There seems to be a
certain thrill with riding at speed through anywhere with nothing but a
few pads between you and the ground moving by at 50 mph. Acting on the
impulse to someday experience that thrill (I'm taking it on faith for now),
I decided to learn how to ride off-road motorcycles. However, all motorcycles
seem to be similar, so first, I had to learn how to ride a motorcycle
at all.
Fortunately, my friend Pam
had an opportunity to gain use of a friend's Harley, so she had the
idea of taking a motorcycle riding class. Pronged, I joined in. The course
involved a Thursday night and most of the day on Saturday and Sunday -
about 8 hours of classroom stuff and 8 hours on the cycles. The classroom
sessions were useful, but very drawn out (could have completed in a couple
of hours). The riding was a lot more useful, though much of the time was
spent waiting for one of the other 11 students to execute a manuever (2
instructors, 12 students - you do the math). You can see the fleet of our
special Honda 125T's that we got to train on, getting them all the way
up into second gear!
Well, I've logged about
20 miles on a motorcycle now, and still don't have a license as I'm too
lazy to go to the DMV. That will be the next step - get licensed. Then
it's on to learn how to ride a dirt bike, with the eventual goal of actually
riding one in the dirt. But don't we look natural with our bikes?
I thought so.
The key is to pursue motorcycling while retaining one's sanity. I have too many cars already, and I don't want to end up like my good buddy Tantek, who has 4 bikes to his name...