Just a Girl

[acalliste]

Lauren, Bill and I headed over to Bike Week today to see what new there was to be seen, and to do a demo ride or two. Lauren and Bill were already there when I got there, so I signed up for the same ride window Lauren did, both of us riding the Z1000. Our turn was at 2pm. We hung out there for a bit, chatted with the Kawasaki people and generally had a fabulous time. I joined ROK a week or so ago, and was able to sit in the ROK tent and enjoy the goodies. We took an hour or so to walk around and check out the other manufacturers and vendor tents, then came back and waited for our turn to ride. We noticed that they were announcing a few free bikes with every group, as all the slots hadn’t been taken. Why not bump up and get in an earlier ride? We both managed to get a Z1000 at 12:30, which was 5 minutes from when we signed up, so we got our gear and headed over to the canopies where the riders meeting would take place.

In the riders meeting, they went over the same things they always do, no passing, obey all traffic laws, the sportbikes have front brakes that actually work so please be careful (directed at the people who usually ride cruisers), etc, etc. Then they told us to go and choose our bikes. Lauren made a bee-line for the Z directly behind the ride leader, and of course I want to be near her. But an older gentleman made it to the bike behind her before I did, and his friend behind him. I really want to ride next to Lauren, and there was no passing allowed, so I asked the gentleman if he would mind letting me have that bike as I wanted to ride by my friend. To my complete surprise, he got a bit of an attitude with me and said “I guess so!” and started to walk away. Then he turned back to me, frowning, and said… “I hope you ride fast.”



At this point I need to stop and let you know that I was raised to never be rude or disrespectful to my elders, almost without exception. Someone older than me really has to cross the line before I will let them have it verbally. This was not one of those times, so I did not say the first thing that popped into my mind, which was “Yes, I think I can ride fast enough FOR A FIVE MILE DEMO RIDE AT BIKE WEEK”, dripping in sarcasm.

Instead I bit my tongue and muttered, “Yeah, I think I will be all right”.

Plus, you never really know about old-timers. Many of them can ride the snot out of any bike, especially if they are so bold as to question you about your riding ability, so the last thing I wanted to do was smart off to some ex-racer and end up having my ass handed to me on a demo ride.

Whatever, I forgot about it soon enough. Just the thought of being able to ride the Z again, even on a five mile demo ride at bike week, was making me giddy as a school girl. My God I love this bike! We got on the road a moment later, and the ride leader being on a ZX10, I was hoping for a nice run. She did what she could, but there was quite a bit of traffic, and we couldn’t really get moving for longer than 30 seconds or so at a time. But Lauren and I still had fun, hitting enough curves to be able to get off the bike a tiny bit. Apparently Lauren intimidated the ride leader a little, but I’ll save that story for another post.

After we pulled back up to the Kawasaki tent, and turned our machines off, I went to talk to Lauren to see how she liked the bike. The next thing I knew, the two older gentlemen were walking over to us. I looked at them, thinking, oh boy… what did I do wrong now? Were they on my tail the entire time, was I holding them up? I didn’t remember seeing anyone in my mirrors most of the time. But they surprised me again by saying “We are sorry, we didn’t realize… you ladies can ride”.

I told them what we both ride, and that we are trackday riders, then we chatted about the Z1000 briefly before going our own ways. At first I was kind of annoyed by this exchange, but the longer I thought about it, the more funny it became. Another one of those things you wish you had on video.

[binx_19]

i did a demo ride on the zx-14, and the only feel i was able to get is the throttle, of course that was only a week after my accident so my shoulder was not the strongest, i might have to test ride one again.

[phoenixdown318]

heh if a girl is bold enough to go demo bikes at a bike rally alone with another female when the stereotype is what it is... why would you question her? Most females i know dont bite off more than they can chew to look cool like us guys do =P

[LaurenOE]

When they came up to us, I had the first few lines of this song in my head.

Tammy is the "good cop"...I'm not.

EXPLICIT LYRICS! NWS.

YouTube- The Crystal Method - Name Of The Game

YouTube- The Crystal Method - Name Of The Game

[JulesAZ]

You GO girls! Love to hear stories like that. Changing opinions about girl riders one person at a time

I want to hear how Lauren scared the lead rider LOL

[LaurenOE]

Originally Posted by JulesAZ

You GO girls! Love to hear stories like that. Changing opinions about girl riders one person at a time

I want to hear how Lauren scared the lead rider LOL

I think it started when I put on my raincoat that morning.

You see, A couple of years ago, I bought a Kawasaki raincoat/liner.
The same liner that all the Kawasaki employees this year, were wearing at Bike Week.

So, it looked like I was a Kawasaki employee. Maybe even a Kawasaki psycho groupie that had to match everyone? I don't know, but everyone was wondering why I wasn't wiping down bikes and helping out the other Kawasaki employees.

When I got in line for a Kawasaki demo ride, I don't think the lead rider got the message that I wasn't an employee.

On the bike, starting it up, I wanted to hear the intake noise everyone is talking about, so I revved it a few times. I think Tam did the same thing.

Somehow maybe she thought "Racer-employee-girl" was behind her?

As we left the demo line, and started to go out to the street, we were three abreast. I was getting ready to ride staggered, but there wasn't enough room, so I got next to the lead rider as we got to the first light or two.

Of course, knowing grandpa was thinking we'd take it too slow didn't help with me keeping my distance. Sure I was close, put I was never over braking and coming up her butt as I was always to the right of her even when she changed lanes at will. Doh!

As a lead rider, she kept YoYoing or doing the slinky, so it appeared that I was next to her. She braked on a straight just to get the other rides nearer.

Not too cool. Yeah, she had her low cut hiking shoes on and she was riding a ZX10R, but I assumed she'd recognize that I was harmless and be more familiar with urban group riding. No biggie as it's demo week and they probably have to be extra careful.

So, one or two of those brake points she made and sure, it looked like I was riding up on her, plus I had on the same gear as her and who knows what went through her head.

I didn't know anything was wrong until she flipped up her visor and told me to back off. She didn't want me that close again.

Uh..ok..sorry.

I still had a great time.

[acalliste]

It has to be a little stressful riding all day with people whose riding abilities are completely unknown to you. Maybe she has had incidents with others in the past. Or that day even.

It was only Tuesday though. She is going to be really frazzled by Friday.

[LaurenOE]

Originally Posted by acalliste

It has to be a little stressful riding all day with people whose riding abilities are completely unknown to you. Maybe she has had incidents with others in the past. Or that day even.

It was only Tuesday though. She is going to be really frazzled by Friday.

True.

[JulesAZ]

LOL sounds like she was a little intimidated.

[not2slow]

AC you seem to be blessed by the "if I ever played the lottery" I would win on the first try type of exsistance of life, you have the deffinant Karma bug hanging off your shoulder lol. Nice write up!

[acalliste]

I don't know about all that. If you knew some of the things I've been through you'd be glad you aren't me! Thanks though.

Originally Posted by LaurenOE

When they came up to us, I had the first few lines of this song in my head.

Tammy is the "good cop"...I'm not.

EXPLICIT LYRICS! NWS.

YouTube- The Crystal Method - Name Of The Game