sixteen thousand miles and counting

Last Friday I turned over 16,000 miles on my bike while going over 520 on my way to work. That makes a little over 13,000 miles I've put on the bike myself in about 19 months, or a little over 8000 miles per year. I'm pretty sure I put well over 7000 miles on the Vulcan before I got the BMW, so that means I've now ridden over 20,000 miles over the past two and a half years.

And sadly, probably at least 19,500 of those miles have been commuting to work and back. We haven't done much fun riding, unfortunately.

As far as I know, I'm the only woman who is still motorcycle-commuting full time now at my work, as the only bikes I'm seeing now all belong to men. Even those are starting to die down, with only 4-6 others showing up on a regular basis as opposed to the 20 or more that are around in the summertime. It's an interesting cohort to be in, the year-round motorcycle rider, and one that is probably comprised of stubbornness and partial insanity. There's probably a large component of testosterone in there as well, which is probably why I'm the only woman I know of who does it. Whether that makes me more or less crazy than the guys has yet to be seen, however.

I still love riding my bike every time I get on it, although I'm really starting to want bar risers more as time goes on, especially when I get stuck in traffic. Wearing the winter liner in my armored pants is quite annoying as well, as it reduces my movement ability and makes me feel quite stiff. My gloves, helmet, and boots are holding up beautifully, however, and my winter jacket is holding its own even though I'm getting the itch to get something different and more streamlined. Not anytime soon, however!
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I have officially decided that I will be going with other members of our flyball club to Phoenix, AZ for a flyball tournament on January 1, 2, and 3. Chris can't take that much time off from work, as most of us are driving down and back, so he will stay home with Curzon and I will take the three girls. The tournament is part of Wags for Wishes, an enormous annual fundraiser for the Make a Wish Foundation, and the overall event includes agility, dock dogs, frisbee, herding, obedience, rally, barn-dog, flyball, CGC testing, and more. We'll be quite busy with just the tournament, unfortunately, although I am planning to take Phoebe for a session of barn-dog and am hoping to maybe enter a wave or two of dock dogs competition.

Of course, we'll have to get there first - and that will involve two and a half days of driving to do it! I'll be riding with my friends Ben & Deb in their truck, and we'll be caravaning with four other people in two other trucks in order to handle transporting all of our equipment in addition to ourselves and the dogs. It should be a fun trip, but it's going to be a LOT of sitting in the car!