Dena De Clute

The Garage

Cool Stuff From A-Z

If your house is anything like mine, the garage is the where you put all the things you love and need, but don’t use often enough to give them their own room.

My research is a lot like that.  This week I might be focused on military-grade assault rifles, whereas next week, I’ll be obsessed with snake venom.  My husband, Daniel, has learned to only ask what I’m up to if he’s got time for a coffee break.

Seriously.  We even had to come up with a hand signal, so he can politely tell me when he can’t possibly absorb any more of what I’m telling him.  And he’s got a master’s degree.

A Date with Motorcycles

This first edition of The Garage is about motorcycles.  In part, as a nod to him. Though, I did have to research Yamaha YZF-R1 specifications when writing The Wrath of Nike. And I’ll no doubt have to look up the CBR1000-RR Repsol edition when I dig into Fighting for the Crown. Some people think I included sport bikes in the series to appeal to male readers’ interests.

In reality, it appeals to mine.

When I first met Daniel, he was relatively fresh out of the Marine corps (he still had a hideous buzz cut, bless) and spent most of his free time riding motorcycles.  He had a grungy two-stroke (for you non-gearheads, they sound like they don’t have a muffler and smell like diesel), a sleek red, black and white liter-bike (1000-cc sport bike), and a huge dirt bike with hot pink decals.  The first time I wrapped my arms around his fit waist from the passenger seat and held on tight as he climbed an impossibly high dirt hill through the woods, I was smitten. Both with him, and with motorcycles.

He spent an admirable amount of patience teaching me to ride, which in the beginning mostly consisted of pulling me out of the bushes.

Don’t judge!  Counter-steering is counter-intuitive.  And he’s six-foot-five, so his bike was way too big for me.

My First Sport Bike

His wedding present to me was my first sport bike, a 600-cc Honda CBR that he bought from his roommate before moving in with me.  After squealing with glee, jumping up and down, and kissing him madly, I wasted no time stripping off the decals (actually, that took a lot of time) and asking the painter from the company I worked for to paint it a shimmery metallic silver.

It came out beautiful.  And I was in love.

After eventually getting my motorcycle license (there may – or may not – have been an unfortunate mishap involving the overly steep DMV driveway and Daniel having to pull his 450-lb bike off of me as I bottomed-out and fell over in slow-motion), I rode my silver bullet to work as often as I dared.  At the time, we lived in a small town, and the original equipment manufacturer I worked for was on the other side of about fifteen miles of farmland, requiring me to lean through innumerable +65-mph, 90-deg curves around square fields and tractors.  It was terrifying.

And absolute heaven…