How do you talk about how you are on a path in life and a job loss translates into you ending up on national television three years later?

How do you talk about meeting with a guy who has generated six billion dollars in sales and he asks YOU who you want your product associated with and will pick up the phone and call anyone you want him to and the next thing you know, he’s sending you the address of where you’re going to send two jackets to a MAJOR celebrity whose name EVERYONE knows?

An hour before our episode of Shark Tank aired this past Friday, I got an email from the shark, Daymond John, in which he said that he had just viewed the entire episode. I asked him how the episode turned out and said: “After getting to know you guys, you are way more on top of your shit than your interview with the Sharks look like, but other than that, you still end up looking great.” Imagine my relief and that I wouldn’t have to be walking around with a bag on my head for a month! LOL!

At midnight, New York time, Saturday night, I get a phone call from Daymond, just checking in to see how things are going… we’ve had a lot of these calls and emails since last August when we did the taping and it’s been an extraordinary experience!

Is this a dream? Did I lose my job and wake up in a fantasy world where everything I hoped for and dreamed of in all this was coming true? If you ever wanted a partner in business, Daymond is the guy! He is the REAL deal and he has a big investment in helping people become successful! He has been helped enormously by other people in his life and he has turned all of that, coupled with his incredible success, into an enterprise that is all about helping people. He teaches at Babson College in Boston and spends a great deal of time mentoring entrepreneurs. And yes, he still makes clothes! What a dream!

I never set out in life to make protective gear. I never even wore protective gear let alone MAKE it! And yet, here I am, three years out from becoming unemployed. I had a need, I knew other people had a need and I just decided to do something about it… and now, well… I have NO idea what is coming next but what I DO know is that I now have someone in our camp that operates on a level that is SO far beyond what I could have ever imagined, has access to SO much and SO many people, that all I have to do is call him and say, “this is what I need”. WHEN in life do you EVER get that opportunity?

You GET that opportunity when you have an idea and you do something about it. If it weren’t for a great product, we wouldn’t be where we are today and wouldn’t have the interest we do. THIS is a testament to how you turn adversity into opportunity and how when bad things happen in your life, like a job loss, you make choices and say I will NOT be a victim of circumstance or the economy, you defy the odds simply by believing that ANYTHING is possible and then do something about it.

My head is still spinning and I am going to revel in this feeling because it is SO exquisite and I just want to feel it for a little bit longer before more of the hard work continues…

Arlene

PS — I’m going to be posting a lot about the experience on Shark Tank and the next installment will be about the actual taping and what we actually said versus what got shown on TV! Now THAT is going to be a juicy one! LOL!

Here is the story of one such person who recounted one of those stories to me in an email. I’ll let her tell you her story in her own words…

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By Elizabeth Lowry

I always wondered if I woke up in an ambulance whether I would remember to say “take me to Harborview.” After working in health-care communications for nine years, I knew that if something so terrible happened that I needed an ambulance, the only place I wanted to go was Harborview Medical Center, Seattle’s level one trauma center.

One Saturday afternoon in August, something did.

I was on my Vespa ET4 in Sodo, an area on the south end of downtown Seattle, riding up a small incline on gravel. As I accelerated, the back of the scooter sank into the deep layer of gravel, and my wheels spun without getting the traction I needed to move forward. I remember losing my balance and trying to brake. The next thing I remember was waking up in an ambulance, desperately asking about my 14-year-old son, who had been with me, and telling the ambulance staff that I wore contact lenses and what medications I took on a regular basis. Penny, the EMT, reassured me son was fine and that we were, indeed, on our way to Harborview.

I couldn’t move my left shoulder, and I was in excruciating pain. My head didn’t hurt and, and once I came to, I felt alert. But my shoulder was killing me. I was wheeled into an emergency room bay, and nurses, doctors and residents swarmed. The attending physician in the ER, ordered a trauma panel, which included a CT scan to make sure I didn’t have a head injury and extensive X-rays to see what was broken.

The last remains of the GoGo Gear Cafe jacket cut off Elizabeth in the emergency room

The staff whipped out some scissors and said they needed to cut my motorcycle jacket. They couldn’t take it off without moving my shoulder; and at that point, no one knew if it was broken. I sighed. OK. I admit, I sobbed a little. It was a brand new black ventilated café jacket by GoGo Gear with abrasion resistant fabric and armor – materials that, along with my full-face helmet, boots, jeans and gloves – protected me in the fall. They cut my t-shirt — which was OK since it was a $5 special from Old Navy and had a stain on it. “What about the bra?” someone asked. “Not that,” I protested. “It’s Calvin Klein.” The staff obliged and gingerly removed it before putting a gown on me.

After mercifully giving me some pain medication and whisking me away for the CT scan and X-ray, the nurse and the ER resident read my films. It was a broken collarbone on my left side – not a broken shoulder and no head trauma. It was the best news possible. The treatment: wear a sling for comfort, take pain meds and wait for it to heal.

I left Harborview about four hours after I arrived. My husband and two children, who had joined me in the ER, took me home. The broken collarbone meant I couldn’t move my arm without pain, even with the pain meds. For days I couldn’t brush my own hair or dress myself. A massive bruise extended from the base of my neck to the middle of my chest. I took a week off of work, and made sure I followed up with my primary care physician, who recommended I see a physiatrist, a rehabilitation physician who specializes in non-surgical techniques to promote healing.

Over the next couple of months, I returned to the physiatrist a few times. After a month, my clavicle didn’t appear to be healing, but a surgeon recommended waiting another month to see if the healing started. By the second month, my X-rays showed that the bone was finally healing, although slowly, and surgery wasn’t needed.

Six months after my accident, my collarbone is still healing, and I occasionally have some mild pain. An afternoon of yard work leaves my shoulder and collarbone throbbing. Advil or Aleve help. I have a permanent bump on my collarbone at the point of the break, caused by the bone reforming. “It makes you look even skinnier,” my sisters said with approval. Yay.

For months, my shredded café jacket lay on the floor of my bedroom, untouched since the day of the accident. I had promised Arlene that I would send it back to her so she could examine it for damage and see how it had fared. Eventually, the jacket made it into a box, which continued to sit on my bedroom floor for weeks. I can’t explain my reluctance to just put it in the mail. Maybe as long as that jacket was around, I could justify my apprehension at getting back on the scoot.

A few weeks ago, I took the box to work, determined to finally mail it back to GoGo Gear. I had purchased a new full-face helmet, and I still had my GoGo Gear trench, the first motorcycle jacket I purchased. Getting rid of the café jacket that had saved me was the last step.

Once it was in the mail, I got back on the Vespa, which fared better than I in the accident. Not a scratch on it, just a loose rear view mirror. I wobbled a bit as I headed up my driveway. I was tentative on curves. But I was riding.  Riding with caution, but not fear.  Now, the more I ride, the more confident I’m getting.

As for the café jacket, Arlene reported: “There was no evidence that anything ever happened to it, except of course them cutting it off of you. I knew that it would offer you the protection but to not have any evidence that you had fallen in it was definitely a surprise to me. I had expected it to be all scraped up, not torn in any way, but just scraped up, but nothing! How absolutely wonderful!!! I’m going to keep it as a memento, if you don’t mind!!!” I don’t mind at all.

The nice thing about scooters is that they are very patient. They are perfectly happy to sit in garages attached to battery chargers, just waiting until the moment we are ready to hop back on and buzz off into the sunset.

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Elizabeth, I’m so glad that you were okay, albeit with a very sore collarbone and I’m deeply grateful that our jacket did its job. You are a testament to why it’s so essential for people to wear their gear ALL THE TIME! No matter where you’re going, how fast you’re going, or anything else, safety gear is what will always stand between us and serious injury if not death.

We ride because it is what we must do… it is part of who we are and as a result, we owe it to ourselves to make sure that every day we go out there and ride, we give ourselves the maximum opportunity to ride long into old life!

Arlene

9999.9 miles

So, you ride a bike 10,000 miles and undoubtedly, this leaves you with a few things to reflect on and contemplate…

Never in my wildest dreams did I think riding a motorbike 10,000 miles would ever be possible and certainly not just since last year! I don’t know that I ever had a thought about this much riding, even early on when I bought my bike. I think it’s something that just gradually came into my consciousness as each mile ticked by.

I remember…

…riding down to Cabo San Lucas from Tijuana, the entire length of the Baja Pennisula with four guys I didn’t know in 103 degree heat over five days. At that time, I only had 800 miles on my bike. It was the kind of ride where I didn’t even think about preparing for because all I had ever done on a bike before was ride in urban areas and yet, there I was, taking a long distance trip on a little tiny bike without a care in the world!

Arlene reaches the Golden Gate Bridge

…riding the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco with my friend from Brazil, a Harley rider who rode a 250cc Honda Rebel for the trip.

…riding from LA to Reno via Yosemite with my pal from Massachusetts who had shipped her big Triumph Bonneville motorbike out to LA because after riding with me, she was heading back to Massachusetts alone, some 5,000 more miles.

…racing around the Salton Sea on the heels of nearly severing one of the fingers on my throttle hand and later through Death Valley in bone chilling cold, competing in endurance races.

…the trip back down into Baja and arriving at a place to encounter a rattlesnake, a whale and hundreds of sea lions in the most glorious thunderstorm, a place where there were no conveniences, the biggest of which was the internet and email. Spending a week completely disconnected does something to a person… after the initial freakout upon realizing one is completely disconnected and there is nothing they can do about it, they begin to experience life in a different way, a way that I can remember from a long time ago…

GoGo Gear baby among Harleys

How many times have I ridden the Angeles Crest Highway from beginning to end and all the way around again, the breakfasts and lunches at Newcomb’s Ranch and countless rides to the Rock Store and Neptune’s Nest in Malibu. And lest I forgot… how many miles can be attributed to riding the streets of LA..

And… I remember the life and death moment when I hit an enormous pothole on the side of the freeway and was airborne for lord knows how long before slamming back down on my bike seat. That was at about 7,500 miles. I’m glad that memory is distant now…

GoGo Bike in Lake Tahoe

I remember all of other trips I’ve taken on my bike and again, never considering what 10,000 miles would feel like, they just sort of passed and there I was yesterday, clicking over to 10,000 miles.

I remember the first time I saw a version of the bike I have. It was early 2010 and I was in New York at the International Motorcycle Show, exhibiting our jackets for the first time on the East Coast.  I took one look at that bike and stopped dead in my tracks. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life! I was smitten! I was also broke! LOL! It took months before I saved up enough money to buy that bike and I have never regretted it since. It is like a part of my skin, a part of my being, a part of who I am… I don’t understand how this can be given that it’s a thing and not a person but it just is… I think most people who ride can relate to this about a bike or scooter at some point in their life… THIS was the bike that allowed me to start riding again after 30 years… THIS was the bike that changed my life…

Arlene on the open road

During those 10,000 miles, I rediscovered a part of myself that I hadn’t seen for most of my life, the part that craved adventure, that yearned to be on a road with no destination, just being in motion, a language spoken yet unspoken among people who ride, a sense of life that requires nothing more than turning the key and going forward. This is the simplest way of living and in a world where, especially now as we approach the holidays, people are beating each other in stores just to get $20 off a video game, I crave nothing more than being on my bike, away from everything, quiet in the solitude that comes from riding…

I have no regrets in life, only a wish that I had started riding again a lot sooner, I would have probably had a much less stressful life… but I do not need to look back, only forward for now, I am able to ride when I want, as much as I want, wherever I want. There is something to be said about that kind of life…

Arlene in Baja

As I look forward now to my next riding goal, I must consider what is possible. I am determined to find a way to ride my little bike across the country. I know it’s probably unrealistic to consider such a journey on a little 150cc motorbike, but it is the bike I am most comfortable on and I will not rest until I am convinced that I cannot do it. I guess like most things in my life, I do not believe in the impossible, I believe that everything is possible and it’s just a matter of figuring out how to do it. I suppose defying the laws of gravity would be one of those things I can’t do, but short of that, I think that anything is possible and it’s only a matter of deciding that you believe that. I’ve never had a shortage of belief in doing what seems impossible because what is life without a challenge?

10000 miles

And so, I say goodbye to 10,000 miles and look ahead to how many more I will put on that little bike, to how many more people I will encounter in this lifetime as a result, and to the many other things I will rediscover and discover about myself in the process. I cannot think of a better way to live life…

Arlene

This story is about what I was doing when the odometer on my California Scooter Company little red rocket GoGo bike turned over past 9,000 miles!

On Saturday, November 5, 2011, I joined with a group of people to undertake what became a 397-mile endurance race! The event was put on by the Motor Scooter Land Speed Federation which is a very cool group of people! I competed in their event around the Salton Sea early in the year and now it was time to do it again, only this time it was “Hell’s Loop” through Death Valley!

Back when we did the Salton Sea event, I had just suffered the near severing of the ring finger on my right hand which meant I was wearing a splint on my finger for the entire race, not to mention no stitches in the finger since I hate needles so blood was gushing out throughout but I was NOT about to let the near loss of a finger prevent me from being in that race! That particular race was held in weather conditions that were really only problematic because of the wind. THIS event was a completely different story!

I had checked the weather report the day before the event and it said that it was supposed to be between 60–70 degrees that day. So, I packed up all of the gear I would need for that type of riding. Well… on the morning of the event, it was 37 degrees and for the entire day, I don’t know if the temperature ever climbed above 50! If it did, I wasn’t aware of it because I don’t think I have ever been that cold for such an extended period of time!

So, let me just give you the upshot of it all… by the time we were about 10 miles down the road, I knew I was in BIG trouble because my hands were so cold they were burning. I had two pairs of latex gloves under my regular riding gloves but there is no way that was going to work when you’re riding in below 30–40 degree temperatures riding at 65 mpg!

I rode for another 20 or so miles and then had to pull off the freeway because I simply could not ride another mile because my hands were so cold. And of course, once part of your body gets cold, the rest of you gets and stays cold very quickly.

The other problem is that I had taken a different helmet this time, one that was lighter than the one I normally wear because 400 miles is a long way to ride with a heavy helmet on. Another big mistake! Air blowing up inside my helmet, my earplugs, once in my ears, now gone with the wind at whatever point I had removed my helmet. Feet that had decent socks on them but NOTHING that would adequately contend with the cold. And the list goes on and on of how I was completely unprepared for that kind of riding.

Fortunately, there were three of us riding in a group because the reality was, it would not have been good for me to ride this event alone although some of the other riders did but for me, with no service stations anywhere that you could be towed to and no way out once you were in Death Valley but to ride your way out, I did not want to be alone riding and certainly not in such horrible weather conditions. And so, one of the guys I was riding with lent me a pair of his gloves which I promptly put over my other gloves. My hands were still so freezing that he told me to put my hands under my armpits! No, not in the armpits outside the jacket, but to unzip my jacket and multiple layers and tuck my hands in my armpits! I felt kind of stupid doing that but lo and behold, with a very short period of time, my hands warmed right up! I wondered if there was any way I could do the entire ride with my hands in my armpits! No such luck if you’re riding, unless of course you’re on the back!

Now, rather than go into every excruciating detail of this ride, let me just summarize the finer points…

I was carrying two full gas cans on the back of my bike because we had been forewarned that there was only one gas station half way around the loop.
We knew that we would not make it all the way without carrying gas with us so we put the cans on the back with bungee cords and off we went!

Within the first ten miles or so, we had to pull over because the cans were coming off the back of my bike. The rider in front didn’t realize that we had pulled off the freeway and while two of us left the freeway, he continued to ride on. I think he must have figured we would just get back on the freeway right away, but we were off the freeway for probably 15 minutes before we could continue again and so off we went and after riding for about a half hour, we see him coming back down the freeway in the other direction but at the moment he is passing us, he is looking down at his bike and so he never sees us go by! We ride for another half hour and then decide we better pull over and call him to see what was happening. Long story short, he was 20 minutes behind us and so we decided to wait for him to rejoin us and I was more than happy to do so because my hands were getting nice and toasty in my armpits!

As the day progressed, we were pulling off the road so many times that we lost count. The other major issue was that my headlight bulb burned out right at the beginning of the event and while illegal to ride in California with a burned out headlight, the bigger concern was we were now so late getting started in the ride that we might end up riding back in the dark which was going to be a very big problem!

So, we’re fully into the ride, stopping for gas where we could, paying $5.78 per gallon which I was more than happy to pay given we had no choice and needed gas! Encountered a National Park Ranger who was being very officious in announcing to us that one of our bikes had a dealer plate on it and there were no dealers anywhere around there and he could essentially confiscate the bike because we were riding in the park with a bike that had a dealer plate. He then wasted about a half hour of our time, investigating our bikes and lecturing us about whether or not we were supposed to be on the road and THEN, going on and on about bikes and he was Mr. Know-It-All. I kept my mouth shut and let the guys do the talking and was happy to do so because I couldn’t stop looking at the big gun he had in his holster AND the HUGE shotguns he had in his truck. Nope, didn’t need to shoot my mouth off at THIS guy!

He finally shut up and we were on our way again and continued riding for hours! All of this happened before it was even 11am and we weren’t even 150 miles into the race!

The entire time I was riding, I kept thinking, WHEN is the sun going to start warming things up so I can stop shivering but even as the sun was out most of the day, it never got warm enough for my teeth to stop chattering. Imagine, 400 miles and you have chosen to do this! Talk about crazy! Well, yes, perhaps a little bit!

By the time we go within a 100 miles of our finish, it was clear that our race against time had us in a position where all we could do was press as hard as possible to make it before dark. We pulled into a town called Trona, CA to see if there might be a store that carried headlight bulbs but found nothing but a huge town that was all but abandoned. It was a very odd thing to ride through this town and see every house boarded up, every business closed, an absolute ghost town except for this big factory that was doing something with minerals and the only way I knew it was still operating is because there was steam coming out of the smokestacks and there were lights on in the building, other than that, the one gas station which I’m not sure actually had any gas but was still open. A very strange thing, indeed…

Trona was about 65 miles from our destination and at this point, the temperature was rapidly dropping and I thought, I’m going to die out here from exposure! Yes, a bit melodramatic, but when you’re that cold, that’s all you can think. In fact, less than half way through the event, I was thinking, you know, I could just turn right around and head back to the starting point and be perfectly warm and have a nice day but no matter how uncomfortable I was, this was something I wanted to do and there was no way I was quitting.

By the time we turned on to the last highway, which really wasn’t much of a highway in those parts, I just thought, I just cannot imagine making it to the finish line and by this point, I didn’t care anymore, all I wanted was to be warm again. And then, the sign appeared that said we were 32 miles from the finish. I tell you what, I don’t know what happened to the three of us, but we were riding so fast into that fierce wind like there was no tomorrow. The wind had been a huge culprit throughout the day and bikes that would normally go 70mph with no problem were beaten down to 45 if lucky, but there we were, like we had seen the light from the lighthouse out at sea and we knew we were almost home and so we rode like maniacs, me sandwiched in between both guys because it was now on the verge of being dark and there was no way anyone was going to see me out there and so we rode with complete abandon and finally pull into the parking lot, some 9-½ hours later, frozen to the core of our being but we FINISHED!!!

When we arrived, all three in unison, the group of other riders and organizers were all standing outside in the parking lot, looks of worry and relief on their faces because they had all been through the same thing we had but we were so late getting back, the organizer had started making phone calls to people we knew just to find out if any of the three of us had called anyone. Fortunately, everyone knew the three of us were together so there was some comfort in that, but still, it’s a pretty harrowing experience not knowing where riders are and it’s dark with no lights anywhere in those parts.

We had a huge celebration among all the riders and trophies were given out and believe it or not, the winner of the event, beating everyone on bigger bikes was a guy riding a Kymco 50cc scooter! How on earth he managed to beat everyone to the finish line is beyond me but this is the beauty of an event like this, it doesn’t matter what you’re riding, there are things that happen on the road, including missing exits which result in you going a hundred miles out of your way. And for me and my riding partners, it turns out that two of us were on the only 150cc bikes in the event and even though we arrived last, we both won in the 150cc class! How fantastic is THAT?!!!

One thing is for sure, everyone at that celebration said the same thing, they were cold from the moment they started the race and yet every single rider finished the race! Something to celebrate, for sure!

The beauty of an event like this is that you get to test your limits, you do it among other people who are doing the same thing and you never know what might happen, which is part of the beauty of the whole thing! AND, you get to tell people that you did it!

There is a real kinship among the people who have done these events and this is only my second one, but there is something really wonderful about being with a group of people, people who are not so much bike or scooter enthusiasts as they are people who want to see how far they can push themselves! And doing it on a bike is all the more fabulous because who wouldn’t want to spend an entire day riding through some of the most awe inspiring places in the country! No matter the cold or wind or weather conditions, there is no taking away from seeing things that are so spectacular that you think your eyes can’t be seeing correctly!

This is the kind of riding I like and I especially like seeing things that are unbelievable! A day of riding like this is like taking an entire month off of work and coming back exhausted but so exhilarated that the world seems a bit different at the end of it all. Of course, it’s not the world, only our experience of it and if I had one dream in life, it would be to ride every day like this!

Arlene

PS – it took me two hours to drive my Jeep home that night with my bike on the back. I had my heated seats on and the temperature at 85 the entire way. It was not until I got home and into the steaming hot shower that I finally got warm!

The perfect storm hit… and but for the grace of God go I, for I have survived to tell about it.

To make a long story short… I was riding my bike on the freeway this afternoon… even after having checked my gas tank before leaving… I ran out of gas going close to 70mph on the freeway which meant I had to get over to the side of the road as quickly as possible… I was on the connector from the 57 freeway heading south to the 10 freeway heading east for any of you who know Southern California freeways… a particularly treacherous connector road…

A huge semi-truck was barreling down on me as I was trying to get over and as I managed to get on to the side of the freeway, all I could see was dirt and gravel everywhere. I am trying to slow down and stay on what little pavement exists so I can remain safe from the gravel when out of nowhere is a pothole larger than any I’ve ever seen before… easily a foot deep, 18 inches wide and at least a foot across… by now I have slowed to 60 mph but there is no time to react to anything, I’m going to hit the pothole at 60mph and there is only one likely outcome… I am going over the handlebars, am likely to land on my head or back, will either be killed or paralyzed for life… No, this is not being overly dramatic, this is a reality of how things usually work when you hit a deep and wide pothole at 60mph on a bike…

Such a pothole could damage the frame of a car but imagine it on a body moving at 65mph, riding on a little 150cc motorbike with 13-inch wheels…

It all happened SO fast as is often the case for anything like this when it happens… your brain is processing everything that’s happening but you are in slow motion… you know what’s happening, you kind of know what the outcome is going to be, you just sit there riding it out and it’s all happening in a split second and time slows down as if that were even possible…

As soon as my front tire hit the far edge of the pothole, all I know is that my entire body came off the bike, I went flying into the air, high above the bike, where my legs were at this point, I have no idea because it happened so fast, I don’t even know what was going on, I just know that I was airborne and through it all, there were my hands, on the handlebars, my right hand still on the throttle as if I was stuntbiker just doing a stunt where they are doing a handstand on the bike… I am still moving at 60mph and the next thing I know, I am slamming back down on to the seat of the bike as if none of it had ever happened… I am back on the seat and slowing to a stop in the gravel…

I finally come to a stop, turn off the bike, put the kickstand down, walk around the other side of the bike and stand there, not knowing how on earth it is possible I’m standing there looking at the bike…

The next thing I notice is that my entire neck, shoulders, back, all the way down to my rear end are shooting with pain, a feeling like someone has punched me in the kidney, like my entire body had experienced whiplash and indeed that is what happened… I hit the pothole with such impact that it was like running straight into a wall at 60mph. I was flung through the air with the same velocity and came slamming down on the bike, again, with the same velocity and impact…

I have now inhaled 2400mg of Ibuprophen hoping that when I wake up in the morning I will be able to move but somehow I have a feeling that no amount of Advil is going to make a difference…

I am numb to what might have been, and perhaps that is why I feel so sick tonight… the adrenaline got me through the worst of it but now… as I sit safely at my desk, the gnawing feeling of what might have been and almost was is creeping up on me and it’s a horrible feeling…

But through it all, here is what I DO know…

This was not about me riding a motorcycle, this was about a random event that nearly claimed my life… people say that motorcycles are dangerous but in and of themselves, of course they’re not. This was not an act of stupidity or someone texting while driving and running me off the road or someone swinging their car door open as I was passing by, THIS was completely random and I lived to tell about it, some people aren’t so lucky…

Here’s what else I know…

I know that I am forever indebted to the people who taught my motorcycle safety class in which we learned how to deal with unforeseen events on the road… the one thing they taught us is that you don’t panic when you encounter something unexpected and you DON’T slam on the brakes in an encounter… slamming on the brakes is what leads to people flying over the handlebars and killing themselves… I know that my dear friend Joe Berk from California Scooter Company, has taught me more about safe riding than anyone else, short of my pal Madeline Velasquez who just completed a 6,000 mile solo journey from coast to coast. These two people have taught me everything I know about safe riding and today, it all came to bear and I have lived to tell about it.

In this situation, I did not panic… I kept my hands on the handlebars, although how I managed that, I have no idea given the absence of the rest of my body which was in flight… I kept the bike moving, not by choice but by instinct, whatever I learned in that safety class, wherever those lessons were in my subconscious, they were absolutely present in this moment because my bike was straight up, no brakes on, continued to give it gas and ride through the moment and stay with it whatever the outcome…

My body is in so much pain right now and perhaps the Ibuprophen will kick in at some point and hopefully I WILL be able to walk in the morning BUT the more important point is… I am grateful that I am right now typing this instead of being in the ICU at the hospital or worse, dead on the side of the road… that was a VERY realistic outcome to this and for whatever reason, today was not that day for me…

The one thing I should note at the end of all this is that… I still had another 60 miles to ride before I got home and I have to tell you… I had a moment before I got back on that bike when I thought to myself… “that’s it for me… that scared the living daylights out of me and I’m done…” but that was only a moment out of fear and terror because…  the second I sat back down on that bike, fired it up and got going again, I calmed right back down, settled in and relaxed into who I am…

I am a rider through and through and no matter what happens in life, even those awful random acts, one thing remains true and constant for me… I only feel the whole of myself when I am riding… and I will always ride no matter what.

Arlene

GoGo Gear Men’s Military jacket

Well, we’ve been feverishly working to get our first men’s jacket to market (arrival sometime after 4^th of July we hope) http://www.gogogearla.com/pages/Men%27s-Jackets.html, we weren’t able to attend this year’s Amerivespa because we were auditioning for the TV show “Shark Tank”, anxiously awaiting word on THAT and tonight (sorry, we couldn’t say anything before!), we will be riding with 50 other scooter riders to the Hollywood premiere of the new Tom Hanks, Julie Roberts movie, Larry Crowne. Needless to say, we’ll be angling to get jackets on both of them given that we’ll be riding WITH them down the red carpet!!!  We secretly flew in four brand spanking new men’s jackets just for the event so without a doubt, there will be “Go” men AND women on that red carpet tonight!

And, in a week, I’ll be heading out on my little GoGo bike with my pal Madeline to head up into Yosemite National Park where we’ll probably log more than a thousand miles in a week. My goal is to put 10,000 miles on my little bike by the end of the year and this trip is going a long way toward adding the miles on! A big thank you to everyone at California Scooter Company (www.californiascooterco.com) for all their help in getting me ready for this big ride AND for their amazing good humor each time I bring my bike back to the “spa” because I am still so excited to be on that little bike that rarely does a month go by that I don’t drop the bike! Go figure!

And on Tuesday, we’ll be attending a debriefing on whether or not we’ll be exhibiting the GoGo Gear line of jackets for men and women, ALL OF THEM, at MAGIC, the most important fashion industry tradeshow in the US. We’re considering presenting the jackets as regular fashion jackets to expand our reach so this would be a significant thing for us if we decide to do it. More to follow on this…

And, I’ve been busy working with a leading author of all things Fashion on a brand new website that is targeting people who want to start a new clothing line or fashion business. There are countless things I didn’t know when I started GoGo Gear and with the knowledge I’ve gained over the past two years, I’m joining forces with a very significant fashion industry author to bring a website to life that will offer all of the insights and tools that I wish I had had when this all started.

What a ride (no pun intended!) it has been some two years now and into this and each day brings a different challenge and thrill. I never dreamed two years ago that tonight I’d be riding my little GoGo bike down the red carpet in Hollywood to a movie premier with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts nor did I imagine I’d have that little GoGo bike OR that I, formerly of the corporate world, would be doing something so inconsistent with my background, profession and academic training. And here we are, two years later, I see people riding down the street wearing GoGo Gear jackets and I squeal with delight, I speak at fashion industry events about what it’s like to be a startup apparel company, we get invited to present our company to venture capitalists, we audition for Shark Tank and best of all, the thing I love the most, is the daily interaction I have with people about our GoGo Gear. I had no idea how many new friends I was going to make as a result of all of this! It absolutely goes without saying that I am blessed with such abundance in my life that has absolutely nothing to do with money and EVERYTHING to do with people. Now THAT is a life worth living!

Arlene

On February 7, 2010, I received an email that said only the following…

“How much does the Military, Cafe and Racer cost?”

“How can I learn more about the jackets liner, material, size and protective gear?”

The email address was abbreviated so there was no way to identify who sent it and the person who sent it did not sign their name.

Now the reason I’m telling you this is because in February 2010, we had not yet begun shipping our jackets and photos of our jackets had been on our website for about five months at that time. For anyone who is in the apparel business, questions like these lead you to believe a competitor is trying to get information from you.

I generally have very good instincts about things and people but when it comes to what people write in emails, it gets a bit more challenging. One of the ways my instincts let me know something isn’t quite right is that I’ll read the email and if I instantly get a weird feeling about it, I’ll trust my instincts and either not respond OR I’ll do so in a way that gives just enough information without disclosing anything proprietary. As an aside, the one time I didn’t trust my instincts about an email I received, I ended up having to deal with an adult film company who decided to use my former vacation rental home to shoot a porno video in! Should have trusted my instincts! But, I digress…

Meanwhile, back at this rather cryptic email… I decided to go ahead and answer the questions because while I was a bit uncertain, I didn’t get one of my usual stiffened spine reactions and so I replied.

Well, it’s a good thing I replied because what followed from that first email is the start of a wonderful friendship and that friendship comes in the form of Madeline Valesquez, a Ducati Monster, Triumph Bonneville motorcycle riding instructional technology teach in a small town in Massachusetts.

Madeline probably owns more GoGo Gear than any of our other customers. She is also the most active about promoting our products to anyone and everyone who will listen. In fact, in May 2010, she harassed a local motorcycle dealer into letting me come there for their “Blessing of the Bikes” event so that I could show their customers our products. Madeline then went so far as to let me stay at her home for the days of the event and has extended her home to me for any occasions where I might be in that part of the country. We have become fast friends and I am grateful to call her my friend.

Over the past year that I’ve known Madeline, she has always been a champion of me riding, riding safe, doing everything the right way, giving me advice on all things motorcycles and giving me a wonderful peek into HER world of riding! This is a woman who ventures out with the Latin American Motorcycle Association members, often being the only woman among the riders, and keeps up with the guys who are flying down the freeway in excess of 100mph. I marveled at her riding in the pouring rain and freezing cold that May in Massachusetts at the bike event I attended. I went so far as to videotape her riding on the freeway with my iPhone! I so admired her ability to do what she was doing and it made me long for the days I used to have of being carefree, being out on a bike and just going wherever. It is Madeline who unlocked the door for me in terms of my willingness to venture and just GO and since that time, I have ridden the entire Baja Peninsula, driven the Pacific Coast Highway from LA to San Francisco, competed in a 400-mile endurance rally, just recently returned from another ride through Baja, will likely drive from LA to Seattle and possibly Vancouver and one day, I WILL drive across country. And THAT is where this story begins…

Madeline is going to be driving her Triumph Bonneville from Los Angeles to the East Coast this Summer, alone! She is shipping her bike to LA where she and I will ride up the Pacific Coast Highway together, through Yosemite and back to LA where she will then begin her journey eastward.

I asked Madeline if she would be willing to write a guest blog post about exactly what she’s doing and why and so here, in her own words is Madeline Valesquez, my friend…

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The idea came about when Arlene kept posting beautiful pictures on her blog and Twitter and showing twisting roads in the California coast line.  Those pictures on Twitter kept calling me to ride them.  She tweeted and tweeted and tweeted, teasing me to come out and ride with her riding her GoGo bike.  In a very short time, Arlene became a long distance rider and blogging about awesome riding experiences. At one point, I tweeted back to Arlene and commented, “that’s it, I’m shipping a bike out there and riding with you” to which she replied, “bring it on girl”.  Poor Arlene, she had no clue what she had done………  That was the beginning of this chapter in my life.

I learned to ride motorcycles when my son Miguel was a teenager.  I was riding my little 4-stroke Honda 100cc until I got too old to continue following a crazy teenager in dirt, mud, water, rocks, tree stumps, old railroad tracks and trails with very slippery tree roots.  I loved every moment of it.  I kept riding with the boys riding 2-stroke engine dirt bikes and loving the thrill of the power those little things gave me on first and second gear.  The only thing that stopped me from riding was that I ran out of trails and those old abandoned train tracks were too much for a middle aged woman on my legs bouncing from bump to bump.  After a few years of that, I bought a horrible Kawasaki Vulcan and hated the damn thing.  Rode it for a while until I test rode my current 2000 Ducati Monster 750. It felt like I was back on my dirt bike. The difference now was that I had endless highways and roads that would allow me to ride until I had to come home to walk dogs and sleep to get up the next day to take care of my teaching job.   I love being a teacher, but sometimes wish that I could change my career to a job where I could just ride my motorcycle.  I go to work during the fall, winter and spring and dream while working and say to myself, “I’d rather be riding”. Yeah, I stole that phrase from the BMW sticker.

Riding with the boys from the Latin American Motorcycle Association taught me how to ride very long distances.  They are very passionate about their bikes and have taught me quite a few lessons along the way, particularly how to ride through New York City through those dark tunnels.  I hope I can carry that experience when I ride through the tunnels I will be riding through, particularly in Colorado down I-70. These boys also taught me how to ride in the rain at very high speeds.  I don’t recommend that type of riding, but that is what I do now. I ride my motorcycle, rain or shine………….

I now love to ride for as long as I can tolerate it.  I think riding solo will be a totally whole new experience and challenge for me.  I will not have those guys to follow, I will have to force myself to stay on course and not fall asleep. I will be riding my motorcycle in the heat in July through the Mojave Desert alone roasting myself in 110 degree heat or above. I will take off with hopes that I don’t die along the way at the hands of some idiot on the road!  I will be riding my little Bonnie in desert heat riding 270 miles from LA to Las Vegas, don’t know what I am going to do there because I am not a gambler!  I also hope that those state troopers don’t stop me because I plan on riding as fast as I can to get off that highway and find an air conditioned room in Las Vegas to cool off from riding in horrible desert heat.

The question everyone keeps asking me is, “Why”?  They say, “Are you nuts?”  At times, I ask myself those questions, but the main reasons are:  Because I can… Because I need another challenge in my life… To satisfy my own desire that I can accomplish such a goal… I’ve been riding motorcycles for many years and have gained enough courage to do something like this… I JUST WANT TO RIDE AND RIDE AND RIDE AND RIDE AND RIDE SOME MORE AND FORGET ABOUT WORK AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS AND THE WORRIES OF THE WORLD… And sadly, for my friend Darlene, who passed away from lung cancer. The last time I saw her was during a very long motorcycle ride and she was very scared as she rode on the back of her husband’s motorcycle. After we got home, she posted a picture and commented “an Angel was with us the entire ride and was protecting us”. She is now my angel that will watch over me as I ride across our beautiful country and think of her…

I kept thinking, once done riding California, a normal person would just hop on a plane and fly back home.  Instead, I will mount the saddle and ride my Bonnie home and see more beautiful roads, particularly in Utah and in Colorado.  I’ve heard so much about Utah, I cannot wait to check it out myself.  Colorado is also a beautiful state and I am looking forward to spending some time with my friends in Colorado Springs.

I created a website called www.missrider.com to chronicle my adventures and hope to be using a SPOT Personal Tracker to provide my worried daughter with some sense of comfort.  If I ride off a cliff, not that I will be riding next to dangerous cliffs, the SPOT tracker should be able to get me help.  If my bike breaks down, I will be calling the American Motorcycle Association to come get my bike and tow it to the nearest garage.  Dear God, please don’t let that happen!!!  I am hoping to carry a flat repair kit, not that I would know what to do, but rumor has, the world is full of wonderful people willing to help a girl riding her motorcycle alone.  So, all of that should help me get through the long haul across America. I have a very good feeling that I will meet nice people and have a wonderful ride this summer.  I am scared, but will ride to see the country.  See you on the road America, in July.

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And so, to my friend Madeline, I wish you safe travels on this amazing journey and I’m thrilled to ride along side for part of your ride. I was hoping I could make the ride cross country with you but you have taught me that I must respect my limits and so for now, until I feel confident enough, I will satisfy myself in reading your blog each day as you make your way across this amazing country of ours. It is going to be the ride of a life time and I can’t wait and one day, I will show up at your house again and it will be at the end of MY cross country journey! Thank you for being such a wonderful teacher!

Arlene

GoGo Bike on the road

Get yourself a big cup of coffee, this is probably the longest blog post I’ve ever written! So, here goes!

Suffice it to say, I’m pretty crappy about getting our blog updated in a timely manner and this is no exception! So many things happen so fast around here that I often don’t know if I’m coming or going and that’s part of what made this most recent trip to Baja so special…

The Perfect Baja Day

Let me start with the most remarkable part of the trip… for almost a week, we were completely disconnected from the rest of the world. No cell reception anywhere and virtually no internet connection. The one or two times I managed to get online at the local internet “café”,  which was actually a tiny store selling Barbies and clothing and had a rotary dial telephone on the wall for people to use and no lights on to speak of, it took me one hour and twenty minutes to connect via dial-up service. We don’t ever really pay much attention anymore to how graphic intensive websites are because most computers are so fast that you just don’t notice but when you’re in the middle of nowhere and you are using ancient computers and dialup service, you realize just how slow the world used to be. When you’re completely disconnected like this, an entirely new world opens up to you, that is, IF you choose to open your eyes…

So let’s go back to the beginning… last September, I rode the entire Baja Peninsula with four terrific guys, one of whom was John Welker. Well, about a month ago, John emailed me asking if I wanted to ride down to Baja again because he had a place on the Sea of Cortez and was going down one last time before moving to Florida. I had to think about it for all of a nanosecond before saying YES, YES, YES!!! The other GoGo Girl, Desiree, decided she wanted to go too so the three of us set off en route to Bahia de Los Angeles on Saturday, April, 2^nd.

Desiree and I met John at a gas station just north of the US-Mexico border in San Ysidro. We offloaded my bike, Desiree driving the Jeep with the bike rack on it and John following in his SUV filled to capacity with all the things he was taking down to Baja.

We started the drive at about 9:30am and began the slow crawl through Tijuana, down the coast through Rosarito, and then down into the ever busy Ensenada. It took forever to get through Ensenada as this is the place where everyone in the northern part of Baja go to get everything they need. The addition of a Costco and WalMart have changed everything on the Peninsula!

Threatening Skies in Baja

Once through Ensenada, we picked speed as the traffic tapered off but we were on to the long and very winding roads for the next hundred or so miles. At certain points, I was able to travel at 72mph but the sustained winds just beat down on us and I was averaging about 55mph through the headwinds. As we worked our way down the coast, we hit a stretch where it was cold and rainy, or I should say, misty. It was misty enough that everyone but me had their windshield wipers on and since I don’t have any on my helmet visor, I was wiping my visor every few seconds. No matter the weather, I couldn’t have been happier because I knew I was going to spend the entire week riding my little bike and so I happily went along my way. Now keep in mind, there’s Desiree and John struggling behind me because they are in cars capable of going a zillion miles an hour and they’re stuck behind me on a little motorbike, but they were complete troopers and stayed behind me the entire way.

It’s a Baby! The GoGo Bike Meets the Hogs

After a full day of riding some 320 miles, we arrived in Catavina, the same place we stopped during our September trip. Upon arrival at the small hotel there in the “middle of nowhere” desert, we pull up and see eight Harleys parked in the front way of the hotel. Of course, wanting to be the center of attention with my little bike, I manage to squeeze in between two of the Hogs and park my bike knowing that within a short amount of time, a gang of Harley riders would emerge and wonder what the heck that little bike was doing out there in the middle of nowhere! Well, imagine my surprise when the Harley riders all turn out to be from Switzerland and Germany! I knew they were the owners of the bikes because they were all crowded around my bike so of course, I can’t resist and I sneak up behind them and hear the women remarking “It’s a baby!” and some guy chimes in and says “Junior!” I got the biggest laugh as I introduced myself as the owner and explained to them that I had ridden that bike the entire 1,100 mile length of the Peninsula! They were all shocked, most of all the leader of the “pack” because he had been doing the Baja ride for the past 20 years and couldn’t imagine it on such a little bike! We spend the next half hour swapping stories about Baja and then, several margaritas later, we all retire for the evening, exhausted from the day.

The Cove in Baja

Sunday morning greets us with yet another cold, windy, cloudy day and we’re up early to get on our way. We only have about 120 miles to go to our destination but we need to get there early because John has a lot he has to do to get his house operational, including hooking up the solar panels and everything needed to get the water running and everything else. He hasn’t been to the house in over a year so there’s no telling what we’re going to walk in and find and much to my dismay, we didn’t know what we were going to encounter OUTSIDE the house! More on that in a minute…

The 120 miles from Catavina to Bahia de Los Angeles is long and bumpy and you feel as if your teeth are going to be knocked right out of your head from how bad the roads are but I was just as happy as could be because I was back on my little bike. I had really pushed it the day before and probably went a lot further than I should have because within about 60 miles of Catavina, every

Cacti on the rock

part of my body was aching from such a long ride and Desiree commented that I should have just put the bike on the back of the Jeep but I wasn’t about to give up one second of riding and so on this day, I was definitely paying for the pleasure I had the day before! I didn’t care because this part of the ride is one of extraordinary beauty because you see boulder fields that are so enormous you feel as if you have entered a landscape found only on the Moon or Mars. You then come out of the boulder fields and into an endless stretch of cactus fields that are so tall, they are higher than most houses. It is this part of the Baja Peninsula that I love the most! It is quiet, peaceful, strange yet beautiful and something I will always look forward to on each trip to Baja.

Sunrise in Baja

Sand and Mountains in Baja

Coming up over the hill into Bahia de Los Angeles, you catch a glimpse of the bay and you are immediately transformed. Whatever stress you may have been feeling, instantly disappears because you are truly in a different place, one that is so remote you can’t help but feeling like you’re on the TV show Survivor! Now, for many people like myself, the prospect of being on Survivor is the last thing in the world you want because wired up, plugged in, city folk like me have a hard time disconnecting and settling down and relaxing into the rhythm of such a remote place and to be honest, I nearly had a meltdown when I discovered I didn’t have any cell reception and only intermittent internet access with dial-up! THIS is a problem for someone like me and also for someone who is still running their business while on vacation. Perhaps THAT was the lesson for me from this trip… I don’t have to answer every email as soon as it comes in, I don’t have to return a phone call within five minutes, I don’t have to get a jacket out the door as soon as the order comes in, I don’t have to respond to anything and everything the moment it’s happening and yet, that is how many of us have learned to live these days with all this technology and I’ll tell you what, IT’S EXHAUSTING!

Well, nothing shocks you out of your exhaustion like an encounter with a rattlesnake! And that’s exactly what happened next! Our good friend, Joe Berk, from California Scooter Company and fearless leader of our September trip, sent me an email back in September telling me all of the things I needed to bring with me “just in case”. He took great pleasure in pulling my leg about all the creatures I might encounter while in Baja and that I had to come prepared for any encounter, including that of a rattlesnake! Well sure enough, we arrive at John’s house, the neighbors have come over to greet him and while standing there, someone makes a joke about rattlesnakes and Desiree laughs and says “why don’t you turn over that tire over there, there’s probably a rattlesnake under there”.

The Rattlesnake

So, some “smartie-pants” turns over the tire and THERE lies a rattlesnake! I swear to the heavens, I never wanted to run for the hills so fast in my whole life yet no such run was going to happen because if there was a rattlesnake right there two feet away from me, there were certain to be more of them all over the place and that was it for me! No staying at John’s house, I had to go to a hotel, not that the “hotels” would be any better in such a remote place but at least I would feel like there was a bigger barrier between me and the snake so off to the hotel Desiree and I would go! I don’t think the snake really got to me, well, yes, he did… BUT, it really got to me after dark that night when we were preparing to leave John and the neighbors. I bounded outside of his house, into the pitch dark toward the Jeep and stopped dead in my tracks because I realized I might just step on a snake out there and a 180 degree turn and I was back in that house! Now I was trapped on all sides by rattlesnakes even though there wasn’t one in sight and perhaps THAT was the problem! Oh, the tricks the mind can play with you in the dark!

The GoGo Bike Waiting to GO

Meanwhile, as I’m having the rattlesnake shakes, we are told by the neighbors that all of the whale watching tours ended on March 31^st. We had missed it by three or four days and this meant that I wasn’t going to be spending the week riding my bike because we were supposed to be riding all over the place to get to where the whale watching tours would leave, so that meant, the rest of the week we would just be staying there in rattlesnake cove!

So there I am, hugely disappointed at no whales, disconnected from the world, surrounded by rattlesnakes in my head, and what am I supposed to do if I’m not riding my bike the rest of the week?! Well, this is where a person either freaks out or they settle in to where they are and start to open their eyes and see what the world has to offer and what living is all about so that’s what I did…

My Corona Beer Commercial Photo

For the next three days, I walked the miles of beaches just to see what I would see. The one functionality I still had available was the camera in my iPhone so I spent the time looking for things I might want to photograph. I guess I wanted to capture this magical place in a way that would visually express how

A Baja Tree

extraordinary it is because so much is said about Mexico in the media and most of it’s bad and rarely do you get a story or report out of the place that make people feel like it’s a place they’d want to visit. Now mind you, a trip like this would not be complete without the requisite murder which is, in fact, what happened on the night we arrived!

Low Tide in Baja

Most media reports of crime and murder and drugs in Mexico have captions that read something like “American Murdered in Cold Blood by Mexican Drug Lords” BUT in OUR murder story, it actually goes something like this… “American living in Bahia de Los Angeles shoots his Mexican girlfriend in the head, bullet richochets inside her head leaving her permanently damaged, leaving two sons, aged 14 and 17 to fend for themselves. Mexican authorities do not prosecute the American, they only make him leave the country and tell him never to come back so he leaves Mexico, returns to the US and then turns right around and goes back to Mexico only to be confronted and killed by the woman’s sons who were apparently in a drug dispute with the American and, of course, a bit unhappy that he destroyed their mother’s life.” Never a dull moment…

So, of the other stories I discovered along my walks were Mauro, the Italian, who had been living there for almost 20 years and decided to open a pizzeria, married a marine biologist from Arizona who was there studying the turtles and built a house into the mountainside but not before importing his nephew from Italy to be the pizza maker, much to the dismay of the boy’s

No idea what this is!

mother. On the evening we had some of this Italian pizza, an SUV pulled across the street in which sat two police officers. I instructed the boy pizza maker to take a pizza and deliver it to the police in the SUV to which they turned on their lights and siren as a “thank you”. One never knows when they’re going to need the local police for something in Mexico!

And of course, there is always rivalry in a small town and this one was no different. For years, there wasn’t a gas station for miles and then one day, there were two; one, owned by the woman who owned the “hotel” we were staying in and the other, by the woman who owns the “yellow store” (the local grocery store). The rivalry between the two is apparently quite fierce and well

Town cemetary

known throughout this town of four families and so the story of the “Hatfields and McCoy’s” is probably apropos in this situation! And before we leave the rivalry, let’s not forget my having to pay for our hotel room by going to the gas station! No one has credit card machines in this little town except for this one gas station and that’s where all of the credit card transacations are done for the hotel so for future reference, if you ever go to Baja, BRING CASH AND LOTS OF IT!  And of this gas station and the credit machine, we find a young woman of about 20 years old who speaks flawless English when I present my credit card and I ask her where she learned to speak English so well and she says she’s American and from Ohio and the owner of the gas station and hotel is her grandmother! Never a dull moment in this little town of four families!

The estuary

Now, in the middle of all of this small town drama, I have become sick from eating something one night and am sure I am going to die in the middle of the night. No such thing happened and once everything “cleared”, so to speak, I was ready for the next adventure which consisted of John and I driving along the rockiest, dustiest road known to man only to come upon a small enclave of

A Baja Tree

“Gringos” (Americans) living in trailer paradise! Some 54 “houses” right on the beach on the edge of an estuary that was absolutely magnificent. As we approached the enclave, we were surprised to come upon a guard shack which was manned by none other than “Juan Carlo” which seemed to be just about the only name of every man in town. Apparently, the enclave inhabitants had experienced some theft during the year and decided to put up the guard shack and gate and whenever anyone would approach the gate, Juan Carlo would put down his Cerveza and come outside his trailer to see who the intruders were. In the same moment, an American on an ATV drives up asking us what we’re doing there. After explaining I was on a photo mission to bring home photos of what a beautiful place it is, he invited us into the enclave and started telling us all of the stories associated with all of the owners. Talk about Peyton Place!

Mister B

Meanwhile, “Mister B.” arrives to greet us and show us around. Mind you, Mr. B, was actually a black dog of some unknown variety and spoke no English, had the run of the place and lived almost two miles down the beach at the last house in the enclave. Mr. B. and I explored the estuary while John and our new best friend, Les, enjoyed a beer. Soon, Juan Carlo joined the beer party and it looked like we were going to be there all night! Several beers later, John and I headed back to town but not before the sun was going down and our offroad trek became more challenging as there were NO roads to speak of out by the estuary, only landmarks like bushes and trees. Oh lord, I thought to myself, how on earth are we ever going to get out of here but sure enough, John, a masterful navigator, drove us right out and back to civilization, such that it was.

Enrique’s truck and boat

On the last day, John hired a boat for a four-hour tour of the bay. We were taken to the boat launch by Enrique, whose last name was Daggatt of all things. Apparently, his ancestors who founded the town were British and had settled there as part of the gold rush in the late 1880s. Enrique and I drove inside the truck while Desiree and John rode in the boat on the trailer! Down the road we went, right past the police who waved as we went by and I wondered if they and the pizza recipients were one and the same.

The boat was launched at the dock and Enrique and I hopped in to join Desiree and John. Off we went on our big adventure which would include some of the most magnificent sights, not the least of which was the sea lion pod frolicking in the water and then chasing us as we started to leave the area. Normally, the sea lions are sunning themselves on the big rocks but this day, they were all in the water and we got the benefit of a beautiful display of synchronized swimming AND, the big moment of the trip came when I just happened to look up

Sea lions with their heads out of the water

beyond the front of the boat and out of the water came the back and then… a whale’s tail! As quickly as he emerged from the water, he was back under again, but I had seen it and now, my whale watching tour was complete as was my journey to Baja! Nothing could have been more perfect in that moment!

Heading back to shore in Baja storm

There were countless other moments on this trip worth noting such as the hail that began to fall while we were out racing back to shore in hopes of escaping the oncoming storm, sunrises that cannot begin to be captured adequately by a camera, brief encounters with strangers on the beach and in the streets, having only one channel on the hotel room TV showing an endless string of episodes of a Mexican “novella” (soap opera) and the only way to change the channel in the room was to go into the hotel bar and ask them if they could change the channel and being glared at because the novella is something everyone is engrossed in there, including the 20-something American at the gas station, meeting dozens of Gringos who had chosen to come and live in this place several months of the year, all making for the most amazing adventure.

GoGo Bike on the road

Who needs the internet and cellphones and email and text messaging and noise and busyness and television and freeways and cars and expensive gas when you can get on a little motorbike and just drive for a day and end up in a place like this. That’s what I call “living”!

Arlene

The Salton Sea

Start of the race

This past weekend, I participated in a 396 mile endurance rally around the Salton Sea in California. It was promoted as a “rally”, not a “race” because it was a test of each person’s abilities and endurance to be able to cover this many miles in one day. Of course, “rally” or “race”, didn’t matter what the word was, I saw it as a “race” because all of us were there for the same reason, to compete, to test ourselves and see what the outcome would be.

Splint on Arlene’s cut finger

When I first approached the Salton Sea on the drive in, some 230 miles east and south of Los Angeles, I thought I had lost my mind because it was SO huge and I couldn’t even imagine riding around it once let alone three times and yet, I had committed and all that was left was to do the actual ride. Compounding that was the fact that earlier in the day, I had severely cut one of the fingers on my throttle and brake hand, so much so it required three stitches which I, being the scaredy cat I am when it comes to needles, just told the doctor to put a steristrip on the cut to hold it together long enough for me to participate in the rally. There was no way I was going to miss this rally and I was NOT going to be someone who commits to things and then doesn’t follow through at the last minute, so onward and forward it’s time to race!

I don’t know what I was expecting but once the race started, it became immediately apparent that it was going to be a grueling ride, not because of the distance but because of the wind. I can’t tell you the number of times I was nearly knocked off my bike by the wind, especially as trucks would pass by. I had one instance of a wind gust that was so strong it pushed me off the road from the center of the lane! I just pictured myself sprayed across the pavement and how ridiculous it would sound to have to tell people the wind did it!

The east side of the Salton Sea

Once underway, I think we all kind of settled in to the rhythm of the ride. The first of the three laps was uneventful and I finished in about two and half hours. We had different requirements that had to be fulfilled as part of the race, some of which included getting our rally passports stamped at the conclusion of each lap, a stamp on the passport at the Salton City Chamber of Commerce that also appeared to function as the local flea market, dropping off a postcard in a mailbox along the way and obtaining printed gas receipts, all of which had to be turned in at the end to verify that each of us actually completed the race per the terms of the race rules.

The second lap became a bit more challenging because I stopped for only about four minutes between lap one and two and by the middle of the second lap, my rear end was aching, as were my legs. By this time, I had already logged almost 200 miles. As the second lap came to a close, the guy I was riding with was on the side of the road with a carburetor manifold problem and that was it for him for the race so I continued on and completed the second lap.

Upon getting my stamp at the end of lap two, the rally organizers told me I was in third place overall, so I excitedly got back on the road and began racing into a 40mph headwind that was so strong that several times I was nearly knocked off my bike. Everyone was experiencing the wind problem but the people on the bigger bikes of course had a bit easier time getting through it and before long, a guy on a 175cc passed me and there went third place!

Given the power of his engine, I knew I wasn’t going to catch him so I thought I was more than content to come in fourth because all of the other bikes ahead of me were all bigger than mine so I thought it was a success to be coming in right behind them with a smaller bike. Well, imagine my delight when I discovered the guy who was now in third place had stopped at a gas station to refuel. I gleefully charged down the street thinking that if I could just get far enough ahead of him, I might get to the finish line before him. It was all a question of how much time he would make up using a 175cc bike compared to my 150cc. Before long, sure enough, he caught up with me and off he went, into the distance, certain to capture third place. So, I continued on, trying to catch him knowing that it was not even possible but it was still a fun goal to have and I pressed on with a vengeance!

Half of the 70mph 186 foot skid mark

About seven miles before the end of the race, I spotted “Mr. Third Place” off in the distance but he wasn’t moving. The closer I got, the more I thought that maybe he had run out of gas but as I approached, it was clear that something was very wrong. He was visibly upset and when I asked him if he was okay, he pointed behind me and told me to look at the street. There before my eyes was a skid mark that later measured 186 feet. The chain on his bike had broken and wedged itself between the tire and frame, resulting in a back tire that refused to move and this was all happening to him at 70mph. He miraculously stayed upright on the bike while he skidded for 186 feet at 70mph. This is one of those moments in life where the phrase “but for the grace of God go I” becomes very relevant to a person…

He told me that his bike wouldn’t move and that he was going to need someone to come and get him. I told him I had a trailer back at the hotel and that I’d go get it and come back and get him. I also told him to just sit down and take a deep breath so he could recover a bit from what had just happened to him. He looked like he was in a complete state of shock, probably because he knew how unlikely it was that he didn’t come off his bike in that skid and end up with serious injuries.

The finish line

I continued on the last seven miles and completed the rally/race with the organizers all excited about my third place finish but I had other thoughts in that moment. I ran to get the trailer and drove back to get Ryan, the guy with the big skid. We got his bike on the trailer and drove back, all the while him talking about the experience of what had just happened. Once back, he went inside and sat down for while just to calm himself down and when I returned from parking the trailer, I told everyone I was going across the street to get a margarita. Ryan asked if he could join me and we spent the next two hours, just talking about everything in the world. After finishing our second drink together, we went back in for the trophy ceremony.

Third place trophy

After the first and second place trophies were handed out, they called me to come and get the third place trophy. I told them that the trophy wasn’t mine and that it was Ryan’s because it wasn’t his fault that the bike broke down and there was no question had it not, he would have finished in third and I wasn’t about winning by default. I remembered back to a time during a Tour de France bicycle race in which the leading rider crashed on his bike and all of the riders behind him stopped where they were to allow the front runner to get back on his bike and take the lead again. They too didn’t believe in winning by default or winning because they were able to capitalize on his misfortune. That may be the way of competition for some, but it isn’t for me and so I handed over the trophy to Ryan and then collected the trophy that truly belonged to me, first place in my 150cc class. THAT was a trophy and win I could be proud of.

Now the story could have ended there, but it didn’t…

Being as exhausted as we all were, I took leave of the group and headed back to my hotel but not before stopping at a convenience store. When pulling in, I happened to notice two cats in the alley behind the store. Clearly they were rummaging through the garbage trying to find something to eat. I stood there watching them for a while then went inside to get some water. While inside, I grabbed two cans of cat food and waited in line to pay. I stood there daydreaming from the exhaustion and then refocused on the display of scratch off lottery tickets and thought to myself, if I won the lottery I could buy a bunch of cat food and so, I bought a ticket. Outside I went with the food and lo and behold, the two cats had turned into five! I opened the cans and they all came running, gobbling up every bit each could get from the can. As I watched them eating, I thought that perhaps there wasn’t enough food for all of them so back into the store I went for another two cans. The guy at the cash register asked me if I had cats, I said “no, not here but YOU do and there’s five of them outside behind your store and you should feed them!” Although he looked shocked, apparently being the cat owner himself, he didn’t just dismiss me as a freak animal lover who’s trying to save the feline of species!

So, out I go, feed the cats the other two cans, stand back, snap a few pictures and head back to the hotel. Once all settled in for the night, I pull out a penny and that scratcher lottery ticket. One after the next, the numbers are exposed and when all was said and done with the scratching, I had won $15!!! I felt like I had won the $300 million someone else had a few nights earlier! That $15 paid for the lottery ticket, all the cat food cans AND a bite for me to eat the next morning!

I felt so good and yet it got even better because when I went back to the convenience store for gas and water the next morning, what do I see but a large aluminum tray very near to where I had left the cat food cans. Something tells me the cat loving night clerk left those cats some food…

And so, I left the Salton Sea a winner in more ways than I can count and I am forever enriched by the little things that happen in life where we have the opportunity to make decisions that have a real impact on people or other species and everyone is left the better for it. THAT is my definition of winning and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Arlene

GOGO GEAR FOR MEN

I have been asked many times why it has taken so long to get to this point and what I can tell you is that, in the normal course of the development of a clothing line, let alone something as technical as protective riding gear, it can take upwards of 18 months to develop one garment. It is stunning the number of things that go into the development of a garment and so for us to have developed and launched our womens line, gloves, neck warmers and now the development of our men’s line and Kevlar jeans all in less than 18 months total, well it defies logic and conventional wisdom that something could be done this fast and by just a couple of people no less.

Another reason it has taken this “long” is that when you develop something like GoGo Gear that is so heavily influenced by style and fashion, you have to really determine and understand who the person is that wears your garments. We clearly have a very distinctive European “feel” in our clothing for women and it was a challenge to figure out who the GoGo Guy is… we went through the development of a lot of different styles and I was constantly unsettled because it just wasn’t right, something about it didn’t feel like what I envisioned the jackets to be for men, it was like the “GoGo” was missing in the GoGo Gear for men. And so, back to the drawing board, over and over we went until… he revealed himself. In much the way Secretariat laided back until very near the end of the race, it was as if our GoGo Gear man was just taking his time, never one to be rushed, just deciding when HE was ready to reveal himself and then… there he was, first to the finish line. And how beautiful a finish is was and is…

As the creator of GoGo Gear, I am deeply and profoundly affected by everything I do and present as it pertains to GoGo Gear and I cannot release anything until I am absolutely certain that what I have envisioned is manifest properly. And so, I can say with absolute certainty that what you see in the photo IS what I had envisioned. There are several more GoGo Gear jackets for men that are ready but this is the first one that will be released.

The Cordura shell version of this jacket will be released in the Spring and the wool version, this Fall. Like with our women’s jackets, the construction of the jackets for men is the same… multilayered fabrics, CE-approved removable armor in the shoulders, elbows and back area, abrasion resistant fabric inside, our signature windcuffs, waterproof or water repellent exteriors, and new for the men will be the zipout liners. And of course, our cleverly concealed reflective details found on every GoGo Gear jacket.

And for all the guys that aren’t sure if they are a GoGo Guy… consider a survey that was released just yesterday asking women which they prefer… a well dressed man or a rich one? 85% of them said “a well dressed man”. And unless you want our jackets in wool, you don’t have to be a rich man to have a GoGo Gear jacket as our Cordura version of the jackets will be retailing at $199.

Arlene