Biker Babes!

Last weekend, my wife completed the CHP motorcycle safety course -- her first-ever time in the driver's seat of a motorcycle. I stayed for about an hour after I dropped her off and watched the beginning of the range-exercises, then went about an hour early on the 2nd day to pick her up, and was amazed at how well folks progressed. It's interesting to watch people go from having trouble getting on & off the bikes in the 1st 10 minutes to racing around the parking lot at 30mph and making emergency stops at the end. I was pretty impressed by the course instructors, and Vicki and I had a good time talking about rules & safety procedures & motorcycle theory and "stuff like that."

I've been a motorcycle rider for as long as I can remember. Probably about since I was 18 or 19 and, for most of the time since then, a motorcycle has been my main commute vehicle (yes, even in Wisconsin, in the winter :) In addition, I enjoy it for just tooling around and the occasional cross-country trip. (For the past dozen or more years, I've been riding an old, beat-up Gold Wing 1500, the "Honda-bego.")

So we're both pretty excited about the idea of her becoming a motorcycle rider, both from the pleasure-riding angle and also because our 2001 Jetta wagon has got 170,000 miles on it, and will probably need to be upgraded, soon. Because we're a high-milage family, the idea of buying a used motorcycle instead of a new car for our high milage tasks (Vicki works ~50mi from home, I'm about 35) is quite appealing.

Then, yesterday, Vicki picked up a nice (she says -- I've not seen it, yet) used "trainer" bike (a Nighthawk 450.) Our thought is that she'd get something small-medium sized to ride at first, spend the Winter months putzing around on it until she was comfortable then, sometime in Spring, we'd get her a "real" motorcycle (basically, whatever she decides is right for her riding situation, which will probably be somewhat different from the one she got for the purpose of learning.)

So we're both pretty excited about that, too -- new [used] motorcycle, woot!

But I'm a bit nervous, at the same time. On the one hand, Vicki is a very capable and strong person, and can handle herself just fine. On the other hand, she sometimes forgets to pay attention to details, and I worry that one of them might be something important, like cross-traffic, or not locking up the front brake.

But she's also got a low tolerance for pain so, hopefully, a small bit of fear will keep her sharp until she gets fluent with her new motorcycling skills.

Actually, she's pretty skilled, already. I watched her do the "road test" at the end of class last weekend, and she's "all over" it. But that was in a parking lot with no other traffic (I was a bit surprised that they didn't have the whole class ride in a big figure-8, using each other as cross-traffic, actually. I'd-a thought that'd be standard part of beginner-training. Anyway...), and now she's going to be out on real streets with real other cars, some of which are driven by people talking on cell phones, applying make-up and reading the morning paper (yes, I've seen folks do all three at once!)

So that's a bit less-exciting... But I'm still kind-of jazzed at the idea that she'll probably survive her first venture into traffic, and we'll get to ride around together on some upcoming nice-weather weekend. (It's been in the 70s, lately! It's November! :)

Anyway... no Earth-shattering thoughts, today -- just something that's been on my mind, and I know I'm behind in blogging, so I wanted to bang out a few words, this morning.

Drive courteously...