A street-riding man speaks!
Time to resurrect this thread...
I've just decided on getting a motorcycle, and I know at least one other member is as well.
So, for those that haven't posted in here (and even the ones that have), here are a couple of questions to get this thing rolling again...
What do you ride?
When/why did you start riding?
First bike?
I'm going to play with this a bit because I might have a message or two for you all. I hope you'll hear them!
My 1st partner in Florida was a dirt track (oval) motorcycle racer. He taught me to ride on his Kawasaki KR750 triple, the fastest production motorcycle the world had seen up to that time (1974).
To start me off, he parked the ambulance across the end of our driveway, set me up at the garage end pointing me toward it and then had me learn to start and stop, at his direction. He knew the LAST thing I'd do is hit the rig and that would preserve his bike! Remember, this is a bike with ZERO lag time between tweaking the throttle and going...
George spent two weeks teaching me EVERYTHING he knew about biking. I swear it was Boot Camp! He dragged me to parking lots, beaches, back streets, and highways breaking me in point by point. Why? Because he knew street biking was VERY serious business.
My teacher imposed a respect and awareness on me that carried me through 30 years of biking (almost) without an injury (though plenty of falls and one was a doozy I'll tell you about sometime!)
Why? Because by knowing what he knew, he couldn't be casual about helping me begin to ride. If I killed myself on a bike, George HAD TO know that he had done EVERYTHING he could to teach me right.
I ended up buying a KZ400 as my first. George advised me for street riding that was a minimum and that I shouldn't spend too much because I would be sure to want something bigger very soon. Keep that in mind when you start.
I see a lot of small cc bikes being spoken about and wonder to myself because what I found is that to be able to respond to an emergency situation spontaneously and with control it takes a combination of weight, maneuverability, torque, acceleration and damn good stopping power with balance.
You have to get out of your own way first, and frankly, I don't see much of that with smaller bikes ridden on the street -- dirt or otherwise!
In a nutshell, only buy something that you can feel confident on. What that means is try a lot of bikes, of all sizes, before you commit; but REMEMBER;
THE most common factor in motorcycle accidents on the street is the rider was unfamiliar with his/her bike. Did you hear that? Not age, not level of intoxication, not experience even, but experience on THAT particular bike!
Here's something to mull over; have you ever thought of it? 50% of defensive driving on a motorcycle is this:
You gotta make sure they see you! You have to train yourself to not only know where you are, but what
they can see and what they can't. That's another thing to consider when choosing a ride.
From there, I got a Yamaha 650 vertical twin (a Triumph without the leaks!) and then another after #1 and I hit a VW bug at about 70MPH (that's the tickler), and then, my last ten years of riding, a 1983 BMW R100 RT. A quarter million miles might be right from '74 to about 2004. I didn't really keep track but every year as a medic I arranged at least a month off to tour and I had no cars for a good ten of those years in FL and CA where weather made it possible.
On my deathbed, what I would likely feel most proud of in my life is that I refused to "show" anyone how to ride unless they committed at least ONE INTENSIVE WEEK with me; I'm talking at least four hours a day, I call the shots! (Here's to ya, George!) We start in a parking lot and don't leave it until I am CERTAIN the basics have been mastered.
As it happened the only two people who took me up on it were my best friends, one who I prepared to take a tour of the East coast (2,500 mi.), and the other a trip on the West coast (4,000). They each rode about 10 years without incident.
Add all that into working five years in the Daytona Beach area as a medic which is five years working Motorcycle Week (including coverage of the Daytona 200) and working up almost every kind of crackup there is, well, what I'm saying is...
IF YOU THINK FOR ONE SECOND IT CAN'T HAPPEN TO YOU,
YOU'RE COOKED!
Prepare. Please, prepare well.
And I have this to say about helmets. Hawaii has no helmet laws, which IMHO is stupid; at least three people last year on Maui went to their Makers unsheathed! But even though I don't want to pay for it directly or indirectly and I'd miss you, I honestly don't care whether YOU wear one or not when you ride, is that fair?
But you damn well better carry at all times a helmet in good shape for your passenger and REQUIRE it be worn until you are positively sure a clear choice and preference has been made. If YOU offer any preference, please let it be that they DO wear it!
If why doesn't make sense to you immediately then go to the next thread, you've tracked nothing here.
If you're going to bike, death needs to be your adviser! And, to be honest, there were many times (after about 20 years of riding) when, in moments, I'd think to myself, "If I got killed on my bike this instant, I'd be okay because biking has given me some of the most memorable, outrageous and beautiful moments of my life. All that's left is a Big Thank You for the living that biking made so worthwhile!"
POSTSCRIPT: I live on Maui. It is 100% motorcycle-riding orgasm! The road to Hana (which I drive professionally in a van) has 617 curves and 54 one-lane bridges -- and that's just half-way around the volcano -- we're not even talking going around it or UP it! It slinks up and down incredible cliffs, hugging the coast with many sheer drops, blind curves and two-way traffic which includes dump-trucks.
My Beemer still sits in storage in California. After thirty mind-bending years, I decided not to press my luck any more.
Be careful out there. Better yet, Be Aware!
your friendly firetender