Be great because it was designed by women, for women.

After we left, it took me a couple of months to notice just how uncomfortable I really was. I'd never done a tour before-- I thought all those "hardcore" cyclists out there had to have a different version of comfortable than I did. At first, there were plenty of other things to occupy my mind-- getting used to a fully-loaded bike, discovering muscles I never knew existed, camping every night, etc.

Until we started going over the 25-mile mark, things were okay. After that, slight discomfort would degenerate into very painful, raw skin. It was worse on hot, hilly, days, and better on easy, cooler, flat rides. Usually (hopefully) it would heal overnight, and the annoying process would start over again the next day. When I finally found some chamois cream at a bike shop, it helped some, but I was still having issues.

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With our Cruiser Editor out on assignment, the  2011 Star Stratoliner Deluxe Project Bike was sitting idle, so I decided to see if I could wrangle the beast through some twisties. Since we were still waiting on the rain and the off-road trails were closed, Sunday was a perfect opportunity to get out of the Rogue Valley and get some miles on our 2011 Kawasaki Versys Project . I opted to let the girlfriend ride this... We decided that a good heat cycle would do us good and plotted a roundabout course that eventually landed in northern California at a high-temp sauna. The cutoff road to Happy Camp is only a short distance farther at O&rsquo. Check out the  map to see exactly how we got there, but basically it was kickstands up at about 9:30 a. m. and we rolled through the wine country of the Applegate Valley (bypassing our regular dusty trails along the way). We dropped into Happy Camp, CA and paused long enough to thaw our knees and pose for the obligatory Big Foot photo. t enough time for our preferred loop down through Scotts Bar but that was fine

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