know I gotta have some embroidery on this baby, right?? Check this out...

I'm not really into the look of "bas-a$$ biker chick", but I think this is pretty cool. I like biker chicks by the way... I'm just one one of them. Wrong kinda bike. I'm a bad-a$$ scooter chick!!

And of course, I gotta protect the digits! how else could I serve tea and embroider??

Look, the knuckles protectors are hearts, squeee!

But no outfit would be complete without a touch of the handmade, so I made this!

It's a "turtle neck". It goes over my head, under my jacket and beneath my helmet. It's purpose is two fold. One is obviously to keep my neck warm, you'd be surprised how cold that one inch between jacket collar and helmet gets, brr! And secondly its a "hair-holder-downer" Hehe... I don't like my hair flapping when I ride, it bugs me, and this helps keep it down in my coat.

Lastly, some new shoes! Tennies won't protect your ankles and feet if something bad happens, so they recommend you wear boots... these are the ones I picked.

Dr. Martens are supposed to be really comfy and these kinda go with everything...and... they have flowers!

So!

That's what I wear whilst commuting and on long rides. Now with all that said, in the interest of truth I will be very honest and say that if I'm just scooting around town, or to the grocery store I usually just wear jeans, a hoodie and tennies. Some folks are Team ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time), which is smart. But it does take a little of the fun out of scooting if you have to put on full gear each and every time you run to the store...  I know that there is an inherit risk involved in two wheeled vehicles and I accept that risk. Cool? Ok, now lets get to today's ride!

So I left Lodi and met my friend in Linden, it's about 20ish miles from my place. Meet Richard, he's not just my friend, he's my boss. Pretty cool, aye?

Talk about safety gear, get a load of that outfit! At 130mph I'd wear it too...

Yes, he really goes 130+ mph... he's got mad skillz!

Bellisimo! Two hot Italian red heads! Ducati & Vespa.

We left Linden and wound our way up into the foot hills of Northern California's gold country... We went through Burson, up into Valley Springs, and across Pardee Dam and Reservoir.

There I am!

It was such a gorgeous day!!! You could see for miles!

There's my new helmet... covered in bugs, splat! Major gross-o!

While I was being my usual snap happy self, Rich was setting up the video camera to film the ride, too cool!

He even got video of me riding ahead of him, I'll add it later if I can.

From Pardee, we took some seriously twisty roads and dropped into Jackson for some grub.

BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger and Fries... SO not on my diet... Hey man, scootin gives a girl an appetite!

There were hundreds of bikes on the road today, there was some kind of poker run/charity ride happening. We didn't know it until we stumbled into it, there was a sign in post at Mel's. So many smiling, waving Harley riders today! It was rad.

We left Jackson and headed out Hwy 49 up into Mokelumne Hill, then across the rim of a portion of Hwy 26, which is gorgeous and I wish I woulda stopped for pictures. We dropped back down into Valley Springs, and back to where we started in Linden where I filled up with gas, cleaned some of the bugs off of my visor and headed for home back in Lovable, livable, Lodi.

There were baby cows and wild flowers everywhere! I want to do another ride like this again soon to take loads and loads of pictures before the hills lose their green and the flowers dry up. It was a beautiful, beautiful ride. I'm so glad I did it!

Here's a link to a Google map I made detailing our trip if you're really curious, it's got the locations of all the towns we passed through, haha.  I actually made this map so that Sean and I might be able to take this ride together when he gets a bigger scoot.

I was pooped when I got home! I changed clothes and took a nap, whew.

What an adventure!

I hope you enjoyed my little pictorial!

Hoping to post some cute stuff tomorrow.

oxo,

Lisa