10 years as a motorcycle rider

10 years ago, in June 2009, I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Basic Rider Course in Louisville, Kentucky, a course delivered by the Derby Motorcycle School. In fact, I signed up for the course months before I had even arrived back in the USA, when I was still living in Germany, because I knew these classes fill up quickly.

I got my license just a few days later after finishing the course, in July 2009.

And I'm still a motorcycle rider.

It's 10 years later and I've ridden more than 43,000 miles on my own motorcycle - almost 70,000 kilometers - almost all of it for fun on vacations and the weekends (rather than commuting). I did it on two motorcycles, actually: my first bike was a 1979 Honda Nighthawk, which I bought in November 2009 and road for two years, and now, my 2008 Kawasaki KLR 650, which I got in October 2011.

Via my motorcycles, I've been:

• all the way up through British Columbia, up to the Yukon via the Cassiar Highway and back down the Alaska Highway
   
• to Jasper, Banff and Kootenay National Parks
   
• Yellowstone, Western Montana and Wyoming
   
• all over Nevada, including Great Basin National Park and, of course, Rachel Nevada
   
• Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef National Parks, and Goblin Valley State Park in Utah
   
• Lava Beds National Monument, Lassen National Monument, Emmets Pass, Devil's Postpile, and lots more of Northern California and everything in between that and where we live in the Portland Metro area.
   
• All Over Idaho - which might not sound like much, but it's one of my favorite trips!
   
• Olympic National Park, Gifford Pinchot National Forest / Southern Washington State - really, and all over Washington state
   
• Steens Mountain, Eastern Oregon, including the Alvord Desert - all over Oregon - like up to Mt. Hebo via Siuslaw National Forest Service Road 14.
   
• And regularly all over Washington, Yamhill, Tillamook, Clatsop, Columbia, Clackamas and Wasco in Oregon, and Skamania and Klickitat counties in Washington state.

My only regret about my motorcycle riding is that I didn't take the MSF Basic Rider Course YEARS SOONER. I looked into it when I lived in Austin, Texas back in the late 1990s, before I moved to Germany, because I thought buying a small motorcycle and using it to get to and from work at the University of Texas would be a much better way of commuting. But I kept talking myself out of it.

Whether someone commutes by motorcycle, does simple cruises on a weekend, goes on epic long-distance trips for weeks or rides off-road, I totally get why people love riding a motorcycle. It's hard to say why I love riding a motorcycle without using clichés. It's so incredibly empowering to ride a motorcycle - it makes me feel stronger and more confident and more capable of handling life. I love how connected I feel to my surroundings on a bike and I love the focus I have on the road and the landscape and the surroundings when I'm riding. I feel so incredibly present when I'm riding, and I do not think about my professional work or cleaning my house or all my many obligations and responsibilities. My mind is completely free of all stress and worries. I'm just riding - turning this corner, taking this curve, stopping at this light, going over this hill. I love the long trips and I love just riding across town and back. I love the challenges: I love doing something I find hard to do, and doing it over and over and getting more and more comfortable doing it - and it may take a few hours or it may take months. I love that the more I practice, the more I ride, the better I get at riding. I love that I'm always improving. I wish everything that needs improving in my life was just a matter of practice.

I love after parking my bike and taking off my helmet and looking up and seeing a group of people staring at me, in surprise or disbelief or awe. I admit that I'd also love it if they frowned or otherwise looked disapprovingly. it shouldn't matter what people are seeing when they see me, but it does, and I like my image as a motorcycle rider - I'm not even going to pretend that doesn't matter. It does.

And I really love meeting people - people are happy to walk up and start talking to my husband and me when we stop on our motorcycles.

Stravaig, which is pronounced straw vague, is an Irish and Scottish word meaning to wander about aimlessly. One goes stravaiging about the roads. Stravaig is probably from an even older and obsolete word extravage, meaning to digress or ramble. I am all about stravaig, both on my motorcycle and in conversations: I love exploring and traveling and I really love exploring and traveling by motorcycle. It is fascinating and challenging and soul-reviving as anything you can experience.  

I don't see how I ever could have weathered the disappointments I've experienced since moving back to the USA, especially professionally, if I wasn't a motorcycle rider. When I get on the bike, I'm not thinking of all the hours I've spent preparing consulting proposals and job applications, hours that, by and large, have been for naught. When I'm on the bike, I'm not second-guessing the choices I've made. It's therapy, it's a mental reboot, it's an oasis, it's a shot of serenity.

Like I said, it's hard to talk about without sounding clichéd.

If you are a woman, I really encourage you to think about becoming a motorcycle rider. I swear it's cheaper than therapy. 

• My advice for getting started as a motorcycle rider
   
• Getting started on a dual sport: my journey (Changing from a cruiser to a dual sport)

To take the MSF Basic Rider Course, you do not have to have even touched a motorcycle, and the classes are available all over the USA (sadly, not in Oregon - they have some other group that does courses - if that's your only option, by all means, do it). All you need for the MSF courses are high-topped shoes (this can be tennis shoes - I used hiking boots), pants (no shorts), long sleeves and any kind of gloves that allow you to operate the controls. If you don't have a helmet, they will provide such. If you study up and take your written motorcycle test and get your permit before this class, you will get your license immediately upon finishing the class and presenting your paperwork to the DMV in most states (otherwise, you have to wait 30 days). Half of my class were women, and at 43, I was not the oldest woman in the class!

There's no obligation to get your license after you take a basic riding course. It's worth the price just to have the experience of trying, I promise. If you don't fall in love with it - if you do it and think, oh, no, not for me, hey, that's okay too! Congrats for trying.

If you do fall in love with it, as I did - see you out on the road.

10 years of motorcycle riding. Here's to at least 25 more!