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Riding Season Begins with the Banana Woman

Feb. 8th, 2004 |

It's February, the camellia outside my living room window is blooming. The flowers are a surprise and a delight, when everything else is still gray and either soggy or desiccated depending on its nature. I noticed the flowers yesterday when I stepped out for the first ride of the season. They were peeking out of the shiny green leaves of the plant, so soft and pink and perfect, they didn't look real. The day was sunny and warming by ten a.m. The sky was blue and only a few clouds scudded by, not your typical Washington-in-February day. We decided to carpe the diem and head out for a ride.

I haven't been up on the blue dragon since last October. Every time the weather has relented and I had a shot at riding weather, reality, a.k.a. my job, got in the way. T. has had to ride without me for the few times he has gotten out to freeze in the breeze. So it was with both anticipation and spookiness I suited up to embark on my second season as a 'bikesta' (rhymes with gangsta but rides a motorcycle). I have put on just enough weight during the hamster hibernation season to render my chaps miserably tight which made me really cranky for A)putting them on and B) now having to get them back off.

Not wanting to A) freeze my chubby rear off or B) miss the ride, I unpacked my new bright yellow Triumph one piece all weather suit thinking I'd give it a go. I cut off all the tags, laid it on the bed and began to dress in layers of clothes to avoid freezing at speed on the bike. On went woolly long johns, woolly socks, blue jeans, and a warm woolly shirt. By the time I got the first two layers on, I was breaking a sweat. I found a warm gray jacket, zipped it up over the woolly shirt, got a little warmer still and started to investigate the mechanics of the bright yellow one piece all weather suit. The zippers on it are three miles long-each--- and open from the ankles to the neck. You'd think it would have had those zippers that you can run from either end but no, these ones start at your ankles and each leg has its own personal zipper. The front of the thing also features enough lapped over patches of Velcro to close up a circus tent water tight. Once I managed to rip the Velcro apart and then convince it to stay that way by standing on the legs of the suit and pulling it apart up to the neck, I started on the zippers. The directions say right there in enthusiastic black and white script "Easy step in, easy on and easy off." Right. Staring at the suit, unzipped and ready to step in it occurred to me that getting back out might be a fairly ferocious undertaking, so with a sigh, I peeled off at least one layer and made that final pit stop.

I stepped back up to the suit, seriously sweating now and laced into my riding boots. I stepped in, I bent over, I zipped up the zippers, ankles to ears, and belted the belt of the suit over my woolly long johns, my jeans, my woolly undershirt, my woolly shirt and my woolly coat. The suit was obviously made for a man much taller and wider than my 5 foot four inch height. There was enough excess suit, even over the various layers of me to make another whole rain suit for a really big dog. I looked in the mirror and thought to myself, "You look like the Michelin man after too many bananas." There were bags and bunches of fabric, the bulk of the too long sleeves was rolled up each arm making it look I was carrying the life preservers from the Titanic over the end of each arm. Still, I was more worried about the Washington State winter cold than the goofy looking banana-yellow woman staring back at me from the mirror. I straggled valiantly out the back door towards the garage where the bikes were parked and waiting. I was hot and getting cranky and all the bunchy sagging fabric was making walking a real chore and causing enough plastic rubbing racket to scare my cat into full-fledged hair up hissing fit when I lurched into his patch of sun and woke him up.

Staggering into the garage, I found my winter gloves and tried to pull one on over the life preserver arm. Nope, the top of the glove wouldn't fit over the wadded up fabric. That did it. The banana suit from hell got peeled off one long zipper at a time and chucked into the corner accompanied by a serious string of bad words. My husband was smart enough to not say one single word. He warmed up the bikes and stayed out the fire zone while I grouched and grumped and pulled on my old rain paints to cut the chill over my leather chaps. I pulled off the woolly gray jacket and put on my lined

black leather jacket and my helmet over a warm hat and headed out the door. By then I was so hot and so cranky over the suit from hell, hat I forgot to worry about riding and the old: how will I do? Will I fall down? Will I run into the side of a car? Will a car run into the side of me? What if? What if? I completely forgot to review my whole novice rider litany of things that could happen. That litany accompanied me every day for about the first 4500 miles of my riding career so being aggravated right out of it was a good thing.

The temperature was creeping up into the high forties when I pulled on my warm winter gloves over my now regular sized arms, crawled onto my warmed up bike and pulled up the kick stand. We headed out into the sunny day, both bikes purring like big cats. Surprise! It was great, it was wonderful and it was like last summer's hard earned 5500 miles were just clocked yesterday. I remembered all over again why I love riding and I can hardly wait for more sunny days to invite me to get out and ride.

We both noticed we stayed warm the whole day, neither one of us got cold anywhere but our noses. We had so much fun we scrapped the original plan of a quick trip down to the coffee shop and home, we wound up staying out and riding all over the county for the whole day and didn't drag ourselves home until the day started to head towards evening and take on a distinct chill.

And the yellow suit? Well, maybe I'll put it in that cute little bag in came in and carry it on trips. It could come in handy, there's probably enough room in it to camp overnight with all my luggage and a camp stove if I have to. You might want to look out if you see a woman flapping down the road on a bike like a load of wet wash in that suit. You could be seriously injured if you laugh so hard you run off the road.