Angel in the Wind By Lori "Angel" Minor Issue #161 Iron Horse Magazine Well, I guess I’ll just grab the bull by the horns
and go...the same way I ride. I’ve been known to be a little different from most girls...I’d rather be out in
the shed with my bike or yaking with the guys at the local bike shop than
shopping for dresses or going to the beauty shop. Ahhh, but luckily I don’t
have to wear dresses. I’m a jeans~n~leather kinda gal...been that way all my
life and I don’t think I’ll ever change. I got on a motorcycle for the first
time at the age of thirteen. I just grabbed that bull by the horns too I guess, at least,
that’s what I heard later. They said I was up on one wheel from the getgo but
all I knew was that I loved the feeling. That first motorcycle was the boy next
door’s Enduro bike. He was surprised that I did so well that he and his dad
started letting me go along with all the other neighborhood boys to the ditches
to do some real riding. That seems like a hundred years ago but my love for Hey now, I know what you’re thinking...how could some chick from Florida live and breathe Harleys. It’s not often I meet women who can say they’ve been riding for 24 years, although most women who really RIDE everyday, have been riding for a long time. My daughter, Sarah, has been riding with me since her first time at 18 months of age, only 8 months after she learned how to walk. She’s now 5. What a rare site it must be to see us riding down the road. I do get my share of looks and stares but it’s worth it. It shows the public that bikers come in all shapes and sizes. That we are men, women, and children who just live to ride. There’s no shame in that. I am proud of my life. Most of the women riders I know have had to make a lot
of modifications to their
bikes in what has for far too long, been a man’s world. You all know who the culprit
is, the factories. Only within the last ten years have they started catering more to us
vertically challenged people...both men and women. We want to ride and we will find After I bought my Harley, I wanted to do as little to it as possible but with the most impact. Since I’m a single working mom, I didn’t have much of a financial anchor. One of my hobbies is leatherwork, so, I traded some leatherwork repairs for a rear ducktail fender. I got the front ducktail fender for Christmas from Jim, my brother-in-law. He’d had it on a narrowed wide glide. The tank, I bought used from my mailman, Bill. It does my heart good to know it’s sitting proudly on my bike, who by the way, I call Liz. It had belonged to his wife, Ginger who died of diabetes at the young age of only 28 while he was in the process of building her a sporty. I’m glad it’s being put to good use. I took those three pieces to a Will, who is a friend of a friend of a friend (you know how that goes). He only paints vintage hot rod cars but Liz was his first motorcycle job. He shot it white with a red pearl undercoat. Being that my favorite color is pink, it’s got a pink tinge to it in the sunlight. Fast, cheap, and plain ! It looks great...no Motor Company Genuine decals for me. If they want me to advertise for them by putting their name on my tank, then they can send me a check every month. Liz, is a 1988 sportster. She was born with 883cc’s but before I got her, she was kicked up to 1200 with the help of a big-bore kit. I got rid of all the live to ride crap the first week home and gave her a used S&S carburetor. Since I was running drags, her stock carb was choking the life out of her. I thought it was silly to rejet and added the S & S instead. She’s still running a chain. I can’t really think of much else I want to do to her at this point, as I’m pretty happy with the way she runs and looks. It’s only fitting that an Angel should ride a white bike. I don’t do much group riding. I guess you could say I’m somewhat of a loner. I did ride with a group to St. Augustine a few years back and three or four of us ride to Daytona once in a while. It took ten people, nine hours to go 125 miles! We had a great time, made a lot of stops, the best of which was our stop in Daytona. During the rest of the year, Daytona is a pretty quiet town. We got our pick of seats at Froggy’s, didn’t have to wait in line to get a beer at the Boot Hill and parking on the main drag in front of Dirty Harry’s was like parking in the desert. Most of the vendors are open but you almost expect to see tumbleweeds blowing down Main Street. Needless to say, I haven’t gone on many more of those nine-hour rides. Although it was fun making so many stops, I’d rather get where I’m going and forget all the hassles. I do look forward to going to bike week in Daytona and YES, I do ride there. Twice a year you really have to fight the crowds but it’s great running into people you haven’t seen for a while and making new friends. Since I’m only 99 miles south, I try to make it there often throughout the year. It’s a beautiful place and if you’ve never been to bike week and you like people, I suggest a visit. Even if it’s not during Bike Week in March or Biketoberfest in October, there’s plenty to do here from New Smyrna, to the Ponce Inlet, to Ormond. I suggest a nice 400-mile ride down to visit Key West while you’re in the sunshine state and maybe a jaunt over to say hi to Mickey in Orlando. During the day, I work for a computer software company. I manage the office and design web sites on the Internet. I’m not really much of a technical person. There’s a lot of software available that makes working with computers very easy these days. I love my job and I love the people I meet while working on computers. I have my own web site so I get to meet people from all over the world that I would never have gotten to meet without it. That’s how I met our dear editor, Hammer. I was cruisin' around in cyberspace and found Genghis had a niche in space. Which I might add, was put together very nicely. I dug a little further and found "Hammers Home Page". I’ve even met people at Bike Week in Daytona that I first communicated with through the Internet. Look, you gotta face it, it’s the way the world is going. Soon, I think it will be our most effective tool for communication. When people communicate via Email, they say things they sometimes would never even tell their best friend. I have found a lot of information about Harley repairs, as well. If you live in California and you are having an electrical problem that you can’t solve, just type a little message to your favorite chat group or news group, and viola, you get an answer from a top electrical guy (or gal) in New Jersey. They may have just happened to have had that same electrical problem last year. OK, yeah, sometimes you get some stupid answers but most of the time, I’ve found good people with information you just can’t get anywhere else. In my spare time at home, I’ve taken up leatherwork, designing patches, saddlebags and other misc. items. I’d like to learn how to make some awesome seats like the work of Paul Cox. I’ve seen some awesome creativity out of that man. I especially like the fur-on seat on the Beezer in issue #139. I’m happy to have been born and raised in Florida. But, no, I’m not spoiled by the weather. I spent a lot of time in Chicago and New Jersey when I was a kid. I am pleased that the weather here is usually warm but keep in mind how much it rains and the destructive tornadoes we have to live with. You can bet if you go to work in sunshine at nine o’clock in the morning, it will be black with tornado warnings by drive time at 5pm! Yeah, I know what you’re thinking..."I’d take the rain over having to ride on ice and sleet in the winter". Well then, move to Florida and quit your whining. I choose to live in the land of the sun and rain. It’s very tropical and I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else on earth. You know how us Floridians are, we live 10 minutes from the beach and never make it all the way there. We’re white as ghosts and when we do make it there, it’s to admire the stars and how brightly they shine in our sky at night or the sound of the crashing waves rolling in. Riding in the moonlight with the salt air in our faces and the fresh air filling our senses. My daughter says her favorite part about riding is being able to smell the flowers in the air and being able to hold on to me because she loves me. She says she loves to feel the cool wind on her face. This kid’s growing up right. I told her last week, as we were getting ready to go out, that she looked like a biker...she says "Mommy, I AM a biker"! I’m happy to be a part of Iron Horse and what they represent, the heart of the traditional, alternative biker and by that, I mean the men and women who aren’t into the chrome domes and garbage wagons, but who truly live life to ride! David, you’re heart is missed deeply from the pages within. I was first turned on to the Horse by a good friend, Rich, who is now deceased. He died doing what he loved most in life, riding his Harley. I hope I can contribute a part of myself that will inspire you to keep it in the wind. angel...
ItsBadAngel
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