As some of you know, we chose to go to Colorado during this time because we went to the 5th AMA International Women & Motorcycling Conference. The conference was pretty cool! It was amazing seeing so many women on their bikes, many traveling from back east by themselves. We had people asking us if we knew what was going on with all the women motorcycle riders.
They had a great opening ceremony and we got to meet Ashley Fiolek who is 18 years old and deaf, she started riding at age 3 and has been motocross racing since she was 7 years old. She has 13 amateur national titles and in 2008 she is the professional women motocross champion and is the FIRST women to be able to go pro and is the first female to be a part of the Honda / RedBull racing team and is now leading the points race for the 2009 series championship. It was awesome and inspiring!!
We also met Leslie Porterfield who broke 3 land speed records in 2008 on the Bonneville Salt Flats, after crashing at 110 mph in 2007 (which was her 1st attempt). She holds the 2008 Racing Female Rider of the Year Award. She broke her record and hit 234 mph. She rides a 2000cc, 600 lb, 360 horsepower motorcycle and she only weighs 110 lbs.
Then we met Lois Pryce who traveled 20,000 miles & 10 months by herself from Alaska to the tip of South America on a 225cc Yamaha. Then she went from London to Capetown, Africa and upgraded her bike to a 250cc, which took 4 months and 10,000 miles, again all by her self. This she said was a bit scary with civil wars going on in Angola.
We met Amy Holland the editor of "Friction Zone" Magazine on Loveland Pass, she is the one who took our picture next to the sign, a few minutes before it started to snow on us.
They had great seminars and the one Michael and I went to was "Accident Scene Management" what to do if someone goes down or you come across an accident scene, especially a motorcycle accident scene.
We also went on a group ride to Hot Sulfur Springs. There were 6 or more different manufacturers with demo rides, including BMW.
There were over 1000 in attendance, mostly women!! Very cool and very inspiring. The theme was "Riding to New Heights" and they encouraged us all to help inspire other women to get on and ride a motorcycle.
After the event we moved on to Estes Park, CO after traversing "Trail Ridge Pass" in Rocky Mountain National Park, the highest continuous paved road at 12,183' in North America. We found out the highest paved road in North America is to the top of MT Evans at over 14,000', which we road while staying in Breckenridge (see the picture of the Mountain Goats).
:blink: ).
