Spirit Harley Davidson
Sponsors Location :
1463 Glenn Avenue,
Glenshaw, PA 15116 USA

Phone: (412) 487-3377
Fax: (412) 486-2669 info@SpiritHarley.com www.SpiritHarley.com
 

At age 21, Kim Bolsen made the transition from the backseat of the bike to the front seat and hasn’t looked back since.  Tired of having to depend on someone else when wanting to go on a ride,  after taking an MSF class, Kim grew very comfortable on her first two bikes (a “rat” Sportster and an 83FXRS), tallying 22,000 miles in her first year and a half.

In the years to follow, Kim continued to ride her passion for motorcycles into the racing circuit.  Thanks, in part, to the support, encouragement and bike  of her boyfriend and Crew Chief John (Brand new TLR), Kim attended a performance riding school and months later hit the Road Racing Circuit.  Looking back on their time shared together with racing, including nights spent in her van, before she had a race trailer, and spending their vacation days at the track, Kim is grateful to have such a faithful “Crew.”

Kim has had one large obstacle to overcome in racing and that is her sex.  She is a female breaking into a sport dominated by males.  Intimidated?  I think not.  Kim is never intimidated by the men that she races against because she doesn’t look at them as men.  She looks at them as racers.  Perhaps Kim comments best on the matter of women in motorcycle racing herself saying, “I never really thought much about the fact I was female...at the racetrack, when we pull on our leathers and helmets, there is no male, female, black or white.  We’re all just racers.” 

When Kim isn’t draggin’ her knees in road racing, she claims to “dabble” in drag racing, insisting that she does it mainly to practice her launch for road races… Whatever her reason for being at the Drag Strip, it ain’t good news for the rest of the field.  Considering what she has already achieved in her short career on the road, one can only wonder what she is bound to achieve in the quarter-mile.

In her own words here how it all began.... Over the years, I did quite a bit of "get lost" solo touring... got into the habit of taking the bike to work with me on Friday, then riding for 8 hours "away" on the Interstate before stopping for the night. At that point, the "rules" were (a) follow the smallest lines on the map; and (b) avoid all hotel/restaurant chains. I also had the privilege of being involved with the Medinah Motor Corps, with whom I learned low-speed maneuvers on my Electra-Glide.

My exclusive streak of Harleys was broken about 4 years ago, when I handed over my '99 to the boyfriend so he could make some performance modifications to the bike (and also diagnose its' nasty tendency to go into full-out tank slapper at anything over 60 - culprit turned out to be a missing motor mount bolt). He sent me home on his Hayabusa... I was slicing through traffic on the tollway like it was melted butter... when my hair scrunchie blew out (gee, this never happened before!) I looked down at the speedo to find I was going 145 mph! Epiphany. I had taken my first 'hit' off the crack pipe of horsepower and performance. That bike would FLY... turn on a thought and stop with zero effort - you sat on it, and it became an extension of your brain! For the rest of the summer, I alternated between the 'Busa and his '98 TL1000R. Suddenly, I had no desire to ride my bagger, except for the occasional cross-country trips to visit family.

When the new Suzuki GSXR1000 was introduced, he bought me the first one to arrive in Chicago. We took delivery of the bike on February 27... and left for Daytona the next day. The bike was insanely quick and a blast to ride. I'd cover the 500 miles to my Dad's house in 6 hours, surprisingly comfortably! When she was stolen at BikeToberFest nearly 8,000 miles and 8 months later, I was heartbroken.

We'd been hearing lots of scoop about Harley's new liquid-cooled streetbike, and John decided that it would replace my Gixxer... and brought her home that December. I'd also started reading about performance-riding schools and something called "track days"... hey, rider ed is always a good thing - right? And who couldn't stand to be a little more confident in the twisties? I did a little research and found the Learning Curves performance riding school. ("Look - it's only $150 and it's held 80 miles from here!")