Girl Meets World on a Yamaha FZ-07 Part 11: Bringing it Home!

Tiff and I met at the track, where she races her Ninja 250 with more enjoyment and positivity than anyone else on the grid. When Tiffani got word that she’d be getting laid off from her job in Los Angeles, she didn’t fret. In typical ultra-optimistic Tiff style, she saw it as an opportunity to hit the road on her newly acquired Yamaha FZ-07. What follows are Tiffani’s reports from the road, originally posted for her friends on Facebook but shared here with her permission for all to enjoy. — Ari Henning

With my dream weekend at the Austin MotoGP (see Part 10 here) all wrapped up, it was finally time to get back on the read and head home to California. And for the first time during a month of travel I was actually going to be riding with company! I'd be heading west with a few friends that had ridden from California to Austin, Texas, for the MotoGP. We all loaded up our bikes (a Buell Lightning, a Triumph Sprint ST, and another FZ-07!) and headed out early with the intention of making it to SoCal in three days. (Apparently some people still have jobs. That's like, a thing.)

The first day was, well, a bit of a debacle. My friends’ method of travel was to sprint from gas station to gas station, stringing about 120-140 miles in between. That distance would have been reasonable for all the bikes involved—if the speed limit had been observed. Fresh off a MotoGP weekend our pace was too fast and we blew through out gas. My FZ was the first to sputter out. This was the first time I’d lost a game of gas-light chicken. With the fuel in both my canister and part of Cody and Jr’s canisters (coupled with some hardcore conservative riding from there on), I was able to just barely sputter into the station on. Sadly, Cody’s FZ-07 was not so lucky and ended up stranded a mile or two back. Whoops! Sorry, dude!

The crisis was averted though, as Joel actually has a legitimate touring vehicle (the Sprint ST) and had run ahead to get more fuel, so it ended up being more funny than tragic, really. We made it a little over 400 miles in total and stopped in Van Horn, Texas.

The next day we crossed through New Mexico. The temps in were every bit as cold as I remembered, and the sky was particularly ominous. As the clouds got darker, we pulled over at a truck stop to determine if we should press on, wait and see if things would clear up, or at the very least, put on rain suits. Since my Dainese gear is waterproof I didn’t have much to think about, but after some back and forth, it was determined that we’d press on, and no one bothered to actually put on rain gear. These guys!

Not so shockingly, a few miles down the road we got pounded with rain. And unlike the rain in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, this rain was icey cold. Visibility was poor and we got to our destination cold and wet. Well, let me rephrase that—everyone else was cold and wet. I was cold but still pleasantly dry. After some rounds of hot cocoa, we headed off. We got hit with yet another downpour, perhaps worse than the first, but fortunately it cleared up after a couple miles and the remainder of the ride was dry. We pulled into Tucson, Arizona, got some food at a local brewery, and soaked in a well-deserved hot tub. All in all, not a bad day.

And the next day—my 31st on the road—was the final haul. Joel left early, as he had work to do in the afternoon, and Cody split off to head down to San Diego, so I rode through the remainder of Arizona with Jr before getting back into California.

The reality of being back didn’t really set in until I passed the exit for Chuckwalla and waved to the track in the distance. We stopped at the same In-N-Out that I’ve stopped at after every CVMA race weekend over the last 4 years to call it an official success, then Jr veered off to head home. I finished the remaining 130 miles to Los Angeles alone, just like I started the trip over a month earlier.

I made one last stop at Manhattan Beach pier to touch the water of the Pacific, then rolled my bike into my garage at my apartment in Redondo Beach.

Honestly, I should have been relieved, but I have never felt more hollow than I did closing the garage door on my FZ that day. I’d logged 9,000 miles and ridden through 14 states. I pulled it off. I didn’t die despite my own doubts when I started, and I proved I could do it. But even now, I’m really confused by what it means to be back from it all, and this whole write up, despite being written on a real keyboard instead of my phone (OH MY GOD, I MISSED KEYBOARDS!) has been the most difficult to write so far. But as I sit here planning out what I want to see in the remaining lower 48 this year, I guess I can’t complain!