David Gerulski, of Atlanta, Ga., has set a new Alaska-Argentina Trans-Americas Record, beating the previous record by seven days. He started his ride at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and rode south to Ushuaia, Argentina finishing in 27 days, seven hours, and 52 minutes. His companion was a 2005 BMW F650 Dakar off-road bike equipped with PIAA auxiliary lamps and halogen headlight bulbs - he rode 16 hours a day. I'm still working my way through his blog. Here's an article (it's virtually an ad for PIAA).

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The few times that a rider has pulled up next to me on the highway and given me the moto pick-up hand gesture (a couple twists of an air throttle), I've shaken my head, "no thanks". Last Sunday, after an Aikido seminar and with five hours of beta-endophins coursing through my neural pathways, I accepted my first anonymous moto pick-up. It wasn't a wild ride, just a companionable cruise through traffic, sort of like safe sex at 85 mph with both riders wearing a leather condom.

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Those of you who have written to me to tell me about your experience with menopause and various manifestations of mental illness, and given me words of encouragement, thank you. Thank you. Many people have commented on how riding has been a part of restoring a sense of balance in their life.

Maybe we are the generation that will pry loose the stigma of depression. Robert Pirsig, author of the seventies classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has given a rare interview (it is a pdf file so that the link won't get stale). His book was a best seller but the he didn't enjoy the fame; Pirsig became reclusive and his life has been bitter-sweet. In the interview he talks frankly about anxiety, depression, the death of his son and the road trip that inspired the book.

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For the past couple of weeks, the morning ride to the dojo has been preceded by a quick check on my car which is parked in the driveway to see if there's ice on the car. I figure that if there's ice on the car, then there's ice on the road and at five in the morning it is still dark. The idea of sliding out on a patch of ice on the Bay Bridge just doesn't appeal to me. I know, I'm no fun, no sense of adventure. If there's ice on the car, the bike stays home. This morning at 4:30 a.m. I ran a finger down my windshield. Just fog, no ice, but my grips were on the highest setting for whole ride. My hot flashes create random waves of heat, but at speed, the heat diffuses quickly. I have got to get that accessory socket looked at, whether naturally occurring or due to electrical glitches, intermittent heat is distracting.

I'm bothered by the rise of anti-aging medicines and beauty products in the American market place. What's wrong with aging? Everything ages, it is a consequence of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, it is the law of the universe. So why does our culture make aging a negative thing? Before I go on, I should say that I succumb to advertising for foods that are high in anti-oxidants, and, all my face creams have a beta-hydroxy formulation so I can't claim to be immune to the social imperative to preserve and value youth over wisdom.

What more can we ask for out of this life beyond living our life fully, riding motorcycles for as long as possible, and declining rapidly at the end with all our wits about us? Rather than use hormone replacement therapy, I'm trying to embrace this "passage" that I'm in now; menopause at my age isn't a calamity, although it certainly is a clammy experience. I'd like to for our culture to recognize that people become interesting, like scotch, wine, violins, and trees only by aging. Yes, I supposed you could add BMW motorcycles to that list.

Female Mechanics Calendar 2007
featuring 14 Female Mechanics photographed in their environments
by Sarah Lyon

At the beginning of the year, I was grousing about how there aren't any motorcycle calendars that I would put in my kitchen. The standard fare is more appropriate for the male-employees-only bathroom just outside the mechanics' bay. And just how do I know what the standard fare in the moto-mechanics bathrooms is? On that particular day I was particularly in need. The bathroom that customers are supposed to use was occupied, and the occupant must have been reading War and Peace, so I used the only facility I could find. It was hard to ignore the lovely, full-bodied young thing with barely anything on, draped over a bike, both tail ends facing me. Someone had artfully squirted silicon RTV on her rump, creating a 3-D "cum shot". No doubt about it, this was not the "customer bathroom".

I learned about Sarah Lyon's calendar about a week ago, ordered a copy and am enthusiastically recommending it to you for your kitchen, garage, or office. Sarah is an artist and motorcycle enthusiast. This summer she travelled over 6000 miles on her 1978 Yamaha XS750, photographing women mechanics from around the country. She found her subjects mostly through word of mouth. Sarah met with automobile, motorcycle, hot rod, jet airplane and diesel truck mechanics. This calendar is what young kids need to see so that more girls will be inspired to pursue this kind of career - real women mechanics working in their shop environments.

The Female Mechanics Calendar includes multiple images of each mechanic, along with her story of how she got into the non-traditional labor field of mechanics. Here's a link to the full story (pdf).

To celebrate my first half-century on this planet I have installed a PIAA halogen bulb as my standard light. Getting older is changing my vision; not only do I need longer arms to read anything without my glasses, I also seem to need a brighter light to feel comfortable riding in the dark.

As for the winter cold, I told service manager, Pat, and the new service advisor, Ryan, about the intermittent heat in my vest. When I picked the bike after its 12,000 mile service I was re-assured that the bike's brains had been reloaded from the latest CD, and that would fix everything. Well, I froze on my next morning ride.

If you ride a Beemer and you plug stuff into your accessory port like a GPS device, or heated vests, socks or gloves, listen up. If you are having problems with your accessory, it is likely that you need to draw current directly from the battery because, by design, the accessory port does not put out enough juice to run even my munchkin-sized heated vest. Initially when I plugged in my vest, I would see the blinking little red light on the rheostat. When the vest got up to temperature, the light should shine red continuously and I should be nice and warm. However, within five miles of my house, the light on the rheostat would be out cold. Cold, just like me.

From James' the technician's point of view, this could be a problem with the socket, or the cable from the socket to the rheostat, or the rheostat, or the jacket. Ryan consulted with a few folks in and around the shop and sure enough, the pessimal delivery of power from the accessory socket was a known problem. Solution? Bypass the accessory port and go to the source - the almighty battery. James wired the cable for the rheostat interface to a 7.5 amp fuse, which is wired to my battery. If that 7.5 fuse blows, we'll go to a 10 amp. And, to avoid confusing the bike, I'm supposed to plug the vest in with the rheostat in the off position, start the bike, and then turn on the vest using the rheostat. Before turning off the bike, I'm supposed to turn off the vest with the rheostat first. The need for a strict order for powering up accessories reminds me of some older operating systems that were very picky about the order for powering up peripherals like monitors and printers.

While the bike was getting its new hot-wired-to-the-battery cable, I was running errands on "Loaner 11", the only loaner bike I can touch down on. Getting on that CS brought back a flood of memories. I'd forgotten about the vibration from its single cylinder power plant. This is the bike that I was so scared of in 2002 that Carolyn, the sales person, offered to ride the bike to my home. I accepted, grateful that if I fell off the bike on my first ride, no one would see my shame. I guess I'm comfortable on 1200 GS now; the 650 CS felt like a scooter.

In the news category: I've sold my car; the GS is now my primary transportation. What about grocery shopping? The side cases fill up fast if you buy a half-gallon of milk, a box of breakfast cereal and a bunch of bananas. When I have to do the grocery shopping or bring a hot dish to a pot-luck dinner I will use Peter's car. I'm sure that by the end of winter I'll be much more appreciative of a warm cage. You could talk me into buying this Smart Car (not yet available in the US):

Speaking of warm, many thanks to all of you for your kind, warm-hearted emails. Hearing from you re-assures me that this blog is helpful and interesting to a few people besides my immediate family. Here's wishing that all of you have sufficient power coming out of your accessory socket and no electrical shorts in your heated vest - stay warm - be safe.

Happy New Year, all!