Meet the Astronaut

My name is Steve Williamson and I live in Sandy, Oregon. I grew up riding dirt bikes, and was given a dual-sport Honda 80 by my father when I was 13. It would go about 45 mph and I rode it everywhere, both on and off-road, until I turned 16 and got my first car. We sold the Honda shortly after. I always admired people that rode BMWs and Gold Wings and other touring bikes on long trips and thought “some day that will be me!”

I finally got tired of seeing other people ride bikes and decided to do something about it. In the fall of 2006 I took the MSF basic rider’s course and passed, getting my Oregon motorcycle rider’s endorsement the following Monday. I bought a 1986 Honda Rebel and I put about 1,000 miles on it before upgrading to my current bike, a 2007 Suzuki V-Strom 650.

Two-wheeled astronaut?

When I was a kid, I met two astronauts. Well, they weren’t astronauts exactly. They were older gentlemen that rode big BMWs, and with their high-tech gear and helmets and their space-age looking bikes, to me they might as well have been astronauts. They were my Dad’s pheasant hunting buddies, Everett “Ev” Jones and Glen Bisel. One Saturday afternoon they stopped by our house on their big silver bikes after coming home from a ride to eastern Oregon. To me they were rock stars.

Or astronauts.

From that point on I became fascinated with the idea of being a two-wheeled astronaut when I grew up. The thought of going on solo adventures filled my imagination for years to come. As noted in posts on this blog, I eventually realized my dream of riding motorcycles when I got my endorsement and first bike, a 250cc 1986 Honda Rebel, in the fall of 2006. Since then I’ve averaged 10,000 miles a year on my current bike, a 2007 Suzuki V-Strom 650, over several Western U.S. states: Washington, Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada, and my home state of Oregon. I added British Columbia to that list during the summer of 2011.