Motorcycles

Hmm. Right. So how did I get into motorcycles then?

Well, when I was a wee lad back in the *cough* 70’s and early 80’s, I used to go and spend some time with my dad and my grandparents at a place in Mississippi called Sardis Lake. Here’s a map.

Anyway, down at the lake there were miles and miles of off-road trails where my cousins used to spend all summer riding. In the 70’s I was too young to ride, but in the early 80’s I got a chance to ride a few times but that was the total of my riding experience until last summer.

Skip to August ‘07 when a friend of mine asked me if I’d like to get a ‘free’ scooter for a month. It was for a PR campaign for Piaggio Scooters and they needed someone over 30 who commuted into central London every day to try a scooter and keep a journal of their experiences.

That was it! Keep a journal and get a free scooter. I jumped at the opportunity. The PR company even paid for my Compulsory Basic Training (CBT) that everyone in the UK must take before riding any sort of motorbike on the road.

I won’t go into great detail about the trial other than to say it went well and was great fun. It also cut my commute time from an hour to around 30 minutes – which was the biggest advantage. It let me get home in time to see our new baby before he had a bath and went to bed. It was also much more reliable – my travel time only varied by 5 minutes at the most (still true today).

When I had to give the scooter back, I decided to continue riding since it was so good. That’s when I went out and bought a Honda XR125L – the biggest selling learner motorbike in the UK. You can read about my bike on my XR125 L5 page.

The plan was to ride the Honda until I got a bit of experience under my belt. Then, once I had a bit of confidence, I would take some riding lessons and go for my ‘big bike’ test. I was originally planning on doing it in the Spring, but ended up doing it in December instead.

I decided to do my test in December since a friend of mine needed to take his test before the end of the year. (His CBT was expiring and he either had to renew it or take his test.) I thought it would be a bit more fun if I did the class with someone I knew, so we went for it.

I did the training and passed the test with only a couple of minor infractions. That’s good considering the pass rate at my test centre is around 43%.

After passing my test, I stayed on the XR until mid-February when I got the Fazer.

And that pretty much brings us up to today.