What people give their passion, time, and dedication to is fascinating, isn’t it? I love hearing the kind of passionate talk that brightens a person’s face, that lights them from the inside out. The kind of passion that makes them smile a smile that reaches their eyes. The kind of passion they are always happy to talk about.
I’m blessed to know many people who have such passionate interests and hobbies and have always been happy to share their insights with me. For this year’s Bike Issue, I spoke with two such people in my life who have a passion for two wheels — my sister Lindsay Adrain, who participates in yearly bicycle rides with NEC550, and my friend Tracy Karasinski, who has a lifelong passion for motorcycles.
Lindsay Adrain
“At one point, some of us from work did a couple MS walks, from there I did the MS ride (MS150),” says Adrain, reflecting on her beginnings in bicycling. After a few long rides, she realized the bike she had was hurting her knees. That didn’t stop her, though — for her birthday, her husband got her a bike that was fitted to her and that’s when things truly took off. “When we went to the bike shop to get measured for a bike, I saw a brochure for the New England Classic (NEC) and I was like ‘Oh wow! a ride for diabetes?!’” Adrain thought: What better way to help our father than become part of the fight for a cure, and maybe even avoid a similar fate? Her new bike was delivered on April 30, 1995, and that summer was her first time riding the NEC. Adrain describes that first ride as very challenging. She rode anywhere from 65 to 100+ miles a day for seven days straight. She didn’t know anyone, and had never ridden up and down the mountains through such extreme weather variances. “By the time you get to day seven, your body is beaten and you just can’t wait to make it to the end of that day… and that last day isn’t short,” says Adrain. But despite the challenges, she kept at it, year after year.
Sadly, Adrain’s father passed away in 2002 due to diabetes related complications; however, Adrain continued to ride for a cure. This summer, she’ll ride her 30th and final NEC 550 Bike Ride. The England Classic Charity Bike Tour is a non-profit that raises funds for the American Diabetes Association in its quest to find a cure, and for the ADA’s Camp Carefree for children with diabetes. It takes place in July, and will cover over 550 miles. The ride takes about a week and starts in Massachusetts, travels up the seacoast into New Hampshire and Maine, then heads over the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, before returning to Massachusetts.
Adrain has also completed other rides here and there, including the Mt. Washington Auto Road Race a couple times.
Now let’s talk about the all the year-round training required for bike rides like this. I know she is not alone: I have seen cross-country bikers every time I head to the mountains. She wakes up at 4am to ride her stationary bike before going to work. Her weekends, when the weather is good, are dedicated to training. Her vacation time in the summers is surrendered to the ride. What has she gained from all this? A sense of community, lifelong like-minded friends, staving off diabetes herself, and teaching her three children about grit and determination — one of her daughters made her proud by being part of the SAG team for several years and provided support and gear to bikers along the way.
Tracy Karasinski
“I was not yet 3-years-old when my father put me on the gas tank of his motorcycle and rode me around the yard. My grandfather did the same thing. My mom tells me I was five or six when my dad put me in front of him on the motorcycle and we rode up the four mile road where I grew up and the speed limit was probably 60-65 at the time, and I loved it, I loved it! I grew up with two-wheel motion!” says Karasinski.
Karasinski grew up surrounded by fruit and dairy farms west of Grand Rapids, MI, “in the country” as she puts it, playing Evel Knievel with her brother. She had an uncle who was an Enduro racer. She used to crawl under the car with her dad when she was very little, and by the time she got to college, she didn’t know how to do laundry, but she knew how to put a motorcycle together. She got her first minibike when she was eight or nine and the first thing she did was drive it straight into the house. She spent hours upon hours riding it in the backyard. By early college she was tinkering with minibikes, taking them apart, and fixing dirt bikes. She got her first street bike in 1984. Before that, all her bikes were off-road bikes. She had just graduated high school and was driving a car that her mother had given her that was very bad on mileage, when a guy from high school decided to sell his Honda CM400T. Karasinski saw it as the perfect first bike. She wanted a motorcycle, so she got a motorcycle, and it was a whole lot cheaper on gas.
She formed friendships with new people who shared her passion for motorcycles. When she outgrew her first bike, she traded up for a Honda 650 Nighthawk, which she still has in her garage some 30 years later. “The irony is that when I bought my first street motorcycle, both my father and my grandfather said ‘Girls should not ride motorcycles,’ and I could out ride both of them by then,” she says laughing.
Her passion for restoring motorcycles began when she got her dad’s 1971 BMW. Her dad was not an avid rider so the bike spent a lot of time sitting in storage in different peoples’ garages. When her father suggested that maybe someday her brother may want it, she told him she was taking it. By that point, she had made friends with folks at a motorcycle shop. When she was there she started talking about her dad’s BMW. A guy at the shop was a founder of the Ocean State BMW Riders club, who recommended a mechanic in Hope Valley. The mechanic became a beloved friend and mentor with whom Karasinski spent every Saturday, learning by watching him work. As a thank you, she ended up giving him her father’s bike. It was those Saturdays spent learning and watching when her passion developed for learning more about vintage craftsmanship and materials and rebuilding vintage motorcycles. She bought a trashed 1965 Honda Dream that didn’t run, so she took it apart and researched how to get it up and running again. This led to the start of another friendship and mentorship with a fellow biker named Mike.
The two began doing restorations together. They got the Dream back together, marking the start of a series of rehabs and six complete restorations that lasted until Mike was taken by Parkinson’s. Karasinski passed her passion for motorcycles on to one of my sisters and together they restored the last project she and Mike could not — a Honda S90 lovingly nicknamed “Mike.”
Incidentally, Karasinski was also my motorcycle instructor. She says she doesn’t have patience, but I think she has the patience of a saint. I could not have asked for a better instructor. There are some riders that when the road is free and clear they like to open it up. Me, when I see no one around I say, ‘Why rush?”
For everyone on the roads out there, remember it’s bike season, so please watch out for all your two-wheeled friends!