Feeling a bit nostalgic...

Since I'm not currently riding, I thought I'd post some past experiences.

So, I was feeling a little nostalgic and came upon this photo of my first motorcycling experience. I mentioned at the start of my blog that the reason I am interested in motorcycling is because of my Peace Corps experience in Senegal. This photo is of a friend and fellow PCV and I who rode together quite a lot. The blue Suzuki is mine but I inherited her moto after she completed her service. On this day, we went out to this river just as an excuse to ride and take some photos. Kine is in the midst of jumping onto the railing as the timer went off to take our photo. There were some horrible biting flies along this river so we didn't stay very long and rode out pretty quickly.


The racks were made by metal workers in the village. We used strips of inner tubes to tie down our loads on the racks. Peace Corps didn't tell us but we later figured out that the bikes had registration that allowed us to cross the border and ride legally in the Gambia.

The bikes were Suzuki TS125's and handled very well in the sand and on the road. Of course, I had nothing to compare them too. I really liked them. They weren't too terribly tall for me. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer so we learned to adapt to what we had. I could stop in a rut in the sand to get on and off the bike if I had too. Mostly it was ok and I really didn't have to do that very often.

I once traded a watermelon and some cash for some maintenance on the bike. I actually had a watermelon with me to trade! That's funny now that I think about it.

New Wrenching Bike!

Well, I'd been looking for a wrenching bike - something that was close to my 450 that I could practice taking apart and putting back together. I found on Craig's List another CMX450 in a state of disassembly that ran not long ago but developed electrical trouble. Got a very good deal on it and was pleased to bring it home last week. Yay! Of course I have big plans for it but reality will dictate the outcome. Reality also dictates that this will have to wait until after we buy a house and move into some thing with more garage space. Or at least space we can manipulate and integrate the motorcycles into before the garage fills up.

Perhaps this bike will become my custom Saints bike with a black and gold paint job with fleur de lis on either side of the tank. Perhaps it will become an investment that I can resell to contribute to the Honda Magna dream fund. We shall see. I've ordered some parts catalogs to dog ear and mark up. I can at least figure out what the parts might cost for this dream bike. It is always fun to window shop. :-)

I've also discovered a moto maintenance class close to home. I'm going to sign up for that in March. Yay! The class is taught by Jasmine at Bluecreek Art Works. I'm really looking forward to it. When I first learned to ride in the Peace Corps, our six day training class was the MSF BCR class the first three days and the second three days was moto maintenance. I've lost those skills and would like to get them back. This class requires you to bring your own bike so you can actually work on it. Yay! Hubby says I should bring the basketcase bike. Ha!