Happy New Year’s!

I always like to start out the new year by talking about motorcycles.

Since there isn’t any riding to blog about for New Year’s Day 2012, I invite you to take a trip down memory lane with me and check out rides past:

January 1, 2001
I ride with Kim and with Peter.  This may be the first (of many) documented rides with Peter that result in him using speaker wire to jumpstart his battery off of my bike.  Note my awesome riding gear, approximately none of which fits properly.

January 1, 2o02
I don’t ride, but talk about riding.  I mention meeting and riding with people like Cat and Diana for the first time, which means that I’ve now known them for over 10 years.  How is that possible given that we’re all still 19?  Plus, I have red hair, which is worth a photo:

January 3, 2003 (close enough to New Year’s Day)
I rode to the Wind Dancers New Year’s ride to lunch and it apparently didn’t pour down rain that year.  It may also be the first time I complain about getting lost in Fremont, a phenomena that continues unfettered to this day.  This is also my absolute favorite photo of my dad and me, taken at Christmas 2002.

January 1, 2004
Ah, now there’s the rain that I associate with the annual Wind Dancers New Year’s ride to lunch! Note the sexy latex gloves over my riding gloves.  I also complain a fair amount about the clutch on my SVS; I think this was around the time where I learned to adjust the clutch cable down at the cable release assembly in my sleep.

January 1, 2005
The year I got the XT225 for Christmas and started dual sporting. 🙂  The New Year’s entry talks about why I wanted the XT and why it’s an awesome bike…all of which are still true.  I miss riding on dirt!

January 3, 2006 (once again, close enough)
Another new year, another new bike.  This time, the Z750S joined the house and the SV650S was sold to my friend Bobby.  Even though I never really bonded with the Z, in some ways I wish I still had it.  It’s the most ergonomic of all the bikes I’ve ever owned and I think that would be pretty useful for my back issues now.  Course, my current Kawasaki is also ergonomically acceptable, so maybe I should just stop being distracted by shiny things.

January 1, 2007
I’m starting to think that I get bored with my bikes at Christmastime, as New Year’s 2007 had me talking about yet another new-to-me bike, the F650GS.  This blog entry talked about the Sport-Touring.net dual sport ride along Summit Road. This picture cracks me up because I’m so short that you can’t tell I’m standing up.

January 1, 2008
Apparently I didn’t really ride at all in January 2008 as I only have one blog entry from the entire month, and it’s just a team photo of my hockey team that season.  So, uh, well, here that is:

January 1, 2009
I started out 2009 really optimistically with a “beginning mileage” post. Little did I know that, by the end of summer, I’d be off the bike completely with the ruptured disc.  Sigh.  As far as New Year’s riding goes, two days later I posted about our first trip to Metcalf with the new CRF80F (again with the buying bikes in December).

January 3, 2010
For New Year’s 2010, I rode about 13 miles on the XT.  Nothing fancy, just a trip to the fabric store and around town, but 2010 wasn’t exactly a year of high mileage tours.  This photo looks like I haven’t showered in a week.  Ugh, I hated growing my hair back out!  There was also a blog post about my ruptured disc progress, in which I hadn’t ridden at all but had done a couple of public skates.

January 2, 2011
I rode about 13 miles at New Years in 2011, too.  This time my exciting destination was the doctor for a tuberculosis test (no interesting story there, sadly; just needed for the nursing home I volunteer at).  I was grumpy in this blog post because I was having trouble seeing the light at the end of the back pain tunnel.  Luckily, now a year later, I’ve been able to do 100 mile days, so maybe a little more optimism is warranted (though in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been having a minor flare-up the last few days after getting a massage.  How annoying is that?!).

January 1, 2012
Which brings us to 2012.  Well, as you already know, there aren’t any rides to report for New Year’s Day this year, plus I’ve somehow managed not to buy a new motorcycle this December, but I can still provide a cute picture of the Ninjette. 2012 will be a good year with a lot of new adventures…hopefully some of them will even be on the motorcycle!   I hope all of you had a great holiday and a fun New Years, and have a really nice 2012.  🙂  Ride safe!