My Trooper

The shot above was taken near the summit of the Going to the Sun Highway in Glacier National Park. My lovely wife Darian braved the road over the summit on a Honda Trail 110. She has been the victim of many of my whims over the years. She started out riding a small Honda 125cc Trials bike in the mountains in the Cooke City area. I acquired a 450 cc Suzuki Automatic street bike and she took to that bike and loved riding on the street. I eventually ended up with an old BMW R75 and got rid of the smaller bikes. We rode two up for a couple winters but the bike was dangerously over loaded with camping gear for two.

This was Darians first solo riding road trip to Death Valley. She bravely rode the 450 miles on this little Honda 350-4. This little 4 banger hit 70 mph at about 8000 RPM. Vibration was the order of the day and she suffered for hours. We stopped at dark at Tecopa Hot Springs to set up camp and my poor little wife was in agony as her neck was stuck in one position. The night the above photo was taken Karen and her decided to have a peppermint schnapps marathon. They were both suffering the results the next morning. I think she did it to dull her senses in preparation of the 500 mile Honda ride facing her. We left for Yuma and were winded out at Searchlight NV. for the night. We awoke to 6" of snow the next morning. Stuck in Searchlight for two nights! A bit chilly riding out the next day.

I rescued this old R75/5 short wheel base from my nephew who was selling it to purchase a riding lawn mower. The paint was very bad and it sported a duct tape seat. Darian fell right into riding the old girl. We rode to the National MOA Rally in Missoula that year. On the way home the right muffler blew off its' last 6 inches without warning. I knew it had a little rust but.....so I had to hacksaw off the end of the left muffler so they would match. A week later the Wyoming boys had a little rally over at Devils Tower. We decided to go for it. I subjected Darian to her first taste of inclement weather riding. We ran out of day light and got into a summer night thunderstorm. To top that off we found ourselves on 15 miles of freshly roto milled interstate. Darian nearly had her knees planted into the toaster tank by the time we reached Gillette. She never even whimpered. (Only complained that I had once told her that we shouldn't ride at night or in the rain and should avoid deeply grooved pavement).

I finally took Greta apart and had her Cranberry paint job done. Soon after this photo was taken in San Diego we rode from Montana down to Paonia Colorado to the Top of the Rockies Rally. Now my philosophy is a little warped when it comes to bad weather riding. I led Darian into a hail storm , but rather than pull over, (I could see the edge of the storm a few miles away) I sped up to get through the storm. She was not happy and didn't speak to me for quite a while. We've ridden through Yellowstone Park a few times, over the Big Horn Mountains and all over Montana and Wyoming. She has been subjected to wind, snow, rain, hail, freezing cold, blistering heat, sleeping on rocks, sleeping in mud, dust and any thing that mother nature (or I) could throw at her. She is truly a trooper and (with a little coaxing) has always been game for our next riding adventure. The side car project should make her life (and mine) a lot easier.