The 2008 Motorcycle Bloggers International Choice Awards are under way and accepting nominations! So, check out the site, view all of the categories and get to nominating! The nomination period ends on February 10th.

Yours truly has been nominated for “Women riders booster of the year“-how cool is THAT? But already the competition is tough. I’ll be sure to remind everyone when the voting period begins, so you can vote your lil hearts out! Until then they need you to go nominate your favorites. Go go go!

It’s probably not a big surprise that Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year, especially when I live in Spookytown itself-Salem, Massachusetts. It was estimated that about 100,000 people converged onto my little town. The weather was perfect for a night of spooks and ghouls out on the town. There was a carnival, lots of music & DJs and at the end of the night the city set off fireworks for the first time and it truly felt like a magnificent event. (Here’s a photo slide show of the night from Salem News)

We dressed up and roamed among them, scaring children and adults alike. It was fun!

Here I am in all my zombie creepiness! Check out all of my Halloween night photos at my Flickr page!

Now the town is back to it’s sleepy quietness and I am sad knowing that I will soon be putting my motorcycle into it’s winter hibernation.

Hey lookie here!

I received my first piece of fan art. How cool is that??

I’ve made some friends over at Kawasaki Motorcycle forums and this is from Thunder Lizard, who lives in Lethbridge, AB. He rides a pretty ‘07 VN900 LT that he calls “Lil Angel.” His reason for creation?

“After reading the RK blog for a while last night, this goofy idea blew into the large space where my brain should be, and the next thing I knew, I had made a Rippin Kitten graphic.”

Thank you, Thunder Lizard! This ROCKS!

If anyone else would like to send in a piece, PLEASE DO! I would love to create a page dedicated to your contributions. Don’t be shy!

A couple of random pieces of info that didn’t have a home:

• I recently discovered that I have the honor to be included on a highly exclusive and coveted list: I am #5 on the September list of The Most Bangable Blog Babes. Thank you, thank you very much…
• The word about rippin-kitten.com keeps on spreading (obviously, Kawasaki loaned me one of their frickin’ motorcycles! omg!) and more and more female biker blogs keep popping up. Everyone takes different approaches with the content of their blog, but it makes me wonder how long some of the newer blogs will stick around. I guess it depends on how dedicated they are and the quality of content being served up.
• Random question: does anyone still watch American Chopper? How have they survived the whim of Discovery Channel’s motorcycle programming over all of the other motorcycle shows?
• And finally, I’m happy to say that “Rippin-Kitten” stickers are available again! YAY! These cutie stickers are a great size for your helmet or anything else that you like to put stickers on! And they’re absolutely FREE.

This is a 4.25″x1.37″ sticker

This is 1″x3″sticker-the perfect size to put on your helmet!

If you would like some, all you have to do is send me an email with your mailing address and I will mail them directly to you! Did I mention that they’re free?

I just read an article about a guy who made a monocycle and it reminded me of a TV show I saw, I think it was a Biker Build-off. Billy Lane, who some of you may be familiar with, is a custom bike builder out of Melborne, Florida. He also has a mechanical engineering degree and a few years back put it to good use by building a hub-less wheel. The hub-less wheel found it’s way on to his bike, the “Psycho Billy Cadillac.”

(photo grabbed from Choppers Inc. and Copyright Choppers Inc.)

I realize that this is not a big deal. I just thought it was funny that technology invented in the latter part of the 1800’s is now cutting edge. The monocycle is nothing more than a larger version of Billy’s hub-less wheel. Billy, by his own admission, had the plans for years and gives credit to the original inventor. It just happened that he was able to take the concept and hammer it out to make a working prototype for a bike.

I am not a frequent viewer of the Food Network. I have caught a few shows here and there and am familiar with who Alton Brown is. I have seen his other show Good Eats before.

So, while scrolling through the cable program guide the other night I saw the listing for Feasting on Asphalt and with my trusty DVR I recorded a few shows. I’m really glad that I did.

The premise of the show has Alton and crew road-tripping on motorcycles (BMWs, no less) across the country to find and highlight the places and history behind American “road food.” They avoid highways at all costs, pledging to ride the forgotten back roads to find the dwindling, one of a kind roadside eats. Alton Brown an enigmatic and well-educated food-geek, the show itself is an interesting blend of road-tripping, history and mouth watering food!

From foodnetwork.com:

“Feasting On Asphalt merges a little Easy Rider with good eats and great tales from our road food’s past and present, while preserving the map for its future.”

Season one had them riding across the south from S. Carolina all the way to Los Angeles. For the recently kicked-off season 2, they head up the great Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico up to Minnesota.

“Most motorcycle problems are caused by the nut that connects the handlebars to the saddle.”

This quote is particularly true in describing yours truly this summer. I have created my own problems by trying to enhance the performance and bad-assness (did I just make up my own word?) of my motorcycle. I’m a bit frustrated because the summer is half-over and I haven’t done any real riding since bike week in Laconia.

The good news is that the pilot jet I was waiting for is finally here! The bad news is that it’s suppose to rain for the next few days.

And today, of course, is the beginning of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. I have never had the pleasure of attending, but I hope to someday. The past few years money and occupational commitments have prevented me from packing up and heading out there. Not to mention the fact that I live on the east coast and it’s pretty damn far for me to ride!

But I will do it some day.

I did something this week that I haven’t done in almost a month now: I rode my motorcycle to work. After the Rejet Debacle of Summer 2007 we finally got the bike to start and actually…go. We took it out for a little spin, it seemed ok.

The weather was good this week so I thought I would take it out for it’s maiden voyage after all of the work we put into it. Turns out that wasn’t the greatest idea. It was the most frustrating and stressful round-trip rides I’ve had in a long time.

Even though I’ve got the mixture screw turned out 4 times, the bike is still running lean. It’s not getting enough gas unless I really lean on the throttle, then it takes off like a rocket ship. Plus, I have to keep the choke out or else the bike stalls out. And that causes it to idle really high. The thing is, once it has enough gas it really flies.

More consulting on my motorcycle board tells me that I should swap out the pilot jet. Some folks who rejet say you don’t need to do that, Dynojet says you don’t need to do it, but then there are others who say you absolutely need to replace it. I ordered one the day before yesterday. If it comes in tomorrow then I know what I’m going to do this upcoming weekend.

The saga continues…

Ok, so I don’t own a Harley Davidson. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be impressed by their marketing and advertising, especially when I work in that field.

I literally got goosebumps when I watched the “Live by it” video and knew that I had to post it here because it doesn’t matter what kind of biker you are, this short video will speak to you in some capacity.

Head on over to the Harley Davidson website to see/learn about the creed film.

It’s time to get off of the computer and attack this motorcycle again to fix the problem. I want to be out riding this weekend!