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If you like to drive and being on
the open road in a car, then you will love to challenge
yourself to ride a harley davidson motorcycles. At 39 years
old, I wanted challenge myself with something new. Why not
try to learn to ride a harley davidson motorcycles and make
a special trip on my 40th birthday. So, January 1999 came
and the goal was to learn to ride and take a trip from Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida to Key West Florida on a Harley Davidson
Motorcycle by my 40th Birthday in November.
January, slipped
by and I totally procrastinated this Journey, but finally
I looked into a
school. I called the local Honda dealership and they told
me of a school to learn to ride.
The class cost $199 for 3 days, which included the motorcycle,
Helmut, class time and
ride time. I wrote the check and I was schedule for my first
class the 2nd weekend in
February. The class started on a Thursday night, 3 hours of
intense riding rules and
instructions. Saturday and Sunday were from 8am to 5PM. Both
of those days were
broken into half day of class time and half ride time. The
class time was film, photo slides
and lecture on the rules of the road. Everyone was excited
the first time on the
motorcycle. There were some students there because they wanted
a refresher coarse but
many were first timers. The class of 20 students were equally
divided between men and
women. They handed everyone helmets and then let you pick
the motorcycle you wanted
to ride. I picked a black 250CC Honda, after some refresher
instruction, the instructor let
us mount the bike and start it. Wow, what a feeling, the roar
of my first motorcycle. I
couldn’t wait to ride it. The first ride was a short 50 yards
down this parking lot and stop.
I made it and I didn’t fall. The rest of the riding was a
progression of stopping, turning,
swerving, defensive driving, and practicing over and over
again, by the end of the day you
are riding pretty well. By the time Sunday comes, you are
ready for the road test. Out of
20 students, only one person failed and they were given the
opportunity to take the class
and test again at no charge. The first part was completed,
I had my motorcycle license.
The next challenge was to buy a motorcycle to practice with.
There are so many different
types of bikes out there and trying to decide what is good
or bad is very difficult. I talked
to a lot of people and asked there opinions. Since I only
wanted to spend between $1,000
and $2,000 for a motorcycle, I wasn’t left with too many options
but to buy a Japanese
bike. I looked all kinds but I wasn’t too sure what was good
or not, I was only looking at
price and then looking at the bike. There are some scary looking
bikes in this price range,
bikes from the disco era and back. I finally bought a 1983
Honda Shadow for $1400. The
bike was clean and ran well. It took me until the end of April
to buy the bike. Unless you
can buy a new bike, this part of the process took a long time.
Now finally, I had a bike to
practice with. Every Saturday morning I practice. There is
a road by my house which
doesn’t have much traffic. I recommend this highly, because
the first couple of times riding
in traffic is pretty scary stuff, all those negative thoughts
come into your head, falling,
getting hit by another car, so on and so on. But after time
these thoughts disappear and
the confidence builds. Finally a chance to ride on the open
road and get the real
motorcycle feeling of the wind blowing and the power of the
bike.
Now the day has come, November 13, 1999. This is the day I
have rented a Harley
Davidson Fat Boy. I mean this bike is big boy, cherry apple
read, with all the chrome to go
with it, a little intimidating. The price to rent a bike ranges
from $110 - $149 per day. The
guy at the rental shop, makes me fill out all the paper work
and hands me the keys. He
says, I need to know if you can ride this bike, so start it
ride around the parking lot. In
there defense, they went over all the points of riding the
bike and how to start it. But once
I got on the bike, I forgot everything, it took a few seconds
of the roar of the engine to
get my senses back. I put-put around the parking lot very
slowly. The rental guy, said, OK
you know what your doing, take off, and off we did. The ride
to Key West was with a
friend of mine, an experienced rider. I would recommend that
to everyone. His knowledge
helped me tremendously. The ride to Key West Florida was awesome,
blue skies, fresh air,
and feeling of having a harley davidson motorcycles underneath
me, the words can’t
describe. I had four hours of smiles and pride of accomplishment.
If you never rode a
motorcycle and have the desire to do it, you should. Remember,
life is short and you
should do all you want to do, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone
else. The Key West bike rallys was a great time.
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