I love riding a motorcycle. I will admit that it was almost a frightening culture to enter into.

Growing up the image of a motorcycle rider that I saw in films and on TV was anywhere from Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper trekking across the country in the 60's to the leather clad bad asses on TV that the hero of the show would have to take on to save some small town. Easy Rider didn't have a happy ending, and those bikers on TV had attitudes.

I also grew up with a family where the most vocal members were opposed to the idea of my riding a motorcycle. I remember one day when a neighbors cousin was visiting that had a motorcycle and he took me out for a ride on the back of it. When I told my father about it I got read the riot act (though I believe I was riding on the back with no helmet, so he probably had just cause to be upset). Eventually, however, one has to go against the conditioning of their youth and move on.

Many years later, here I am. A friend, Landon, and I had talked about taking the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course at some point so that we could ultimately pick up motorcycles and go riding. One day he tells me that he was out checking out a local dealership and had bought a Ducati and had signed up for an MSF class out in Irving and gave me the link to sign up. I have to thank him for that since it was the kick in the pants I needed to finally get this ball rolling.

A couple weeks later we took the class. It's a two day class that spends half a day in a room going over the basics of safe riding (with a test at the end of course), followed by a day and a half of heading out to a practice lot and getting the feel for riding. I was pretty convinced before taking the class that I was meant to do this. After a day and a half of riding around on 90+ heat with a helmet that smelled like the back end of a water buffalo while still enjoying myself I was sold.

Then came the next step. I had to buy a motorcycle. When it comes to big dollar purchases I'm pretty methodical about doing my research, so I looked at all the pictures, specs and prices for various motorcycles and put together my list. In order of preference I had a Yamaha VStar Classic, Honda Shadow Aero, Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic, Suzuki Boulevard C50, and a Harley Davidson Sportster 883C. At the time I had my reason for this order of preference and this selection of motorcycles, but it ultimately boiled down to a combination of price, engine size, and style.

Luckily for me there are dealerships for all these brands within 10 miles of where I live, so heading out to check each of them out personally was an easy process. The hardest part was my preconception of what I would experience. Going back to my exposure to motorcycle culture being based on film and TV, I expected to walk in to a dealership, explain that I was a new rider at which point I would either get ignored or talked down to.  In general, my expectations couldn't have been farther from reality.  To their credit, the browsing process at both the Yamaha and Harley Davidson dealerships were the best.  The guys at both places were friendly, helpful, and gave me all the information I needed as a new rider to evaluate motorcycles.  The Honda dealership was having a grand opening for their new showroom, so the place was a zoo.  My last stop was at a dealership that sells both Kawasaki's and Suzuki's and the sales people there essentially ignored me.

The interesting part is that my list got pretty turned around after seeing the motorcycles in person.  It is amazing how much an opinion can change once you see something in person. My list was now the Sportster 883C, VStar Classic, Boulevard C50, Shadow Aero, and Vulcan 900.  Again, there were various details and aesthetics that influenced these decisions that are too long to go into.  With this newly ordered list my next step was to check the classifieds. Various forums recommended buying a first motorcycle used since, as they put it, you're guaranteed to either want to trade out, or to drop the bike as a new rider. After checking out all the classifieds it seemed like the amount people were looking to get was close enough to the cost of a new motorcycle where it just made more sense to me to buy new.  Another influence to this decision was the fact that none of the used motorcycles were in the colors or years that I was looking for.

So I called around, got the best price quote I could on a Harley Davidson Sportster 1200C (another comment in the forums was that it's not a bad idea to go ahead and start with the slightly bigger Sportster).  A couple days later I was the proud owner of a 2006 Fire Red Pearl/Vivid Black Sportster. I will admit that I wimped out a bit and had them deliver the motorcycle to me.  Riding around the parking lot at the MSF course was a lot different than riding down a street with cars, stoplights, and traffic.  The Sportster is also over 200lbs heavier than the motorcycles we used at the course, so I needed a chance to get used to it.

Luckily my neighborhood has an elementary school in it, and given that I had bought the motorcycle in June, school was out.  About 2 minutes after the guy dropped off the motorcycle I had my helmet, jacket and gloves on and I was riding down our street to that school.  I rode around that parking lot happy as could be.  First circling around clockwise, then counterclockwise.  Every night I would drive home, put on my jacket, helmet and gloves, hop on the motorcycle and head out to that parking lot.   I would practice clutch control and doing tight u-turns.  I would get up as much speed as I safely could in a parking lot to get the feel for how far it would take to stop this motorcycle.

Eventually I outgrew the parking lot, so I ventured out to the public streets and rode a couple times "around the block".  Then two blocks down, and so on until I rode the route to and from my office a few times in the evening.  I'm not sure how many people go back to the office after they have gotten home for the night, but I did it just to get the hang of the route with less traffic.  It was then time to do what I had originally planned. I didn't want to be someone who would just ride a few miles on the weekend.  I wanted to make this my vehicle of choice.

It was the summer during a particularly dry season, so there was not any reason I shouldn't ride to work every day that I could.  After my nights and weekends of practice the day had arrived to become a commuter rider.  I dug out a Brothers in Arms satchel that Ubisoft had given us as swag, loaded it up with my lunch, slung it over my shoulder and rode in to work.  For the first time ever my trip to work become something more than a necessary waste of time to cover the distance it takes to get to my office.  It was a new experience.  It was and still is fun. It is what I had always wanted to do.

After this it was time to expand my riding domain and to start going on some road trips, but those are stories for another time.