November 9, 2009

Good girl gone bad

From Meager Scooter Girl to Full-fledged Biker Chick:
True Stories of the Hard-Life by Amy “Cowbell” Campbell

Amy Campbell ain’t no tart – she’s a biker chick!

I live approx. an hour and a half north of Toronto, which is definitely on purpose. For those who know me, know I am not a fan of city life. I recently spent 2 days downtown Toronto for training, and was overjoyed each night to return to my little 2-horse town …..

(more…)

June 23, 2009

Biker Chicks with … “Cowbell”

Everyday, we’re seeing more and more women riding motorcycles, and it’s a beautiful thing. No matter what your gender is, there is no better sense of freedom and expression than hitting the open road, track or trail with your bike, twisting the throttle and feeling all of your cares float away….

(more…)

January 31, 2008

Forget about the XV 650, girls… the XV1900 rocks!

What a glorious beast is the new XV 1900

By Maggie Hole, Yamaha Motor Canada

As an employee at Yamaha Motor Canada, I must admit I get a lot of great perks, like the opportunity to borrow Yamaha products.

The best job perk so far, though, has been the recent ‘Yamaha Ladies Night‘, where I got to try out some bikes that aren’t on our employee rental program.

I must say, it was a great thrill to try out the all new 2008 XV1900 (what a beast of a bike!) The power is amazing, yet I felt very confident and comfortable after the first couple of shifts. I loved every minute of it!

You should read what went into the making of the XV1900 from my colleague at Yamaha, John Bayliss – it’s quite a story!

December 11, 2007

Welcome from Carolyn Hay

Hi, I’m Carolyn Hay (but you can call me Cal). I’ve been working in the marketing department of Yamaha Motor Canada since January 2004. My main focus at work is developing the creative behind the company’s brochures and point-of-sale materials.

I like working at Yamaha because I feel like I’m part of something I believe in. Not only do I get to work in the motorcycle industry, but it’s one of my treasured hobbies. I feel very fortunate that I have combined the two.

I recently rode my first bike home for the first time – my very own 2007 YZF-R6 (in dark-grey). I’ve wanted an R6 for seven years now!

Ever since I bought it, I’ve been wearing a grin ear to ear every day! Now I’m counting down the days until April when the roads clear and I can launch into my first full season season with my R6!

My hobbies include anything that burns gas. I grew up around classic muscle cars, the drag track and car shows. When I discovered motorcycles (in 2000), it was just an addition to my other moto-passions.

I am blogging in this space to share my personal stories of motorcycling, including great roads I’ve found and my bike “firsts.” I hope to hear back from you, about your own biking adventures! Cal

December 6, 2007

Growing up moto – but not with cycles

How I discovered bikes and never looked back

By Carolyn Hay, marketing representative, Yamaha Motor Canada

Growing up, I was always surrounded by classic muscle cars, rail dragsters, big blocks, and four-speed manual trannys. Not too often would you find a motorcycle among the crowd.

But then, one hot July night back in 2000, something changed all that. I was at work when some friends came by to coerce me to go to a superbike race over at Mosport the following day. At that time I was like, ‘what’s a Superbike?” I was reluctant, but with a little convincing, I went.

I found out that motorcycles are a whole other world! And that was just the beginning. That summer I put in plenty of seat time as a passenger. It was official… I was hooked!

Then I decided, why should I leave all the fun to someone else? I didn’t want to be the passenger any more. So I went and got my motorcycle license in 2003. The natural progression was to get my own set of wheels, and it was the Yamaha R6 that I had fallen in love with!

The first time I got to sit on an R6 was at the Toronto Motorcycle Show back in December 2003. (Yep, that’s me in the picture (right). Pretty funny, I know… the look of pure concentration on my face is good for a laugh!)

The very next day, I applied for a marketing position within Yamaha Motor Canada.

The last four years have been a blast… now I ride R6s – heck, R1s even! But the sweetest was yet to come…

October 17, 2007 was an extremely exciting day for me; you see, I rode home for the first time on my very own 2007 Yamaha R6!! (That’s me with my baby, right.)

No more begging for loaner bikes at work… no more Sunday mornings waking up and just WISHING I had my own bike!

The ride to work will never be the same… or to anywhere, for that matter!

What I want to know is, am I going nut’z or is this normal?

- Cal

November 20, 2007

Welcome from Andree Lamarche

Hi, I’m Andrée, and I’m the French translator for Yamaha Motor Canada. I started riding in mid-2005, about three years after I joined Yamaha… but these days, I hardly ever drive my car in the warm months. You’ll find me on a bike most weekdays as well as virtually every weekend!

I most often ride the V-Star 650 that I borrow from Yamaha. (My favourite bike, the V-Star 1100, is usually signed out by coworkers before I can get to it!)

Off the bike, I love to garden and to canoe/portage deep in Algonquin Park at least once every summer; I try to get any of my three kids (the youngest is 17) to go with me, if I can! In another life – predating kids – I used to enjoy scuba diving and parachuting.

My new big adventure? Blogging!! I’m trying it out because I want to keep in touch with customers – and keep up with the changing times. (I’m looking into getting a laptop so I can blog anywhere, anytime!) I’d really like to hear from some like minded ladies on my posts. Enjoy. Andrée

November 15, 2007

Riding doesn’t always go without a (trailer) hitch

Expect the unexpected!

By Andrée Lamarche, French translator, Yamaha Motor Canada

The sun was shining, the breeze was refreshing, the road was just too inviting to pass up… Sound familiar? Early one warm morning this past summer, I went out to enjoy a ride on a V-Star 650. No arm-twisting necessary!

The fact that a windshield had not yet been installed on the bike I was riding that day ended up contributing greatly to averting a serious accident. After almost two hours of riding and a good many long curves and winding roads, I found myself heading south on a rural highway. (Can you smell the fresh country air? Feel the freedom? Heaven on earth!)

Well, as usual, my helmet visor was up because I like to feel the wind on my face. (My contacts haven’t blown off yet!). Then grains of dirt began to disrupt my perfect world – and my vision. I thought maybe the pickup truck ahead of me had veered a bit off the asphalted surface and disturbed the soft stuff on the shoulder of the road.

Without a windshield and with my visor up, my face had no protection, so I lowered the visor. Bits of grit kept coming up through the bottom of my helmet. I increased the buffering distance between the pickup truck/old trailer unit and my V-Star, blinked a few times to wash my eyes of the bothersome grains.

All of a sudden, there was a sharp cracking noise… and I found myself watching the old trailer slowly moving away from the pickup truck. It took a few seconds for me to realize that this very unexpected scenario was really happening… in my lane, a short distance in front of me!!

Luckily, there were no vehicles in the oncoming lane to my left, so I whipped over and watched the trailer dance by me and auger crash into the ditch. There was a huge thump and an impressive cloud of dust.

Look ahead, plan ahead, keep a safe distance

By the time I stopped up ahead and walked back to the crash scene, the driver of the pickup and his passenger were looking at the heap of broken wood that used to be their trailer. We were all unharmed, just a little shaken up and very thankful! (Apparently, the safety chains had broken as well as the receiver.)

In the end, these few seconds taught me in a very real lesson – to look ahead, plan ahead, and keep a respectful safety zone around my bike, out of harm’s way of unexpected flying cigarette butts, gum wads, tire chunks… and runaway trailers!

Guess that’s what the motorcycle course instructors mean when they told us to expect the unexpected!!

Have you had any ‘close ones’ where you learned a lesson in safety?

Ride safe, Andrée

November 1, 2007

Welcome to the Yamaha Canada Bike Blog

Hi, my name is Chris Reid and I am the Senior Product and Research Manager here at Yamaha Motor Canada. If you are also a ’sled head’, you might know me as CR over on our sister blog, ‘Sled Talk‘.

We have assembled a group of Yamaha Motor Canada employees who all love to ride and have some stories to tell. We hope you’ll check in often, and read what we have to say.

(As far as I know, Yamaha is the only motorsports company in Canada to host a blog where we interact with our friends and customers.)

If you have any questions or feedback for us, you’re welcome to add a comment and we’ll try to respond to as many as we can. There are some areas that we won’t be discussing (please see our Terms of Use) but for the most part, be nice and anything motorcycle-related goes!

If you like what you see, you can subscribe (enter email address on the right) and we’ll email you whenever we add a new post, or you can add Bike Blog to your list of RSS feeds. We’ll be populating the blog with a wide selection of content over the next few weeks and we’d love to hear what you have to say about it all.

I sincerely hope you enjoy Bike Blog and if you do, please let your friends know about us.

Cheers cr