For some background let’s discuss a race, it is not actually a race but a timed event with some sections called special tests where you ride all out and try and beat the clock. Then there are transfers that have a set speed limit and you have to ride and manage the clock. A typical race has about 5-6.5 hours of riding with a gas break or two, but it is pretty physical. I read an article that said during an enduro the average rider burns 6,200 calories. So it is a tough sport. Oh and i can tell you first hand crashing takes a lot out of you

Starting at the bottom and working my way up:

Sidi Crossfire SRS boots with plastic heat shields, ARC MX socks, very tall go to the knee and not made of wool. I then put on some cheapo elastic knee braces, they help my knees a bit, but they also isolate my knees from my knee guards which are made by SixSixOne Richochet knee guard, and have saved my kneed more than once. Next I wear a pair of bicycle shorts, the little bit of padding helps, and the compression is welcome. Over them I wear a pair of Sette Impact armored shorts, covered by a pair of Answer Apex pants.

Moving up I wear a tight stretch shirt similar to Under Armour, then a SixSixOne pressure suit covered by one of a few Answer jerseys I own.

I wear a Leatt GPX Club brace, Thor Force helmet, and a pair of Smith Intake Enduro googles. It is a ton of gear and unfortunately I have tested every piece of it with crashes and get-offs.

On raceday I try and eat a minimal amount of food before racing, partly because of nerves, and partly I do not want to need to use a bathroom during the race. Yes TMI but whatever.

I wake up and try and drink a liter of water before anything, then I eat a banana and have an Emergen-C pack, just check not all are vegan, check their FAQ page. If I am stll hungry I might grab a half of Clif bar. During the race I drink straight water out of my Camelback, then at the gas break i eat another banana, which is held safe by my banana holder (makes for interesting conversation when it is on my kitchen counter), and a handful of nuts and dried fruits. If it is hot and I am sweating a lot I may have another Emergen-C since I use them for the potassium more than anything else. At the end of the race I am starving and dehydrated, so i try and drink more and then figure out a meal. Usually it is poorly planned so I end up eating crap on the ride home.

Made a delicious creamy coconut tomato soup for dinner last not. My friend and I loved it with a Gardenburger Black Bean Burger, topped with sauteed onions, and mushrooms and Newman’s Own salsa.

Tonight’s dinner was take-out Indian and delicious.

I have neglected this blog forever as well as the site. Maybe it is time to update both of them, the riding gear section is out-of-date and the blog is boring as hell. What is inspiring me is the Vegan MoFo challenge, I am going to try and blog once a day for the month of October. No promises since I also plan on being away for a few days here and there, but with my laptop and a wireless card I have no real excuse.

Barely ride streetbikes anymore, as I have gotten really into, off-road riding and enduros. First year racing in the C-Senior class (yes if you are 40 you are a senior) and I am doing reasonably well for an overweight, new to dirt rider. Currently I am in 4th in points for the year and have almost no chance to catch the third place rider with only one race to go.

Been really enjoying teaching a new vegan about the greatness of our food, introducing her to new stuff she never heard of, and the perils of thos “tricky ingredients” the one thing that is making it workfor her are desserts. For her the desserts are the reminder that she does not have to give up the indulgences, and can eat “cheese”cake, cupcakes, sugar cookies, etc. Weird what lets some people stick with it, but whatever works works for all of the animals.

When it comes to riding I am concerned about motocross boots, I have a pair of Sidi’s that are vegan but all of the new ones use a small leather patch as a heat shield. I need to find some new old stock of the boots I have and stock up or something.

Oh and al of the higher end riding pants have leather patches for heat by the inner knee. Luckily the lower end gear is still vegan. But with a bit of research I will find it out and let you know what works.

I love the winter but of course I love riding motorcycles well yesterday was one of those rare days. There were forecasts in the high 40’s and no rain so we set up a ride. Well it rained a lot the night before and though it was in the mid-30’s when I left my house in NYC it was in the mid-20’s in central New Jersey where we started the ride from. And though it wasn’t raining at the time the roads were were wet and it was cold and damp. Oh and did I mention ice on the side of the road? Yes ice and motorcycles do not play well together.

We did some sloppy twisty roads until we found some dirt. One thing that was cool were the amount of turkey vultures we saw perched. We took some pics of them but I really didn’t get any good ones, because my lens was dirty. I made a mount for Canon SD800 for my handlebar so I could take action shots and movies. The with a bit of moisture the lens got wet and dirty. Plus the mount doesn’t seem to isolate the vibrations enough so most of those pics were blurry. After we discussed who the vultures were waiting for we headed down to some good NJ dirt, sand and mud. Hit some old trails we knew and found some new ones we didn’t know of. One had a big log across it at the end and we made it through and over them. The worst part is there was clearly a sign on the log that said registered vehicles were permitted to ride the trails, but they still put a roadblock up.

We were around the Assunpink reservoir, got to love that name One of my friends rode his bike out to the end of the dock and though you can’ tell the water is not water but ice.

Oh since this is vegan motorcyclist I guess I should add some vegan content. And to top off a good long day of riding my friend Rob and I ended the day at Foodswings where I had buffalo wings and mac and cheese and he had a philly cheesesteak. He is not a vegan or a vegetarian but totally loved it.
What a great way to spend an early January day.

Some friends were having a party last night in the city and I decided to ride in to hang out. We normally meet at the Ear Inn on Tuesday night’s but decided to have a roof party instead. I took my TDM850 since it is the smoothest riding bike I own. Well I got there but was sore, I am still not ready to ride.

But the party was awesome Dave and Francine have a piece of paradise in Manhattan, besides having a beautiful loft apartment with a full-sized pool table, there building has a beautiful rooftop garden, complete with a grill, sink, fridge, and hammock. I enjoyed the company and Francine knowing I am a vegan picked up some vegan veggie burgers and they cooked them on a part of the grill that was covered in clean aluminum foil, which was truly appreciated.

The night was not perfect though, I planned on taking some pictures of the sunrise over Manhattan but by the time I got there the sun was set behind the building across the road so no photos. After not looking forward to the ride home I started riding home and there was construction on the Kosciusko Bridge which closed it down to one pain, the pain in my ribs, being tired and the crackdown on lane-splitting in NYC made me stay in my lane and turn what should have been a 25 minute ride took over and hour and twenty minutes.

I woke up feeling better this morning and spent a few hours in my garage and back yard. At the end of the day I has washed my TDM and Elefant, replaced all the broken crashed parts on my MZ Mastiff (which i crashed in 2004 and ignored since then), and my German buddy finally picked up the KLR. So with two large contractor trash bags full of garbage gone, and a bike gone I have a bit of room. Though if I sell some more parts, some bicycles and the TDM I will have a lot more room. I need room, anyone want a TDM?

Actually I do not love LA but with reason to go there it is a fun place. This past weekend was a good reason to go there, Los Angeles was hosting the Animal Rights 2007 Conference. I flew in on Thursday after an adventuresome day getting there, I used to work for an airline and still have friends that work there so I flew on a buddy pass which meant standby and it was a long day of not getting on flights. Yeah I saved a few bucks but it was pound wise penny foolish. So I missed meeting my friend Deb and our scheduled trip to visit Animal Acres Farm Sanctuary but I did arrive in time to eat an excellent meal of take-out from Madeline’s Bistro which was excellent. I live in NYC which has a huge selection of incredible vegan restaurants and I want to return to Madeline’s, that’s saying something. but the next day was the real reason for flying to LA.

The conference was three intense days of workshops covering all aspects of the animal rights movements. There were so many speakers and topic that it was a bit of brain overload but hearing some of the motivating speeches by Capt. Paul Watson, Patrice Jones, Howard Lyman, Camille Hankins. Other workshops on educating children, dealing with urban wildlife, and some very empowering speeches by Will Potter, Heidi Boghosian, and Christine Garcia. I did not even mention even a quarter of the speakers I listened to but these are a few who stood out. One thing I came home with is that we in the animal rights movement need to work with other groups and use our shared resources to make true social changes, one person who personified this throughout the weekend was Debra Erenberg from the Rainforest Action Network.
It motivated me to get out and be a more serious activist and it reminded me that there is an entire movement within the animal rights movement of attacktivists activist whose only form of activism is to attack other activists and their tactics. We are such a small minority we do not need a fractured movement but a movement of solidarity that has one aim, the end of the status of of animals as property.

So for my little bit of motorcycle content since this blog is called Vegan Motorcyclist. I came home at 6:30 am this morning after a red-eye flight and found an envelope containing these in my hallway. Stay tuned…

In the last few months I have read a bunch of motorcycle travel books, two I really liked Two Wheels Through Terror, by Glen Heggstad, and Lois on the Loose by Lois Pryce. Ironically both of these trips ended up in Tierra Del Fuego, Argenitna the southernmost place in South America.

I’ve done a fair share of riding, considering I’ve ridden to the forty-nine states you can ride to, and a bit of the Baja Peninsular, but I have never really taken a true adventure ride to a desolate or foreign area. Even the Al-can Highway is not desolate.So I planned to take a ride to Alabama to visit the Barber Motorsports Museum and an old friend from my racing days. I am still most likely going to take that ride, but I am also thinking of taking a ride from NYC to Labrador, Ca on the Trans-Labrador Highway. It is supposed to be the most desolate road in North America. I’d ride up there and then take a combination of ferries and roads back down through Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, then through New England and then home. It looks to be about a 4,000 mile trip with about 600 of those miles be gravel, not sure if i am up for it this year but might be a fun goal for next summer.

Of course if I did that ride I would have to be well stocked for vegan food. It is pretty clear that supplies are limited along the route and I highly doubt I would find some tofu to make some grilled tofu with. But I think that this will be my next adventure ride. Of course other than maybe around Quebec City everyone will speak English and the Labrador Dept of Transportation will supply you with a free satellite phone, so it is not quiet what Lois and Glenn did but it will be my next adventure.

Anyone up for a little trip?

I have been seeking some vegan MX boots and I finally found some. Last years Sidi Force SRS boots are vegan The problem is I have short fat feet and most boots are too narrow for me. A few weeks back i was in Pennsylvania and stopped by a dealership and tried on a different model of Sidi boots and they fit pretty good. Having worked in dealerships for many years I try and buy everything from them and avoid mailorder, but they didn’t have last years boots in stock so I went home and did some searching and found that RockyMoto had them in stock. They did not have black so I reluctantly ordered white boots. Not my first choice but beggars can’t be choosy. The boots are vegan, offer a ton of protection and weren’t too badly priced.

The came today and fit perfectly and though the sole is very, very stiff, with their hinged plastic ankle and soft Lorica boot they are very flexible in the ankle and will require almost zero break-in. I am looking forward to riding with them once this damn cracked rib heals. BTW having never ordered any riding gear via mail-order that Rockymoto was first class and I would not hesitate to order from them again. Though they are white, they do match “Beanie” my cat.

My next piece of gear is a pressure suit with hard chest plates. I have an old Dianese suit but it has almost no chest padding. I am liking the Acerbis Koerta but I want to try one on. Motorcycles equal way too much gear.
I’ll update my riding gear list tonight with this option for boots, but remember if you want them get them ASAP since they are a discontinued model. The post title comes from my friend Deb who said in an email “those are total stormtrooper boots!”

RTE is another of those internet acronyms that are all over place. On motorcycle forums it stands for Ride to Eat, and is a popular topic and reason to ride. I went on a RTE recently and it was a disappointment. There used to be a restaurant in Manhattan called Veg-City Diner, it was not the best vegan food around but had a certain comfort aspect to it, plus they were open 24 hours for drunk munching. Their biggest draw was there glass rotating vegan dessert stand with over 75 vegan desserts spinning daily. One day they had a closed for renovation sign up, it stayed up for months and finally they were gone. A few weeks back I saw that the owner opened a new Veg-City Diner in Rockland County so I plugged in a nice 150 mile loop up and around Bear Mountain which would end there, my own little RTE. Before heading off i tried to make sure they were open and I couldn’t find a web site but did find their Myspace page and it was a Saturday so off I went. I was all ready to eat as my GPS guided me there after a nice relaxing ride and when I pulled up they were closed. It looked abandoned but inside the front door was a self standing signboard which was written in chalk, “closed to train new kitchen staff.” Sure they’re not coming back and once again I was disappointed by them. I am was too pissed to take a picture but wouldn’t it make sense to at leat update your Myspace page if that is your only web presence? i was hungry so I had an uninspired Subway veggie hero.

A week later I was riding down from Massachusetts and I was hungry and remembered a vegetarian Chinese restaurant in port Chester, NY. I found it on my GPS and headed to it. When i got there they were out of business, a nicely written sign on their door, said they lost their lease and thank you for the support and business for the last few years. I was not upset with them since I didn’t check to see if they were still around, just decided to show up. It does suck that often vegetarian/vegan restaurants don’t make it but it is a niche market and any restaurant is a risky proposition.

So we all know bad luck comes in threes, last Tuesday I was in Pennsylvania and I decided that it was worth it to go 30 miles out of my way to visit Vegan Treats, I arrived and they were closed. They are closed on Monday’s and Tuesday’s which is fine and guess what? When I came home and checked ther website it said they were closed on Monday’s and Tuesday’s. So only the disappointment of not eating fattening yummy food for me that day.

One of the coolest things on my GPS is if I am hungry i can type in: vegan, vegetarian, natural, or organic and maybe find a restaurant in a 50 mile radius of where I am. Nothing like high-tech vegan food treasure hunts.

Through the ADVrider my friend John organized a group ride explore around Sullivan County, New York to go explore some old railroad tracks ad jeep trails. John is an avid Land Rover driver who owns a small business 4×4 business and we planned on exploring some of the roads he used to drive on. There were about twelve of us plus John and his mothership when we all met up in Wurtsboro. We were a pretty diverse group riding all kinds different bikes and having all kinds of different skill levels as we set out. The trail was pretty easy with some mud holes and puddles at the beginning the fast guys took off and went to go explore some rocky side trails and immediately they realized that these trails were above their heads given the bikes they were riding, and they turned back and took off down the trail. I am not one of those fast riders so I was riding at my own pace, faster then some but pretty much alone. There was one mud puddle that I tried to ride around more than through it and the back end kicked out, I tried to power it back in and I did a slow motion high-side getting thrown over the top of the bike. It was a pretty slow crash and reached over and shut the bike off and picked it up. Just as I was doing so someone pulled up, I assured them I was OK and they rode off. The only damage to the bike, a cracked hand guard, broken turn signal and few scrapes on the side. I jammed my ribs somehow and they were a sore but not to bad, and my left thumb was tweaked. Luckily my knee and shin armor did their job because I caught my knee going over the bars but they were fine.

We finished the ride and rode out to the road and up the road to Ellenville to go check out some other trails, when we got there they were pretty gnarly and only the most skilled riders or those on smaller bikes went to go explore. The rest of us chickened out and we went back to try and follow another road up. I was the first to arrive and I saw a pretty steep uphill with softball sized rocks and I decided to not think about it and just go for it, well I got about 3/4 of the way up an lost my momentum and I was stuck. I looked back and no one had followed me, so I got off the bike and worked to turn it around so I could ride back down. When I was heading down I realized how sore my ribs were. We all ended up meeting in a parking lot and decided that these trails were too tough so we would call it a day of off-roading.

Road up the mountain and stopped at the beginning of a nature preserve for some lunch. John fired up a small gas grill and starting cooking some burgers, dogs and sausages and everyone around me drooled, mean while I was eating my mock curried chicken salad and some carrots. Others were jealous as they waited I ate. I do have to say that John asked me what he should bring for me to eat before we came and I had told him not to stress it. When finished we went on a nice street ride with a pretty spirited pace for the three of us up front and waited at the turns for the group to catch up.

Later we road over to Chris’s house and had some cold iced tea and lemonade and sat on his deck with his wife and beautiful dogs a Siberian Husky and some kind of hybrid he and his wife rescued. By that time there were less and less of us and we headed back to the city riding some real cool winding roads I never knew of. One of the guys with us Walter is known for being the king of knowing all the great rising places in NY and NJ.

Finally it was just Dave and I and we road all the backroads back to the city, never once getting on a highway, lots of fun to take all the side streets and see places you might not normally see. We stopped at his beautiful loft in the city and BS’ed with his wife and had some water and some homemade caponata. As I was sitting there my ribs were really starting to hurt and on the ride home every bump killed me.

I had a hard time sleeping and if they still feel this way tomorrow I might go get them x-rayed, though they don’t do anything for cracked ribs anyway. Overall it was a great day and other then a crash a near perfect riding day, some off-road to challenge my skills, some fast road riding which I love and best of all some great company and hospitality.

Added 7/08/07 
Went to the doctor today and I have a cracked rib. luckily it isn’t a floating rib and should heal in four to six weeks. No dirt riding for me for a while, but I’ll still street ride once the pain subsides.