About Christopher: I was introduced to motorcycle riding while in the U.S. Army. In 2002, I was going through some training in Virginia, when Dan, a great Army buddy who was in my class, told me he was taking the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Course. That sparked my curiosity, but I was still not that interested. The next thing I know, he’s riding a Honda Rebel. I thought that was the coolest thing. I told Sarah that I wanted to take the course. She wasn’t all for the idea. I figured that I didn’t have much of a case if I said I’d go by myself, so I convinced her that if SHE went with me then she could at least see what it was about. She agreed to that. After we took the MSF course, she caught the “bug”. Just what I was hoping for!
We figured we’d just get one bike and we could ride two up. We looked through the local ads in Virginia, and found a 1998 Kawasaki Vulcan Classic 800. It was awesome. Did a test ride, and bought that lovely green and cream cruiser. Sarah, in an effort to save money, wanted to just have the one motorcycle, but I knew she had the “bug”. A few weeks later, we were driving by a Suzuki dealership, and she saw a brand new silver Intruder 800. She m
entioned that she thought it looked really cool. So that week, I bought it for her. And so began our motorcycling adventures.
I’ve had a couple of bikes since those first cruisers (2004 Suzuki SV650S and currently a 2001 BMW R1100S) and we’ve journeyed on motorcycles throughout Europe and now have settled down in Santa Cruz, California. The journeys continue…
About Sarah: I wanted a motorcycle since I was 18. Four years later, Chris and I considered purchasing one motorcycle for both of us. I figured we would save money and get only one motorcycle. I took the MSF course just in case anything happened to him and I needed to drive. Well, once I rode a motorcycle there was no way I was riding on the back! After the course, we decided to purchase 2 bikes (my first a Suzuki Intruder) and rode around Richmond, VA before we moved to Germany in 2003.
After riding cruisers a few months on the windy roads of Germany, we decided we would have much more fun on the beautiful curvy roads if metal wasn’t grinding underneath us. We purchased street bikes (a Yamaha FZ6 for me) and we became ecstatic about riding in Europe. We would take any chance we could to drive around Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy. We lived near Johanniskreuz, which is an awesome location to be a motorcyclist! I would commute to work from Kaiserslautern to Heidelberg (through the mountains of course) as much as I could (many times through pouring rain, but that just made it more of an adventure!)
Now we are tearing up the roads in California. Avoiding freeways as much as possible. So far, the Santa Cruz mountains and other locations around San Fran/Santa Cruz offers roads much like Germany! So for now, we are happy exploring the roads here until we can take another massive trip (British Columbia?? I HOPE!).
I’ve been riding since 2002 and currently own a 2005 Kawasaki Z750S. I am currently a graduate student in Electronic Media Arts.
hello riders. my name is tom lowdermilk along with jerry watts we host side stand up “the world’s only motorcycle radio road show” broad cast live over the net every tuesday evening 9-10 eastern (us), with listeners in china, new zealand, australia, throughout europe and the americas. i have look over your site and would love to have you two on as a guest to talk about your adventures. check out our site http://www.sidestandup.com where you can learn a little about us, past guests, even listen to past programs. if you are interested in participating just drop me an email
Just found your site through SSUp after listening to it via the podcast.
I’ve been riding about the same amount of time (6 years) and have logged over 100k, but kinda wish I was as you are starting your journey.
Ride safe and enjoy the ride.
Tim in Burien, WA