Nina with her motorcycle

Hi, I'm Nina.

I started riding motorcycles and putting it on the internet because I wanted to show what learning to ride actually looks like.

There is no shortage of motorcycle content that makes it look like you buy a sport bike, throw on a cute outfit and two weeks later you're a biker girl. Meanwhile, actually learning to ride can be awkward, frustrating, intimidating and occasionally involve standing next to your motorcycle wondering what the hell you're doing.

That's the part I wanted to put on the internet.

I recorded myself learning, making mistakes, getting more confident, going on bigger adventures and slowly becoming a better rider. Not because I'm an expert — very much the opposite — but because I wanted other women interested in riding to see someone figuring it out in real time and think, “Okay. I can probably do this too.”

APPARENTLY IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY

I only recently learned just how much being an adventurer apparently runs in the blood.

Over the last few years, I've been able to share my motorcycle journey with Grandad through the power of the internet and YouTube. Before he passed, we learned that his favorite video of all time was our MotoCamping Mis-Adventure.

Unlike most grandparents, after watching his granddaughter make some questionable decisions, he never once reminded me to be careful or warned me about everything that could go wrong.

He just laughed.

He watched that camping video often and, in return, shared some of his own motorcycle stories — like building his Hunter piece by piece during the war and riding away from the cops because he hadn't gotten around to putting lights on the bike yet.

So I guess the questionable decision-making might be hereditary too.

I didn't know for most of my riding journey that motorcycles had been part of his story. Now I'm pretty glad they're part of mine too.

Camping MotoVlog

KomotoVlogs Is My Fun Side Quest

When I'm not riding around with a camera attached to me, I'm usually doing something coffee-related. I work full time, have a little coffee training company of my own, and apparently collect hobbies that require significantly more time than I actually have.

KomotoVlogs is something I do because I genuinely enjoy it. I like motorcycles. I like filming things. I weirdly enjoy sitting at a computer for hours editing those things together. If YouTube gives me a little money for it, sick.

Do not come here for a consistent upload schedule.

I make videos when I go somewhere worth filming, something interesting happens, or I simply feel like it. I'm still learning, I'm still figuring it out, and I'm still having fun doing it.

That's kind of the whole point.

Behind the scenes of KomotoVlogs

So... What the Hell Is Komoto?

My favorite animal is a Komodo dragon, and obviously this is a motorcycle channel.

So at some point my brain went: Komodo + Moto = Komoto.

And somehow that stuck.

A lot of the original look of Komoto also came from my first helmet — an ICON Airmada in the discontinued Georacer colorway. (That Burch gifted me as my first helmet.) Loud, colorful and basically impossible to miss.

So yes, there actually is a reason everything looks like this.

The original Komoto colors came straight from that helmet, and the obnoxiously bright yellow came a little later when my Honda 500 joined the story. Somehow a motorcycle color ended up becoming the Komoto color, and now we're committed.

So between a Komodo dragon, a ridiculous helmet and a bright yellow motorcycle, we somehow ended up with a brand.