First Ride My First Bike I just bought my first bike this past June, 2007. I had been on the back of a bike many times but at the age of 43 I decided I wanted one of my own. I was advised to get a small bike for the first time so I did some research and decided on the Honda Rebel (250).I couldnt even ride it home because I didnt have a permit yet, so into the back of my friends truck it went. Two or three days later I took the permit test and all was good. I couldn't wait to ride but I sure was a little scared. My son who has been riding for years gave me a few lessons in the parking lot and then we were off. My first official ride was up route 2 to the rest area, about 5 miles from my house! My son was right beside me and I couldnt stop smiling. We turned around in the rest area and headed home, wow another 5 miles. I went back and forth to this same rest area a few times by myself untill I felt a little more confident. Funny how I always told my son to be carefull when he left on his bike and now the roles were reversed. He told me now he knows why I always said what I did to him, now he was the worrier. In the next few months I put about 800 miles on my new bike. I just couldnt get enough of the open road. I live in a small town in Western Mass and the back roads and small towns are just incredible to see on a bike. When the time came to put my bike away for the winter I just wanted to cry. I was advised by my son not to turn in the plates for the winter because when the first nice day comes in "08 he knows I will want to just jump on it and go. Good advice I'd say and he's right because I just cant wait! So my plan in 08 is to get into some group rides,meet some new friends and just enjoy every minute I can on my bike. There you have it,my first bike and my first but in no way my last ride! - Kim A Long Overdue Indulgence
Yesterday, through the generosity of my waay too cool mother, I was able to do something that has been sorely absent from my life since 2001-2. Yesterday, I was able to ride her stunning aqua motorbike!
I straddled a 1976 Triumph 750 Bonneville. "The best motorcycle in the world" as the boys from Meriden used to say.And what a ride it was! If one has never experienced the feeling of the wind in your face, the fluctuations of cold and hot air rising from the pavement, it is almost beyond words. There is something rather freeing in doing this pastime. Something I had missed for a very long time. It allows you a sense of control that is so vastly different from being behind 2000 lbs of metal and glass. There is a sense of being 'one' between you and the machine you have beneath you.
You know in the recesses of your mind, that this machine can kill you. You also know that you or someone else's carelessness can wipe you from this plane of existence in a mere moment. Your senses are awakened; everything is seen in full color, you are aware of everything around you! The adrenaline that pumps through your body is unparalleled by anything else. For some there are drugs, booze, for me it's a bike. 750 cc's of pure engineering prowess, placed in your hands, for you to do with as you please.As the bike rumbles to life after the first kick, you feel its energy coursing beneath you, and its power. It sits waiting for you to tell it what you want, what you need. That need for movement, of traveling the roads that you might take every day, suddenly becoming new again. One twist of the throttle propels you down the asphalt river, coursing through the scenic byways that can be observed as most do, through a plate of glass and plastic, or experienced in sight, sound and smell, as you ride. The air seems crisp; the heat seems more intense as does the coolness of the forests as you glide through some of the most scenic areas of the Quabbin Reservoir.
You concentrate on the car ahead of you, but also the car ahead of it, and the one ahead of it, looking for the tell tail red lights of slowing. If you're an experienced rider, you know the nuances of your machine, when to brake, or you know when to down shift, hearing the motor growl at the interruption of what it wants as badly as you, the freedom to just 'go'…..As you shift gears to accelerate, you feel the engine glide at a higher RPM, the synchronicity of gears, sliding smoothly into place, responding to the slightest turn of the throttle, you find yourself leaning down lower upon the tank, feeling the vibration in your chest, the heat from rising up from the motor as though you are hovering above the road, the dotted lines flowing past, like a painted ribbon of golden yellow.Things that are easily missed in a car suddenly become truly visible.
The red tailed hawk, munching road kill, hears you coming, and swoops across the road in front of you to a perch high above. The purple blossom of a common roadside weed, known as chickory, catches your eye but for moment, as you speed past, but you can see every petal! The bright orange of a jagged ray of the setting sun, as it sets behind a cloud, piercing the grayness of a hazy day, before night arrives. You smell the rain.Even the bugs, that you know you will strain between your teeth, are clearly visible as they come straight towards you in the headlight beam that is stabbing through the night, illuminating that yellow ribbon of paint upon a jet black ocean of pavement.
Oncoming traffic glows as it passes you, you feel each cars' wind in its wake. As I crossed the French King Bridge, I look to my right, although briefly, for a mere moment of my eyes averted from the road can mean a certain calamity, I see below, the coursing water following the ancient glacier paths that has formed this valley, the clear water traveling as it has for a millennia, I feel so intensely connected to both the bike beneath me and this valley I call home, that yesterday was ride that shall be remembered by me for a lifetime!
- Kelley Slater | |