Adventure Motorcycling is a POWERSPORT — Erin Sanzone

When I first started riding and planning trips with my husband, I actually said, “I’m fine going on an adventure ride, but I don’t want to sit all day! You know me, I need to move so we need to make time for hiking or workouts along the way.” 

Reality Check 

Oh, the innocence of a novice rider! I still marvel that I thought I was just going to sit there and had no idea how hard I was going to work on that bike!

After my first day of real off-road riding, I was more than wiped out, I was exhausted! Certainly there was the mental component (we’ll save that for another blog post, though) but I genuinely did not realize how physically intense adventure riding was going to be. 

It was late September and we headed out on the North East Backcountry Discovery Route (NEBDR) for the weekend. The route is relatively close to our house and, at the moment we set off, I was freezing. New England has a sneaky way of disguising teeth-chattering weather that creeps up on you. I was shivering and ch-ch-ch-chilly! 

It’s a Workout!

But by the time my husband and I hit the double-track section through Granville State Forest and up through October Mountain, I was huffing and puffing, removing layers, ripping open vents, and gleefully announcing to all the wildlife “I’m not cold anymore!”  

You’ll hear me yell it to this day, when things get spicy on the trails, “I’m not cold” is actually code for “I am working my butt off!”. 

Adventure riding is a physical, high intensity athletic activity. Just like running a 5K or cardio HIIT, motorcycling is a sport!  A POWERSPORT!

I finished that first night of my adventure bike trip blissfully fatigued and slept like a rock. The fact is, riding is very physically demanding. I guess I should have known, when I practiced static balancing in the garage, my legs would be on fire and I could only work at it for a few minutes at a time.

Embrace Your Inner Athlete

Now, I realize that I need to embrace “Erin the Athlete.” Maybe you are already ahead of me and realize that riding is a sport and that you, my girl on that adventure motorcycle, are an athlete too! 

A big part of being an athlete is training for strength and endurance. Now that I realize that I’m an athlete, I train my core to help me balance. I train compound body movements, like barbell, squat, deadlift, overhead press, heavy rows to be functionally stronger.  

Perfect Your Form

I train for good posture and practice perfect form at all times.  Form is so important that I’m going to go on a little tangent here.  Having perfect form while you’re training is absolutely critical. Please get help if you don’t know what that looks like. Hire a trainer. Watch yourself in the mirror or on video. If your form is sloppy, your biomechanics are compromised and that’s how we get injured. We’re athletes and we definitely don’t have time to sit around being injured.

So here’s to getting strong, to resistance training with those muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones under tension! Here’s to lifting, pulling, and pushing really heavy things! It’s about going hard enough to be breathing heavily, hard enough that you need to take a rest, hard enough that you couldn’t do another one with perfect form.  

Busting the Bulky Myth

Now listen ladies, if you’re sitting there thinking about it, NO you will NOT get bulky! Ask your average male how easy it would be to put on muscle? It takes months of planning, patience, consistent hard work, and protein… it doesn’t happen by accident. If you think you’re getting too bulky you can always stop. The reality is that we’ll build muscle, look toned, and feel strong. Most importantly, we’ll be able to pick up our freaking motorcycles!

Adventure motorcycling is not just about physical strength; it's about endurance and mental fortitude. We’re here to push our limits and conquer new horizons, one ride at a time. So, I say: embrace adventure motorcycling as the high-intensity sport it truly is. Train hard, ride far, and lift like a girl!

Erin Sanzone is practicing PA-C in orthopedic surgery. She is a volunteer and serves on the board for SheADV. Her current rides are: 2016 BMW GS 1200, KTM 250EXC-F, KTM 300XCW

Instagram: @short_her_rider