Our 2018 Christmas Gift Guide, helping you find great products from Rider Owned, Rider Friendly Businesses...

Our 2018 Christmas Gift Guide, helping you find great products from Rider Owned, Rider Friendly Businesses...

The Rider Friendly Business Association is filled with small businesses that truly want to help you find that perfect gift, piece of jewelry, clothing, book, bike, hotel, motel, experience....

Our 2018 Gift Guide has some incredible ideas in it!

The gift ideas numbering system is based on when the idea was sent in to us, not by any special rating or ranking.

The First 8 Gift Ideas come from U Need Parts dot CA.

Oil coolers, primary covers, brake pedals, audio headsets, grips and more await at uneedparts.ca

Gift idea number 9 is a real winner - a trip to ride BMW motorcycles in Tibet!
This 10 day vacation includes 6 days of riding, your motorcycle rental and insurance, all attraction passes, your Chinese Visitors Visa, your Chinese Motorcycle License, and all of your hotel rooms, and breakfasts not to mention transfers to and from the hotel and airport and a tour guide and chase truck!  A special damage deposit agreement was arranged at $1000 US for the F800GS, there are other bikes available.

Easy Rider Tours in Tibet has arranged for a special Airfare price which is $600 Canadian ROUND TRIP, with 2 bags and a meal included. The entire trip will cost you roughly $3000 - $3,200 American per person including your lunches, suppers, fuel and spending money. (depending on your appetite)

Visit https://www.riderfriendly.com/for-riders/riding-tibet to find out more.

We are featuring two books this season from two of my most favourite lady riders and authors.

Tamela Rich's book"Hit the Road" a Woman's Guide to Motorcycle Touring is an amazing resource on solo riding and Liz Jansen's book "Crash Landing"  tells the tale of a life very well lived.

Both books are incredible!

You can get Tamela's Book at tamelarich.com and Liz's book at lizjansen.com.

Gift idea number 12 is also a book, but is geared towards kids.  The Bikers are Animals series by Paul Jamiol help kids understand the different bikes and people who ride them in a fun and imaginative way and his cartooning skills really shine through. In every book there are colouring pages so that parents, grand parents and kids can get in on the action!
Check them out at: bikersareanimals.com

MotoChic Gear has some incredible offerings this year, of course there is the trusty Lauren Bag that is becoming a staple in the urban lady rider's wardrobe which is our gift guide idea #13. MotoChic Gear is also offering up the Bess Bag and the Ladies Antimicrobial Muscle Tee as well in spots 17 & 18. See all their great ideas at: motochicgear.com

Gigi Montrose has her amazing "Fearless" jacket up for grabs in position 14. This is a wonderfully functional jacket that will protect you with it's kevlar and make you feel feminine all at the same time ladies!

Check out the "Fearless Jacket" at gigimontrose.com

My friend and all round talented gal Shaunagh McLeod is offering up her hand wrapped pendants.
These unique pieces are perfect that for the special gal in your life guys - or for yourself ladies...
Email Shaunagh at shaunaghmcl @ gmail.com  (Fix the spaces!)

Freedom Heated Clothing from Esterhazy Saskatchewan has a way to help extend that riding season. With vests, jackets, chap liners and gauntlets, you never have to truly be cold on your motorcycle again and, you can get a set of gloves, a jacket and chap liners for about the price of heated grips!

Check them out at heatedclothing.ca

Another amazing gift idea is number 20 and it comes from Marion Redpath over at Calgary Harley-Davidson and Betty from Betty's BnB with Air BnB.  A Two Day Rental and Two Nights at Betty's! That's right, get the one you love a gift certificate for travel and accommodations from two wonderful owner operators and combine them into that perfect weekend getaway. Ideal for the person who works away and only has a short period for days off!
Contact Marion at Calgary Harley-Davidson for more details.

We also have some great stocking stuffer ideas from a couple of the riding clubs we promote - the Harley-Davidson of Edmonton Community Ladies of Harley Calendar that raises money for Kipnes House AND tickets on a motorcycle raffle from the Canadian Legion of Riders in North Battleford SK!!!!

Check them out too!

The Rider Friendly Business Association and Belt Drive Betty Media - Helping Riders Shop with Rider Owned, Rider Friendly Businesses!

Visit our online gift guide to see all of the gift ideas up close and personal - visit:
https://riderfriendly.com/for-riders/gift-guide-2018

If you are blessed enough to live where you can be riding, please ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you and PLEASE, put a few miles on for me!

Belt Drive Betty,
Editor & Rider

When life happens to a small business owner: Strategies to Cope

It is extremely challenging to run a business and it's made even more challenging when life strikes three people who contract to you all in the span of a few days.

Three of the people who contract to my business found themselves with life changing issues before them causing one to have to move and take herself right out of the equation.  Juggling and rebalancing workloads still hasn't fully taken place, and I have been struggling under the work load, although as I review and ditch stuff, it is getting more manageable again.

Then add a surgery into the mix and a personal life where in I have had 6 friends die, and 3 children of friends commit suicide. It's been a rough 9 weeks.

Then there are all of the political minefields that cause so much emotional upheaval.
It's tough now a days trying to figure out the truth.

Depending on what media outlet you listen to, depending on your personal values, ideals and politics, there are a lot of issues that are driving a lot of people, myself included, around the bend.

I am struggling emotionally. And the struggle is very real.

While I understand that nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and change, I am not a terribly happy woman with a lot of the changes I see. Our veterans are told that they ask too much when they ask for the supports they need to survive and thrive, and yet, we welcome all sorts of people into our country ILLEGALLY and because there is no well thought out plan to deal with the sheer volumes of people we are opening our borders to, well there is financial burden and hardship placed on the provinces.  Quebec billed the federal government for $146 M to deal with illegal border crossings, Ontario $200 M.

We bail out the media industry with $585 million dollars over 5 years, but we can't give our veterans the care they deserve.  In just these three issues the feds have spent 1 billion dollars.

Here in Alberta our oil patch is land locked but instead of building refineries and selling our own gas, we are flogging the dead horse of pipeline and rail cars. It disgusts me frankly.

The world wide political scene is like watching a bad B movie that you can't get away from.
I have been working at refocusing myself in an attempt to reduce the stress I feel.

Here are a few of the things I am doing:

Meditation: I had gotten away from doing that, I am unclear as to why, but I find it calms my mind.

Doing this again, is helping at least for a while every day.

Exercise: I am doing light work outs up to twice a day.  The minute I feel the electrical charges building up in my body, you know the ones, those prickly little beggars that make you feel uptight, anxious and angry....I get on my whole body massager and crack out the 5 pound weights for ten minutes.  Often I plug in the earphones and listen to ten minutes of positive affirmations.

I am taking vitamins B & D, and amino acids L-Theanine and L-Tyrosine for mood.

Sleep: I have been going to bed at 7:30-8:00 PM every night. Getting up around 4:00-4:30 AM.

Eating: I have been working at eliminating sugar from my diet - that's been tough, but I am down significantly and that seems to help. I am also working at losing weight, from having quit smoking.
I had gained about 60 pounds, and am down by 35 or so. I plateaued for a bit, but finally I seem to be loosing a little again and if nothing else I am toning up nicely.

Socializing: It's not something I have ever had a lot of time to do, but I am having to trim what little I have been doing down to all but none. I go out for lunch with select people who I know don't stress me out by talking about things that are upsetting.

Ditching/Changing social media: There's the big one for me.

I used to love debating politics and political view points, but that was back in the day, about 10 years ago, before everyone forgot how to speak civilly to each other.

I was part of the debate team in high school and we were taught how not to take anything personally. but back then, no one called you a mindless minion or a stupid F'in C%$& for your opinions or ideals. I find that it's hard to take comments like that as anything but personal, but I am working on it.

Still, I don't want to associate with people who are going to treat others that way and so, I have blocked so many people in the last while that it became exhausting and I decided for my own mental health to just opt out for a while.

That break did me good.

The unintended but positive consequences of blocking so many who are hurtful in their dialogue?
I find is that my newsfeeds are filling up with funny videos of animals doing quirky things and that change has been welcome. I am learning to laugh a little again!

I am on LinkedIn a lot more these days and am enjoying a far more divergent group of people and topics.

So tell me, how do you manage the stress of life and being in business?

On Monday I will be writing on the topic of reducing the stress during the Holiday Season - Thanksgiving, through to New years Eve....
AND we have the MOST AMAZING gift guide going and I will unveil it on Monday too!

Until then, if you are blessed to live in a warm climate where you can ride a motorcycle, please remember to ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you , and put a few extra miles on for please.

Belt Drive Betty,
Editor & Rider