New Bikes, New Year, New Me!

HELLO LATTE!

Meet my new ride, Latte.

Ever since I rode this bike 2 years ago at DC Dirt Camp, I fell in love with it immediately.

July 2021 on my super friend Marjorie’s XT250 (also before working at REVIT) at DC Dirt Camp during an Adventure Bike Class

It was lightweight, easy to ride and super comfortable. Unfortunately I don’t have any pics of me sitting down on the bike, only standing up! :) :)

IS IT TOO SMALL?

No. Absolutely not. Yes, I have almost 20 years of motorcycle experience under my belt but I am absolutely positively new to dual sport riding and I would be fooling myself to think that I could easily conquer a mid size 750cc ADV bike to learn on.

When I took the Adventure class with DC Dirt Camp, riding this bike felt fairly easy since my bike is 400lbs! So jumping on a sub 300lb bike felt super easy. Of course, learning some ADV skills was challenging but I’m so glad I had a little bike like this to try things on.

For me personally, here is my intention with a dual sport motorcycle (which GREATLY affects an individuals’ bike choice)

• Short, day trips, possibly overnights with minimal highway / freeway riding (max 30 minutes if possible)

• 80% offroad / 20% on road focused riding (thus the need for a smaller bike overall)

• Build AS MUCH confidence as possible while I increase skills

• Accelerate my learning / skills so that I can master this small bike to where an upgrade is going to feel easier, less intimidating and feel more confident

Doesn’t everyone want to become super proficient and highly skilled at motorcycling sooner than later? For me that happens quickest when I’m on a bike that’s smaller, easier to manage and super comfortable.

If my experience level on the dirt were much higher, say 10+ years of dirt riding maybe, AND I wanted to do long distance, 50% onroad, 50% offroad type riding then of course a larger displacement bike would be necessary. I’ve never heard anyone say “Oh no, I don’t want to get really good at this quickly, I want it to take months / years to get better and feel confident”.

I also have a rear hitch carrier on the Jeep, so I may take it places to go riding. But I am not planning anything pavement focused unless I’m riding on the street with my Triumph to do a pavement focused ride.

So there you have it, my little 250 is going to be perfect for me and my riding needs. Always, always write down what your needs are for a new to you motorcycle, if you want to be as certain as possible that you are making the very best choice. I also know that if I need to move onto a different bike, I can easily sell Latte and get it to someone else very quickly. So I’m not worried about that.

Remember, motorcycles are like kleenex! There’s always another one waiting! They’re also like dating, you aren’t necessarily going to marry the first person you meet, right? :)

TALLNESS

But I can tell you that yes, it’s a bit tall but remember, taller and lighter. Please revisit my short tips to understand how that does work when you’re 5’2”! I also modified my boots like this ==>

That didn’t give me flat footing, but it didn’t need to because for me, I’ve been One Footing my motorcycles since the very beginning, even when I was riding a taller scooter.

The XT was my little dream dual sport bike, super capable when I did the BDR ride and I knew I had to have that bike!

I looked at many others including:

• Kawasaki KLX250 and KLX300

• Suzuki DR200S

• Yamaha TW200

• Honda CRF250 and CRF300

But it always came back to the XT250. Mostly for the fact that I already rode it, and it just felt right. You know that feeling? When you meet the love of your life, or the perfect pair of shoes or the perfect motorcycle? I also read lots of reviews of the XT250 against these other rides and the XT always won.

There are also lots of upgrades and parts available and I can’t wait to start collecting parts! But for now, it’s going to stay stock other than proper dual sport tires:

Dunlop D650 Tires on Latte

UPGRADES

The only upgrade for now are proper 50/50 tires : Dunlop D605’s .

PROTIP for PARTS SHOPPING:
When you are shopping for bike parts, you can ALWAYS visit the manufacture website because they will usually have a bike / part finder to enter your bike into their website and see what fits / is compatible!

This bike came from a local motorcycle school outsider of Denver so it had pavement focused tires and I need something just a bit knobbier that will also handle ~30 min of freeway riding to the mountains (I LOVE DENVER).

Also, tire shopping for offroad bikes are a whole thing. Sizing isn’t normal metric usually (e.g. 120/70/17) like on my street bike, so you may need to translate sizes. Grab your owners manual (or download one), LOOK UP your recommended sizes and then go from there. There are also lots of tire size translation resources on various website, but if you just scroll to the bottom of this page for the Dunlops, checkout the handy chart!

Looking at dual sport tires was super confusing for me until I found translations like this that told me what my size was in width (inches) and metric so I could understand the translations from metric to regular inches.

So that’s where I’m at for now, I’ll be posting another one soon about the gear I’m going to wear and why I chose it so stay tuned!

When One Door Closes....

Another One Opens! Like Really, Really Wide.

It’s been a crazy Summer so I haven’t had time to update.

I’m excited to announce I’ve been spending it at my new job as Retail Experience Manager for REV’IT! USA. Luckily we are based in Denver, so no, I am not moving back to Philadelphia anytime soon. (No more humidity!)

Since April I’ve been traveling, seeing friends along the way and most importantly, talking to riders! So here’s what I’ve been up to in case you missed my IG feed.

AUSTIN, TX

Right after I started, I headed right to MotoGP in Austin. And bumped into Danilo Petrucci! Ok, he was invited to our party in downtown Austin since he’s one of our sponsored riders in this year’s Moto America Championship. He’s also a former MotoGP rider and has taken the US championship by storm.

PORTLAND, OR

After MotoGP I went to Portland, to the amazing One Show. We also had a booth there and were able to preach the gospel of REV’IT to the masses. It was an incredible experience, with SO MANY PEOPLE! The creativity and overall enthusiasm for bikes was such a wonderful thing to see and experience. And YES, that is the very funny Alonzo Bodden.

NETHERLANDS

Then a few weeks later, it was off to visit our Global HQ just outside Amsterdam. Yep, the company is Dutch! It was such an incredible experience. I was able to ride bicycles in the canals, try stroopwaffle, see the HQ and more. I am definitely not good at the whole jetlag thing. I don’t know how I managed to stay awake the entire time.

Then the first week of June somehow showed up and I headed to Philly for our US Sales Meeting. I got to meet dealers from all over the US and Canada! Wasn’t a whole lot to see there, except meetings.

BROOKLYN, NY

Then came late June, as I headed to Brooklyn to actually help Comoto open the 3rd ever RevZilla Showroom in Brooklyn. Yes, it was surreal but it was also such a great time! Everyone was happy, in a great mood and just all around excited for RevZilla to land in Brooklyn. I was incredibly happy for them and was glad I could be a part of it. Part of my job is conducting training around the US and Canada for dealers / stores that need me. I spent a couple days training almost all of their sales staff on our brand and what we have to offer.

MOTO AMERICA LAGUNA SECA

14 Year Old Kayla Yaakov, Altus Motorsports

The following week, I ended up going to a last minute event called Moto America! It was hosted at Weathertech Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey. The weather was incredibly perfect and the racing was awesome. I was particularly impressed by this young woman named Kayla Yakoff, just a cheerful 14, going on 15 year old girl doing what she loves! She’s racing in the Junior Cup series on her Ninja 400. Last month she made history by winning the first Junior Cup race by a female!

I also got to meet Patricia Fernandez. She was racing in not just 1, but 2 series (my favorites) that weekend: King of the Baggers and Super Hooligans. If you’ve never seen a Harley Bagger leaning over far more than anyone probably thinks it can, going 100+mph down the straightaway, it’s something to witness. There are only two women racing in the Bagger and Hooligan series and it’s Patricia and Shelina Moreda who’s been racing for over a decade. It’s been so great to see her move through various racing classes as well. She also runs women’s dirt training classes in Northern CA and is just an all around talented human.

Right now, we are sponsoring PJ Jacobsen, Tytlers Cycle Racing on a BMW M1000RR and Danilo Petrucci on a Ducati Panigale V4 R, Warhorse HSBK Racing.

We also had a little booth in the vendor area because REV’IT is sponsoring the Twins Cup series this year! Hopefully by next year, you’ll see a little more of our track suit son the podium. :-)

You can catch up on all the races on Moto America’s youtube channel.

STURGIS, SD

Then the following week was RevZilla’s ADVFest in Sturgis. I’ve never been to Sturgis so for this one, I brought the man so he could ride his new to him DRZ400S! Thanks to Rawhyde Adventures for the killer novice adventure class that he took. It was insanely hot, but everyone still had a great time and I got to see a ton of ZLA friends that I hadn’t seen since pre pandemic!

LEADVILLE, CO

Then it was off to Leadville, CO for the first annual Holiday Moto event, which took place at the Leadville MX Track. REV’IT! was the title sponsor and I got to see a lot of new faces. No riding for me at this one, but soon!

CANADA

And finally I had a few weeks until I left for Canada to visit and train a couple of our awesome dealers over the border. I got to spend 2 days in Calgary with Blackfoot Motorsports, (please tell them I sent you!) training their sales team and meeting local riders.

TORONTO

Then it was a couple days in Toronto at GP Bikes. Another team of passionate, excited riders who needed some product training too. It was so busy I didn’t have time to take a lot of photos. I did manage a selfie in the Triumph room!

it’s only August but there are a few months left and a few more fun projects and events coming. Stay tuned for updates. :)