I had no interest in motorcycles while growing up. I actually used to think “I would never get on one of those dangerous things!”. Then within the past 2 years, my thoughts started to change. I moved out of the city, into the country. My new neighbor got his first motorcycle. I was passing motorcycles on the road a lot more than I used to when I lived in the city, and everytime I passed one, I started thinking “That looks soooooooo fun!”. Finally, last summer when gas prices went over 4 dollars a gallon, and I was filling up my car, something snapped in my head, and I said, “I’ve got to get a motorcycle!”. If it weren’t for the high gas prices, my wife would never had agreed to it. (OK, maybe reaching the age of 40 this year had something to do with it as well.)
I signed up for the BRC, and a few months later, I had my “M” endorsement. Then I became obsessed with looking at Craigslist and cycletrader.com. I always wanted to go to the dealer and sit on bikes, even though I knew I couldn’t afford one yet. I had thought I would really be into the sportbikes, but after one sit on a ZX6, I knew I would never get into the super sport category. I still like the sporty look, though. About 9 months later I got my Suzuki GS500F. I’m sure that I surprised a lot of people, because I tend to be a really quiet, shy person. No one imagined that I would get a motorcycle, especially a sport model.
It has been a lot of fun riding this summer. I’ve been riding to work on sunny days when there is ZERO percent chance of rain. I’m looking forward to my first group joy-ride this weekend.