Meet Alice, a Badass Triumph Scrambler 1200X Rider

This is the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series of conversations with fellow riders from around the Pacific Northwest. I hope you enjoy it. My name is Alice Stormrider aka Spirit Emu. Spirit Emu. Oh Emu Spirit. My Emu Spirit must fly. Meet my friend Alice. She's a complete badass. She rides a Triumph Scrambler 1200X and she's been riding for about, well, she can tell you. Just over a year since like June 8th of 2023. But I did, I was on the back of a motorcycle a lot in college and I've always had a need for speed. Even though Alice has been riding only a short time now, this is already her second bike. Her first one isn't coming down for breakfast. My first motorcycle was Boba Fett. It was a 2013 Suzuki Boulevard. Savage. And taken out October 21st last year by a drunk driver. What happened? I'm just ending a really good ride. My first ride in like these twisties drizzles up on 219 in above Newburgh. And I was almost home, just came off the freeway in the left lane. They just, they came right across and I actually just shifted down to first, went down, avoided getting hit. Did you get hurt? Yeah, my hip and best case scenario. But um, my elbow, knee, bone bruise, and then got a messed up hip. Whenever Alice and I go out riding, I'll see her sort of dancing to the music in her headset. Sometimes though, it looks like she's doing a workout or something. I don't know. How long did it take you to recover? I'm still recovering. I have a lot of, I've got numbness, secondary, a numb foot. Is that why you do exercises when you're riding? I do exercises when I'm riding. I have lots of exercises, but um, this is the only thing I can sit on long-term and my back doesn't hurt. Oh weird, because a lot of people would say the opposite, that they can't ride for very long because their ends up hurting. Yeah. Um, driving hurts my back, sitting in the car, sometimes swimming, which pisses me off. I lose feeling in my arm when I swim now. Yeah. I'm the same way. I get a lot of back pain when I drive a car about two hours into it and then I just can't drive anymore. I could spend all day on a motorcycle for some reason. I know. And this has saved me. And I, um, I exercise a lot and I never had back issues. I always have strong abs, but so this angers me. Yeah. I have very strong abs too, as you can tell. Alice and I share a passion for Triumph Motorcycles. That's not why we're friends, but it doesn't hurt. Our scramblers fit the way we ride and in some odd way, they match our personalities. Oh my gosh. I knew I always knew I would upgrade to Triumph, but I didn't realize it'd be so soon, but it fits my personality because it's so empowering. Yeah. And it, um, it's kind of rough around the edges like me and, um, zippy quick response handles curves like crazy. This bike can lean and, uh, you know, took a little getting used to, but I love it. I don't mind riding at all with folks who are slower than me or less experienced, but riding with someone like Alice challenges me. She's a great rider. And to be honest, I had a tough time keeping up with her in the riding video you see here. It has nothing to do with the fact that she has a bigger engine. It's just that she takes riding seriously. She practices and she's good. And that's the kind of riding buddy you want. You ever played ping pong with someone who sucks? That's probably me. No, actually, cause it's really boring. And you just ended up hating playing ping pong. You and I are like really evenly matched riding, but I've been riding for off and on for a million years. You've been riding for how long? Uh, just a year. I mean, let's see. I rode June to October and then I bought, I bought her right at the end of December and didn't really start riding again until March or April because of weather. And I put 50, I'm almost at 6,000 miles, but I practiced those twisties and then I'll come back and do it the other way. And I have already done this road. You practice. That's interesting. They're challenges for me. I would look, I love maps. I've always loved maps. So I'd look at a map and look for like twisty roads and then go do it. And then I've gone back and done all the roads I did on Boba Fett and then did it backwards. And then if you had advice for someone, I'm assuming your age, I don't know a solid, roughly around my age. I'm a little older. If you had advice for someone our age, getting into motorcycling, especially women, what would you say? Oh, do it. I didn't realize that I'd want to go so far. Every time I would go out, I would come back and want to go longer. And I didn't realize it would calm my brain. Like having, I didn't, I'd learn more and more about the ADHD correlate correlation. Like swimming calms my body, but my brain is just like going, this calms my brain. And just the sense is like, you can smell the blackberries in August and then fresh cut wood. If you go in the forest and they've like, and then just exhilaration. And I'm glad I didn't do it in my twenties. Yeah. I probably would've killed myself. Back in our younger days, Alice and I both had Mazda RX sevens. It got us talking about what happens if, and when we age out of this whole motorcycling thing. You think if you ever get too old to ride, whatever that means, you'll go back to cars. I've already thought about this, Dan. I'm going to get a 68 fastback GT Mustang, Stephen McQueen's car and bullet. That's my dream car. So you're rich then. I'm not rich. Maybe when I'm 85. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Or, or an RX seven. By the time you're 85, that car is going to be worth about a $42 million. I'll sell my house. There you go. Uh, let's hit the road. Yes. Let's do it. Thanks for watching. I'd love to bring you more stories of fellow riders like this. If that's something you find interesting, let me know in the comments. Also click that subscribe button. It really helps grow the channel.