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You might want to give yourself a few extra minutes to find the class in The Bronx. You make a turn off of a street and it looks as if you’re heading either onto railroad tracks or into the river, but that’s where it is.

[ranette]

A lot of us don’t get the bug until we’re old farts, in my case I bought my bike a few weeks short of my 46th. My bike was the second motorcycle I had ever sat on, so you are certainly not alone in the oldie/newbie aspects. Seems like the 3 most common ways to spend money in the midst of a midlife crisis are, a motorcycle, a Porsche and a mistress. In my case the only one I could afford was a bike, and I can’t imagine either of the other two making me anywhere near as happy.

Best of luck with the MSF, I took my BRC with Motorcycle Safety School in the Bronx and then took the ERC with them, but they give that up at Ulster Community College.

By the way, I noticed in your initial post that you’re in northern Westchester. Where exactly? I grew up in Armonk and may be doing some riding around the area late next month.

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With a mid sized bike it really does depend on how you approach it. Certainly there are some things you can get away with on a 250 that will punish you on a 650, however, if you approach it in a mature manner-respect for the machine without fearing the machine-it can certainly be feasible to start on something similar to an SV. I started on a larger twin and if I had to do it all over again would not change a thing.

[ranette]

Much like WZ touched upon, even if it weren’t for the fact that it can save your life, with the bugs, pebbles, etc, that’s out there, why would you consider riding without a helmet?

I remember last summer I was pretty excited, I had a perfect afternoon off, I was on Vermont Rt. 17, a legendary motorcycle road, for the first time on my bike. I was about to hit the first serious twist when this giant green thing-either the biggest bug, or the smallest bird, in the state-exploded on impact with my face shield. I had to pull over and find some tissues to wipe it down; truly gross, but a minor inconvenience. If I hadn’t had a helmet with a face shield it would have been traumatic, and probably pretty painful.

As for protecting my noggin, I’ve been wearing a helmet to ski(and snow is usually a bit softer than pavement) since the mid 90’s, when it looked rather odd to see an adult with anything other than a wool hat. My bike may be naked, but my head will never be.

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Anything via the web is going to be biased, much like SCR mentioned, by the fact that whoever advertises on these sites, and to be economically viable they have to accept ads, is going to be recommended while those who do not are ignored.

That being said, I find that shopping for motorcycle gear, or anything else I have somewhat of a passion for, simply can’t be farmed out. I recently bought boots for my wife and I and agonized over every detail: looks, fit, protection, ventilated vs. airtight. We changed our minds countless times before pulling the trigger. In my opinion there is no way that any sort of personal shopping service would put that time and thought into a relatively small purchase, but I did, and I’m confident I picked the right gear for us.

As far as pricing, I do try to find the best price I can from a retailer that I trust. However, while I have no qualms about spending countless hours making sure I purchase the correct gear, spending day upon day trying to save a few dollars doesn’t make sense to me. Most of the major places seem to be relatively competitive on price. The two places that I’ve been happiest with are Competition Accessories(compacc.com) and Revzilla(revzilla.com). Revzilla has a fantastic website, comprehensive, fast, easy to navigate and a great filtering system.

[ranette]

Never having ridden one I can’t comment on how a Rebel will do on a highway. However, I did purchase a motorcycle after riding a scooter and one thing to keep in mind is that a larger displacement scooter like your Reflex has many of the same capabilities as small motorcycle such as the Rebel. If you’re looking to get rid of the Reflex and simply want the look or manual transmission of a motorcycle, no problem. If you’re looking for a sizable leap in performance I think you’ll have to look towards something like an S-40 or a Vulcan 500. In my case I still ride my 150cc scooter around town but have something significantly larger for the open road, two very different tools for two very different purposes.

[ranette]

Not an endorsement as I’ve never tried one, but Nexx includes a custom fit kit with all of their XR1R full face helmets.
http://www.nexx-usa.com

[ranette]

Anyone with your last name can ride a motorcycle. Simple as that.

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We own a country inn. A few weeks ago a guest pulled in on a Honda Valkerie. When he parked it next to my bike it looked like the Honda had just given birth to a baby Ducati. That thing was frighteningly huge, I believe somewhere in the range of 800 lbs. Not something that would interest me but the guy loved the thing.

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The bike weighs 400 lbs dry, somewhere in the mid 400’s wet.

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My wife said it felt as if I had slammed on the brakes, which I am nearly certain I didn’t do. Leads me to believe that what happened was that as I was letting out the clutch after the stop sign I unexpectedly stalled, the bike fell to the right, I got my right foot off the pegs but by the time I did the bike was at too steep of an angle for me to lift it back up. She also said that as soon as I made the wrong turn and got a little flustered it was as if she could literally feel the confidence leave my body, she said my shoulders sloped and I felt, best she could describe it was shaky, she said she wasn’t surprised that I made a mistake shortly after.

Under those circumstances I don’t see how anyone, even the those who think it’s always the other guy’s fault, or believe that it’s an inevitability, could do anything but blame themselves. There was no one else involved, hell there was nobody else around, which I guess was a good thing as there were no witnesses to my ineptitude. About 30 seconds after I righted the bike a pack of teenage skateboarders came by, looked at the Ducati, proudly on it’s side stand and gave me the thumbs up. Wonder what their reaction would have been if they had come upon the scene a half minute earlier with the Duc sprawled on the pavement looking like it was waiting for forensics to come and draw an outline around it? My guess is it wouldn’t have been quite as reverential, more like “Hey, old folks, where’s your scooter?

[ranette]

Owlie, thanks, and no big deal on the bike damage. Still perfectly rideable and probably less than $100 for back to pristine, rare that a drop is going to cost you less than that. If somebody had knocked it over in our parking lot, same damage, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Just the fact that it was my fault, and that I don’t know exactly what I did wrong that is bugging the hell out of me.

Munch it was a little of both for me, sorry that I dropped the bike, happy that my first reaction after I realized the inevitable was to make sure that she didn’t get hurt. Much to my surprise she wasn’t traumatized in the least; once I assured her the bike was fine she got right back on without any qualms. All night long, it was our anniversary, when we were sitting at dinner I kept beating myself up, “I’m such a freaking idiot. How did I let that happen?” and she kept coming back with, “Hey you dropped it, you picked it up, we’re fine, we’ll be out there next chance we get.” Guess you can see which side of the bed all the brains and logic sleep on.

[ranette]

Elwood mentioned both getting back on a smaller bike and taking the BRC over again, certainly one way to go. However if getting hold of a 250 isn’t an option or isn’t your way of approaching things I’d recommend taking the ERC rather than retaking the BRC. In actuality the curriculum of the two courses isn’t all that different, they just assume you know the basics. The reason I recommend the ERC is that you take it on your own bike. For me the confidence that came from completing the exercises on my own bike was invaluable.

[ranette]

Can’t echo that strongly enough. Pretty much every other forum I contribute to or read has had at least one RIP thread, one was a moderator. Definitely do not want to see that here,

[ranette]

First I have to say that was one of the most well written and well thought posts I’ve read on this or any other board.

I also came to owning a motorcycle via a unique path; after getting the urge to move up to something larger than my scooter we suffered a personal tragedy. At that point wanting to ride a motorcycle went from being an urge, to an obsession. My wife, the one who plans(rationally) while I react(sometimes irrationally), wanted me to wait, we just spent money on a scooter, you just learned to ride the scooter, why don’t you wait a year or two? My reaction was, there’s no reason to wait a few years, much as it might seem crazy-I’m a healthy man in the prime of my life-who knows if any of us have a few years? Carpe Diem. After weeks of constant pressure she finally relented, maybe feeling truly defeated for the first time in our marriage, as I had bullied her into this; every other major decision we had made in our 14 years of marriage had been made together. One of her fears, beyond the obvious ones, was that a motorcycle would separate us; I’d go off riding leaving her behind, at a point in our lives when we really needed to be together. However, I wasn’t listening to any rationale, I wanted what I wanted, and I wanted it bad. My purchase of a motorcycle was emotional rather than rational, probably not the best path to travel. As the day to pick up my bike grew closer the feeling of elation began to inch towards feelings of dread. A quick ride on my friend’s sport bike ended in embarrassment, though no damage; was I making the biggest mistake of my life?

Above and beyond this, my choice of bike was emotional. For a number of reasons(detailed in my first thread last year) I chose not to go with a traditional beginner bike. The first time I laid eyes on my Ducati GT1000, right after I had paid for it, it looked 10 feet tall. Did I just make the biggest mistake of my life? Got her home and started her up, sounded like a 747. Did I just make the biggest mistake of my life?

OK, this is where the good stuff begins. First of all Owlie, whether you continue with this or not-and I think and hope that you will-two low speed drops should in no way have you thinking that you’re acting squidly in any way shape or form. Simply beginner mistakes, squids put their lives and the lives of others in jeopardy by riding beyond their ability. Sounds like you put your shifter in jeopardy by responsibly learning to ride your new bike. There is no other way to learn but to do something you’ve never done before, something that is slightly more difficult than the skills you’ve already learned, that is the learning process not irresponsibility. As for me, I took the bike out pretty much every day weather permitted. Thankfully I had a good friend, the aforementioned sport bike owner, who made it his business to help me learn the little things and most importantly start to gain confidence. At first I couldn’t even ride out of our (unpaved)parking lot onto what passes for a busy road in Vermont. He’d ride the Duc I’d ride the scooter. We’d head to a paved parking lot where we’d switch mounts, after a bit of PLP we’d find a back road. Though I didn’t drop it, I came perilously close, more luck than anything else. I needed to think about every little thing I did, couldn’t make a turn from a stop, don’t even ask about starting on a hill; this was not fun. Did I make the biggest mistake of my life? But like I said at the beginning of this paragraph, this is where the good stuff begins. A little practice, a little confidence, a little more practice, a little more confidence. All I can say is it just starts to come together. Things I had to think about became things I did without having to think. I am certainly no motorcycle prodigy, given your mindset which is evident in your posts, there is no reason not to believe that with a little practice things which seem beyond you now will become second nature. Some toddlers hop up on two legs barely even thinking about it while others get up and fall down, get up and fall down until they eventually do it without thinking. Do the toddlers that need to work a little harder, concentrate a little more, become damn fine walkers? To quote one of the more famous citizens of your fine state, “You betcha.”

You question whether you have the right temperament for riding. Thoughtful, introspective, somewhat cautious? Though I might approach decisions head first, once it gets to the physical nature of a new task I am exactly the same way, as I bet most of the good safe recreational riders out there are. None of us-Megaspaz excluded-are looking to become the next Valentino Rossi. Introspection, a conservative approach, combined with lots of practice will get you there. Also, and this is important, have fun. Even if it’s a struggle, isn’t it fun? Doesn’t it beat just about anything else you could be doing? Think about that last day of MSF, trust me once you get a little bit more confidence that will seem boring in retrospect. You had that much fun in a parking lot? Just think of how much fun you WILL have in the twisties.

Riding a motorcycle has changed my life for the better. Something to look forward to every day the weather gods shine our way. A new skill to learn and keep learning long after I thought I was pretty much done learning anything. Even my wife has taken a liking to the Duc. Remember how one of her fears was that riding would drag us apart as I was off doing my own thing? Seems like her favorite spot this summer has been the pillion as we take off together every chance we get. Stick with it Owlie, the rewards are truly spectacular.

Randy

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