We all have a stereotypical image of what a woman motorcycle rider looks like. D.J. Jones is doing her best to change it. Tall and elegant in the black leathers and DivaskinZ shirt and jacket of here own clothing line, she looks more like a model than a motorcycle mama. She projects an aura of confidence, of a woman comfortable with who she is.

But who is D.J.? Clothing designer? Motorcycle rider? Personal trainer? Motivational speaker? Wife? Mother?

Yes.

She's all of that and so much more. Born in Denison, Texas to Virginia Mae and Jasper Kelly Posey, Damita Jo is the oldest of four children and grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. While she says there's "nothing like" small town living, it wasn't easy being the only black kid in her class at school. Or being responsible for helping raise and support her younger brother and sisters when her mother and father divorced. D.J.'s mother suffer with heart problems and died of heart disease nine years ago. Her father passed away suddenly from a heart attack the following year.

While growing up, the messages D.J. received at school were about the things she couldn't do, never what she could do. They only served to motivate her to get top grades, become an avid reader, and be the best she could be at playing flute and basketball.

She overcame the negativity and went on to study architecture at Connor College in Oklahoma. She became a rock and roll singer, eating out of cans to send as much money home as possible. When it came time to leave that life, she moved on to become a personal trainer, and subsequently started Ultimate Fitness by D.J. working with many clients in New Jersey and New York. She took all the "couldn'ts" and turned them into "coulds."

She returned home not to long ago. It was an empowering moment for D.J. There she was doing what all those people told her she couldn't do. "If I'd listened to them," she says, "my life wouldn't have happened the way it has."

Toward the end of her rock and roll career, D.J. met Mark Jones. He was a bouncer at a club were she and the band were performing. It was truly love at first sight. Mark remembers being told to take down some decorations because the singer was tall. He assumed it was a man, but when the lights came up, "there she was. I saw an angel." "We just knew", D.J. continues, "He proposed after a week, and we were married months later. He met me at the most outrageous time of my life and he know me. He's my best friend."

Mark says in an article on the DivaskinZ website, "She never ceases to amaze me. Just hold on for dear life and enjoy the amazing ride. Life with D.J. is like holding onto a bolt of lightning." They will have been married 19 years on Valentine's Day 2004. D.J. is also very proud of her twenty-seven year-old son, Darius Lamar, who is currently serving in the U.S. Navy.

While living in New Jersey, D.J. studied exercise physiology and began her work as a personal trainer. She was motivated when she found she was exhibiting signs of potential heart disease, the same disease that had taken both her parents. She had to change here behavior, and she used what she learned to help people at high risk, particularly those with potential heart problems. She taught them to "exercise consistently" and to work on being healthy. She lives what she teaches.

While Mark had been riding motorcycles all through their marriage, it wasn't until August 1998 that D.J. Discovered her passion for them. While she was on a business trip, Mark called to tell her he'd bought a new Kawasaki Vulcan 800. That phone call ignited a long-hidden spark. When she got home and Mark showed her the black and chrome machine, her response was "Where's yours?" She wasn't kidding.

Typically, D.J. was determined to get it right. She practiced shifting on a kitchen chair and read the manual until she almost memorized it. She learned to ride in a parking lot that she shared with a young child learning to ride his bicycle. They both succeeded, and D.J. took a motorcycle safety course to get her motorcycle endorsement.

It was the beginning of her love affair with motorcycles. The Vulcan 800, dubbed "the Predator," was hers, and Mark bought a new bike. For awhile they rode together, but Mark soon found that he couldn't keep up. "I've made the mistake of trying to keep up (on day rides that range from 750-1000 miles) and I can only describe the experience as religious."

The greatest test of her life was just around the corner. In November of 1998, D.J. was broadsided by a car. She'd been following all the safety rules, but the driver pulled out of the driveway just as D.J. came into range. She was thrown 120 feet. She landed face first, the impact snapping her head back, peeling her helmet down to the styrofoam lining as she slid along the pavement, her glove separating from its lining as her hand trailed along. She could have died. Instead, she was relatively unhurt except that her right foot was crushed.

The first medical prognosis was for amputation, but the doctors decided to try to save her foot. It took two extensive surgeries and a lot of hard work for D.J. to walk again, two moths later. Her exercise physiology experience helped her design a program of exercise that she could do in bed. Not only was she walking two months later she went on to win a bodybuilding contest, nine months after that.

When asked about her stand on safety gear while riding, D.J.'s response was "Hello? I ride to live, nit ride to die. If I hadn't been wearing all my gear that day, I would have died. I wear full gear whenever I go out, no matter what the weather. For me, not wearing it would be crazy."

Still, after the accident, she wasn't sure about riding again. At first, her energy was directed to her recovery, but four months later, she woke up with a need to ride. She bought a 1999 Yamaha V-Star 650 and her first ride was a 400 mile trip to Niagara Falls in 40-degree weather and high winds. When they arrived, she wanted to go on, but Mark told her the ride home in a few days would be enough.

In September 1999, she moved up to an 800-pound Honda Valkyrie Tourer, which she named "Big Bertha." Part of the move to New Mexico was to give D.J. and Mark more room to roam. "It was the wide open spaces that attracted us here," she says, "And the beauty of the Rocky Mountains."

Together D.J. and Bertha have toured all 48 of the lower states, all the Canadian provinces, and Mexico. Recently, they passed the 100,000-mile mark, but there are no plans to stop; they've still got a lot of ground to cover.

D.J. says she began to realize that "everything happens for a reason, or doesn't happen—and that you can't stop living you life because something might happen. God has given me a reason to be here. I'm here to help people, to be the best I can be."

To that end, D.J. has embraced two causes. She raises money in memory of her parents for the American Heart Association. "Maybe they're looking down on me with a smile," she says with a small smile of her own. To help in her fund-raising, she is the designer of her own clothing line, DivaskinZ, which she sees as "a strong woman's second skin."

Her other cause is just a personal. "I want to speak to young women and tell them they can live the dream," she says, "God has given me a reason to be here. Dream It, See It, You Can Achieve It," is her personal philosophy. "I want girls to dwell on the things they can do, not on the things they can't. A challenge builds self-confidence and inner strength." She has begun visiting schools to bring her message to young women and their mothers and dreams of seeing a whole network of motorcycle women serving as role models and giving positive encouragement to a new generation.

"Different is good," she continues, "It takes a strong person to be different. I've used all the good things and overcome the bad things to make me whole I am."

D.J. Jones. Who is she? A work in progress. "You have to get where you're going," she says. She'll let us know when she gets there

Sabra Brown Steinsiek is a n Albuquerque freelance writer, and author of the award-winning novel, Timing Is Everything. She can be contacted through her website, www.sabrasteinsiek.com