Chronicles of a Motorcycle Gypsy

By Tiffani Burkett

A journey of 38,000 miles begins with a single twist of the throttle.

After six years of laying rubber on racetracks and immersing herself in the high octane, adrenaline pumping sport of motorcycle racing, Tiffani was yearning for something new from her life on two wheels. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) losing her comfortable office job was the perfect opportunity to do exactly that.

At 28 years old, single, unattached, and now unemployed, she took her 2015 Yamaha FZ-07 and built the nimble sport bike into a make-shift adventure motorcycle. She packed it full of camping gear, and set off on an adventure that she had always dreamed about.

The problem? Tiffani had scarcely traveled outside her long-time home in Los Angeles, let alone with nothing but a tent and hope to keep her safe.

Chronicles of a Motorcycle Gypsy is an inspiring tale of confronting fears, insecurities, and self doubts for the sake of following your heart, all while discovering the many wonders of the 49 continental United States. Tiffani encounters some of the best and worst of humanity, meets a friend that eventually makes her journey a little less lonely, and puts all of her riding skills to the test, struggling with everything from her first time riding a sport bike in deep sand to getting caught in a blizzard in the Colorado mountains. It's a big world outside the racetrack!

Originally published as a Travelogue in Motorcyclist Magazine as Girl Meets World, this full length memoir contains the untold stories and the details that were a little too racy for the blog. If you loved Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's Long Way Round and Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels, you'll love Chronicles of a Motorcycle Gypsy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tiffani Burkett
• Release date: Nov 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463689356

Tiffani Burkett

Tiffani grew up in Los Angeles, CA with a story in her head, a comic book in her hands, and eventually, a motorcycle under her feet. But after a long career in software development, she went off on a road trip spanning 2 years, exploring the US, Latin America, and Southeast Asia with nothing but a motorcycle, a tent, and a lot of hope.Over that trip, she discovered a love and talent for writing, and she's now a published Journalist in Motorcyclist Magazine, the world's oldest running motorcycle publication. When she's not behind the keyboard, she’s a licensed motorcycle road racer and scuba diver, a motivational speaker, an artist, and a seasoned adventurer.

Book preview

Chapter 1

'Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.'

What is courage, really? It’s not a skill. You don’t win a fight with courage. It’s not a lesson you can learn or a target you can hit. When I started toying with the idea of traveling on a motorcycle, I stopped and assessed myself. I thought to myself that there are millions of people much more skilled on a motorcycle than I am. There are millions of people who are more clever and more savvy. There are probably billions of people who generally make better decisions than I do. I’m not strong or fast or special in any way. Hell, I’m not even very lucky. But great adventures aren’t built on skill, and well.... they're certainly not built on making good decisions.

The greatest adventures are built on the ability to look at everything you know you logically shouldn’t do, all of the things that you’re afraid to do, all of the things that you tell yourself you can’t do, and decide to instead listen to the deepest parts of your heart that tell you to do them anyways.

* * *

I walked into my office like I did on every other day, I talked to my coworkers about weekend plans like I did on every other week, I fantasized about places I hoped to someday visit like I did on every other lunch break, and then the whole company got called into a meeting unlike every other meeting.

In a way that only the coldest and most heartless corporate robot could muster, a man I recognized as the face of the recent buyout told us with exuberance that they were closing the Los Angeles office, moving all of their resources to Northern California. It was a conflicting feeling. There was disgust for the sociopathic levels of joy he seemed to have as he informed about 60 people that they were about to be lose their livelihood. There was fear over knowing I was going to have to either move or lose my steady and comfortable job. There was relief in realizing this could be an out from a place with an increasingly bleak future under these new overlords.

As I walked into my boss’s office to discuss what this meant for me, relief was the only emotion left as I confidently requested my severance package.

I grew up in Los Angeles. I was born there, I was raised there, and I had barely ever left there. My life was just like any other lower-class city life in this day and age, really. Five children, a single mother, a drug addict father, and all the typical drama and trust issues that come with it. The same story probably half the city could tell. But as such, the only traveling I had ever done was through the eyes of a virtual protagonist in a video game world. In my adult life, I used that same love for escapism to claw my way into the middle class with a not very fancy tech job in a not very fancy neighborhood, where on some crazy whim, I found myself riding a not very fancy motorcycle.

I think anyone who has ever thrown their leg over a motorcycle has at least imagined just taking off with nothing but the open road ahead of you. You, your motorcycle, the wind in your hair, bugs in your teeth, and miles and miles of uninterrupted freedom. And I was certainly not immune to these musings, myself. It was pure fantasy, but what a fantasy it was.

But every now and again in life, things line up just right and you suddenly realize you’re being presented with an opportunity. Sometimes everything lining up means losing your job and being frustrated with life around the same time that you just bought a lightly used 2015 Yamaha FZ-07. Let’s call this phenomenon the perfect storm of cockamamie ideas.

As I walked out of the office that day, I found a new fire running through my veins. They gave us 3 months before the office was going to close, and I had a lot of preparation ahead of me. I wanted to ride cross country. While I was more intrigued by the northern states, an early March layoff had me focused on the south for the more livable weather. The Florida Keys would surely be lovely this time of year. And the MotoGP race at Circuit of the Americas in Texas would be only a month away, so going to the Keys and back could be the perfect excuse to hit the races. What lucky timing!

I had spent about 10 years saving money, going straight into the workforce after high school and setting aside every extra dollar I could in hopes of one day affording college. That's just how I approached things, be it cars, motorcycles, or college tuition- If I couldn't buy it outright, I couldn't afford it. But 10 years in the tech industry meant I was so well established, I didn't really need to go to college to further my career anymore. I determined that that money might be better spent on a more real world education. And what’s a better lesson than travel?

I started pinching every penny I could to add to the pot, researching gear, and building my naked sport bike into an adventure worthy machine. At 683ccs, maybe 70hp, give or take, and just under 400 pounds, the FZ was small, nimble, and capable, and I was convinced it was going to be a perfect adventure bike, even if it did need a bit more luggage room. Sport bikes are what I love and sport bikes are what I'm used to, so I had no desire to actually get an adventure purposed motorcycle. I wanted something fun, I wanted something I would be genuinely excited about riding every day, I wanted something I could touch the ground on, and I wanted something I could pick up if I dropped it in the middle of nowhere with no one around.

I explained my plan to my friends, to a range of surprising support and debatably healthy skepticism. I still recall one of the last conversations I had with a good friend as I finished up my final preparations.

A lot of bad things seem to happen to you, and you’re probably going to die, he professed, only somewhat jokingly. Can you just start a blog or update us through Facebook every couple of days so we know you’re still alive?

I shrugged. I had a reputation for being a little bit awkward and a lot a bit clumsy. Maybe it was the crashes, the stumbles, or that one time I accidentally hit into a parked motorcycle, but it was a lucky day if I went an entire hour without tripping over my own feet or spilling something on myself. But I don’t know that my desires took any of this into account when they started dreaming up plans for me.

Well, then why don’t you come with me? I retorted with a proposal that I knew was simply ludicrous, having made it so many times before. I'm sure it'll be fine.

I’d love to, but…. And the response was the same as it always was. Those four words, when used together in succession, are my least favorite words in the dictionary. I smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder, assuring him it was a joke, so he wouldn’t feel obligated to come up with an excuse. It was an unreasonable proposal. A reasonable response wasn’t necessary. If I waited until someone else was on board every time I wanted to do anything, I’d miss out on everything.

Besides, I just had to survive the road alone for one month. How hard could that be?

The day I bought the FZ-07 (Ironically at a BMW Dealership in Long Beach, California)! It took about 1 mile of test riding to be completely and utterly in love.

This was what I hoped would be everything I needed in the world (Plus a couple useless extras).

Chapter 2

It’s amazing how no matter how much you might prepare for something, how much you want to do it, and how much you know you need to do it, when push comes to shove, you can’t help but still be completely terrified. The anxiety was almost overwhelming when the reality set in that this was really the day and I was really about to leave. As I tightened the last strap on my luggage, and shoved the last granola bar in my backpack, I kept searching in my mind for one more thing that just had to be done before I left. One more thing to delay the inevitable. I won’t say I was looking for an out, but I felt like I was sitting on a rollercoaster as it crept over that final inch of the highest apex before gravity took over and sent me hurdling passed the point of no return.

I said my farewells to family. I gave my mother a hug, telling myself in the back of my mind that it definitely wouldn’t be the last, and I did my best impression of someone who had her shit together as I twisted my throttle toward Death Valley.

In hindsight, I probably wasn’t setting myself up for the best of omens picking a place with a name like Death Valley as my first destination. But there was a method to my madness other than a love of irony and dark comedy- and that method was called a super bloom.

While ordinarily Death Valley is known for the intense, life crushing heat as its elevation dips to what I can only assume is the first circle of hell, once every 10 years or so, the sparse rain and abundant heat in California balances itself just right to activate all of the dormant seeds that blanket the valley floor. This results in just about every flower in the park emerging from their desert coffins and blooming together in spectacular color. This year just so happened to be one of those rare years, and I just so happened to live a paltry 200 miles from Death Valley.

As soon as I was finally free of the usual LA traffic, the road opened up wide and straight and familiar. I had taken the 395 to Mount Whitney countless times, and the sense of knowing where I was gave me a bit of confidence on this first day. I tucked behind my tiny wind screen, as if my naked sport bike had any chance of protecting me from the heavy crosswinds, and I turned off the road toward the start of the park. I had already picked out a campground, so all I had to do was get there. Every passing mile I found myself feeling a little less anxious and a little more excited.

It’s an odd place, Death Valley. The name elicits an image of arid desert and sunken wasteland, but instead, I was treated to views of awe-inspiring rock formations and colorful minerals painting the canyon walls. Splashes of pink, dashes of green, and veils of purple covered every rock as the road gently wrapped down to the Valley floor. As I dipped below sea level, the colors then took shape in the form of flowers. Flowers everywhere. Endless fields of yellow stretched for miles along the road, and the young and old alike strolled through the blooms with a childlike sense of wonder. My last doubts started to slip away, and I no longer wondered whether I was making a good decision. It was so perfect.

I knew all along this trip was going to be a good idea, I said to myself to the mocking tone of I told you so. Well, it probably would be, anyways.

I pulled into a campground in Furnace Creek and ran into my first minor setback.

This whole super bloom thing is, unsurprisingly, a big deal. And naturally, as any logical person would have concluded long before they were being turned away at the gates, the campgrounds were packed to the brim with tourists who had, decidedly, taken off work to make my life harder. I rode back to a couple different campgrounds before finding myself in the overflow section at the base of Texas Spring campground. I was already feeling pleased with my decision to run dual sport tires on my sport bike as I wiggled through the loose rocks to set up camp.

I set up quickly, complete with 10 minutes of huffing and puffing into my air mattress, and 5 more minutes of wrestling with my camp chair. As I put the final touches on my home away from home, I sank into a deep sense of relief. This isn’t so bad. What was I so afraid of?

Other campers were immediately friendly, many asking where I had come from with all this luggage (only to get my still lackluster tale of having left Los Angeles a couple hours ago). One man stopped to chat who had already clearly had quite a bit to drink, punctuated by a slurred offering of wine and an impromptu rant on politics.

After all the introductions and curiosity died down, I finally got to breathe and try to mentally recoup from my frenzied day at the mental Olympics. I boiled some water and made my way through half a bag of rehydrated chili mac as the sun set over the golden fields. The night was as warm as you might expect in a place called Furnace Creek, but despite the comfortable temperatures, I found myself tossing and turning through the night, jumping with every sound of rustling polyester or crunching gravel.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up in not the best part of the big city, where trust very much had to be earned. Perhaps it’s because I’ve existed outside as a woman for my whole life where catcalls, unsolicited touching, aggressive flirtation, and the occasional being followed by an angry man who wasn’t satisfied with my disinterest in his advances, was a common reality. Or perhaps it’s because so many friends and strangers alike always felt it important to warn me of the dangers of life with a barrage of tales and news stories of people being attacked in their tents, but I couldn’t calm my nightmares.

I don’t know why it is that, any time I mentioned I was going on a trip alone, people always wanted to tell me of all the worst possible news they could think of. It’s not that I think there’s no danger in the world or that it couldn’t happen to me, but from my experience, it’s far more common that someone will immediately go for all of the most morbid and terrible aspects of an activity before they even think about the wonder and freedom and good of it.

For example, if you ride a motorcycle, which most people who I associate with generally do, and you park at, say, a café. You walk inside in full gear, carrying your helmet.

Do you ride? The waitress asks. You look down at your helmet, laughing inside a bit, assuming it must be a rhetorical question given how obvious your outfit.

As much as I can! You might reply, probably grinning ear to ear- I always am when I talk about riding, anyways- and hoping that she’s going to tell you about how she learned to ride on her beloved Honda two-stroke when she was a teenager, followed by a two-finger wave. And then the waitress responds.

My brother’s girlfriend’s cousin’s son rides, and he got hit by a semi and lost both of his legs. That’s so dangerous. I would never! Be careful out there!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one already. You can slap me if you hear it in some variation almost every single time a non-rider (Or in some cases, even a past rider) sees you on a bike. It’s the same with travel. Before you start doing it, and even after you’ve gotten established and proven you’re capable of making good decisions, the first reaction most people will have is often a story of how horrible and dangerous the world is, because they heard about this one time someone in the world had something bad happen to them. I don’t know if it’s just a means of justifying their own fears, so they don’t feel as disappointed when they deny themselves from doing what they want to do, or if it’s just an unfortunate part of human nature. Either way, being new to this whole traveling on a vehicle that leaves you completely exposed to every element, bug, rock, and naysayer that crosses your path thing, I wasn’t sure yet how real or ridiculous these warnings might be.

But in this case, I had met the people in the campground. It was fine. There was nothing to worry about. There were even rangers and rules. Why was I letting all of those thoughts get to me?

My best attempts at rationalizing didn’t seem to ease my mind, and I got up with the sun the moment it saw fit to rise. It was silly, and I couldn’t wrap my head around my own fears, but it was clear there were going to be quite a few more hurdles I needed to surmount beyond just the physical stress of long distance riding.

As I took in the morning sun, nibbling on the cold remains of last night’s dinner and starting to feel comfortable again, a man camping nearby approached me with a plate full of breakfast.

I thought you might appreciate some real food. He beamed as he handed me an omelet and some salad.

You really didn’t have to-

I wanted to. He interrupted. I’ve been living out of my car for the last 6 months, and I know how nice a real meal can be.

I often struggled to accept help from other people, be them friends or strangers. I never wanted to be a burden, and I never wanted to take something from someone that they might want or need themselves. Perhaps it was more about trust issues, as I never knew what offers were genuine and what ones came with strings attached, perhaps it was a self-esteem issue, believing I hadn't done anything to deserve their kindness, or perhaps it was more about pride and stubbornness, as I felt I could manage most things on my own. But in this case, I didn’t even have a chance to hesitate as he placed a plate in my hands. He clearly wasn't interested in my ridiculous social hang ups. The meal was exchanged for company, and he spent the morning going over maps and showing me his favorite routes for when I might inevitably end up in each area.

It felt really good, honestly. There was no expectations or agendas in his words or his gestures other than a genuine enthusiasm for connection with other travelers. My experience was already proving people to be better than I had given credit for. I wish my nighttime subconscious had been able to accept what was so clear in the daylight.

I finally started packing up, feeling refreshed and determined. The man who had stumbled through my campsite the evening prior approached me to ask if I needed help finding the road to Vegas, but while it seemed like a kind offer, he was itching to get moving, and I wasn’t the fastest packer. His drunk stories of wheelies and street racing may or may not have played a part in my going it alone. I’m accident prone enough just trying to go in a straight line! I waved him on and set out alone with everything safe and secured.

Camping day number one was officially a success!

My home away from home for the next month really isn’t too shabby. (Death Valley, California)

Chapter 3

Day two was bound to be an easy day. I was meeting my good friend, Sam, in Las Vegas, so I had a secure place to stay and a nice bed to sleep in. Like many of my friends, I had met him at a racetrack in Southern California. His offbeat way of thinking aligned perfectly with my own eccentricities, and we had been chums ever since. I was looking forward to all of these far away friends I would get to visit on this trek.

I followed the Stateline Road, accidentally taking the slow way around, both in distance and in potholes. I passed through vast deserts of nothingness, which I often associated with Nevada, going through Pahrump and Red Rocks before reaching the city. I had been to Las Vegas a handful of times for work, so it wasn’t anything terribly new. The strip was the same as it always had been- Gaudy and loud, with the unmistakable scent of poor choices. The traffic was bad, and the slot machines were chiming with the ring of small wins and big losses. I made a quick stop at a restaurant to pick up a piece of pie in honor of Pi Day (That’s March 14th, or 3.14, for those who didn’t grow up thinking math was fun and should be celebrated. Don’t judge me), then I stopped by Sam's place for the night.

I met his wife briefly, but I guess I was more tired than I had realized from the day prior, because I passed out shortly after getting there and didn’t wake up until the next day. All of that stress really took it out of me. He and his wife both had work, so I hung out the next morning until I was the last one left, then got back on the road. Maybe not the craziest of Vegas stories (unless you count that crazy delicious pie), but I was on a mission and it was a school night, so I’d have to save all that for the next time around.

Now, whoever said if you fail to plan, you plan to fail has obviously never lived in the real world. Because by this third day, despite all my original plans, I was already adding in that element of adventure.

My next goal was one I had been longing to see for a long time: Zion National park. The ride was fairly uneventful save my usual game of what I like to call Gas Light Chicken- a game born mostly of laziness, where I see how many miles I can get out of a blinking gas light, before I start to wish I had stopped at that last gas station 40 miles ago. But as I nursed my throttle hand through the canyon roads of the Arizona/Utah border, I came upon the startling red landscape of Prince George, and I was pleased to pull in with over a half-gallon of fuel still to spare. Even if I had run out, though, I had the foresight to bring a two liter canister for spare fuel for just such an occasion. I choose not to verify whether I had also had the foresight to fill that canister, but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s keep our focus on my good decisions.

As I got closer to Zion, the mineral rich soil had dusted the road as if they were laying out a red carpet for my triumphant third day on a motorcycle. Of course, as I got to the end of this red carpet, the door to the premier was promptly shut in my face, as one does not simply camp in a national park on a Tuesday without reserving a spot 6 months in advance. Once again, to my disdain, the park campgrounds were completely filled to capacity. Only this time, unlike in Death Valley, they didn’t have an overflow area. The woman at the gate was kind enough to direct me to some free camping out toward Kobol Canyon, maybe 15 miles from the park.

If it’s for free, it’s for me! I smiled with a thumbs up, thanking the woman for saving me from my lack of foresight. I didn’t know much about this so called dispersed camping, and I didn’t know what to expect from a place that was free, but I didn’t have a lot of alternatives, so I opted to take a chance. As it so happens, in the United States, you’re legally allowed to camp on National Forest land for free, so long as you don’t stay more than 14 days at any given time. Although, as I approached a drop off along the highway filled with other unlucky Zion explorers, it was clear a few of the campers had been there for a bit longer than 14 days.

The pathway into the camping area was heavily rutted and deceptively steep, with traces of sand and desert weeds. I took a few moments to give myself a don’t be a bitch pep talk, then committed to the plunge. All of my riding instincts did what they were supposed to do, and traversing the campground wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined, as I rolled into a clearing and set up to the sound of a nearby creek. I hiked down to the water and scooped up the fresh and fast flowing snow melt to boil for my dinner.

I was hoping I’d feel a bit safer and a bit more comfortable sleeping in my tent this time around, but with a much less social group of campers and a complete lack of ranger presence, I found myself even more uneasy. This was compounded as a man with a beard that would be the envy of any trailer park lumberjack rolled in after dark, parking his windowless van right next to me. I slept by my pepper