I’ve occasionally had dreams that I’m riding a motorcycle. Having done very little of that in real life, I think it’s something my subconscious pulls out to represent freedom, and escape from worries. Shannon, good wife that she is, tries to make my dreams come true, and so signed me up for a beginning motorcycle class.
The class was offered through the Utah Motorcyclist Association (UMA), using the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) curriculum.
There were five other people taking the class with me, ranging from an assistant restaurant manager whose boyfriend just bought her a motorcycle, to recent high-school graduate who had been riding dirt bikes most of his life. Class time was split between classroom instruction and range (read ‘parking lot’) riding, where motorcycles were provided by the program.
When we first went out to the range, they had six bikes sitting there: a few cruisers, a couple of dual-purpose bikes, and a Kawasaki Ninja sport bike. I was kind of leaning toward one of the cruisers, but I guess everyone else had their minds better made up, and I found myself left with the Ninja. I was, to be honest, intimidated by it, and the instructors even attempted to switch it out for a cruiser, but the battery was dead. Once I started riding the Ninja, though, I realized that it wasn’t too hard, and it was a very cool bike.
We started out just learning how to start the motorcycles, and getting used to the clutch friction zone. Over the course of two Saturdays, we rode around cones learning more advanced skills like swerving, quick stops, negotiating curves, tight turns, etc. Yesterday I passed the written and riding exams to finish the course. It was pretty fun to learn the skills, and I have to believe that riding somewhere other than a parking lot would be even more fun.
So now I have to make a decision. Do I say, “That was fun. I kind of know how to ride a motorcycle now,” and leave it at that, or start shopping for a bike? Much of the classroom time was about risk management, and I have to decide if I’m willing to risk the streets full of cell-phone talking SUV drivers.
And Shannon questions the wisdom of fulfilling this dream and getting me interested in a dangerous and expensive past-time. I’ve heard her mutter, “What was I thinking?”