Learning to Ride a Motorcycle

Yes, there is a reason.

When I was a teenager, the only girl in a family of boys, my father decided that I needed to know how to ride a motorcycle - just in case, I was stranded with a boy on a motorcycle. Just in case the boy riding the motorcycle was no longer able to ride me home. Unlikely, but I guess it could happen.

In any event, I respected my father, and thought that there was no reason that I couldn't ride a motorcycle.

So, my dad asked my oldest youngest brother (about 14 years old at the time) to take me out to the gravel driveway and show me how to ride one of the boys motorcycles. ( Note: gravel driveway with an upward elevation to the road, also made of gravel)

My brother rather grudgingly pulled a motorcycle out of the garage and parked it at a right angle to the driveway. He showed me the brake, the clutch, the throttle, and the pedals. I got on the bike, and attempted to start it, and turn it - with the idea that I would ride gracefully up the gravel driveway.

That did not happen.

Rather un-gracefully, I rode the motorcycle right into the side of my aunt's Chevrolet. I paid her deductible to have the body damage repaired. My brother thought it was funny.

From that day forward, I was afraid of motorcycles. The humiliation of riding that bike right into the car stayed with me. I never dated a boy who rode a motorcycle - I never rode on the back of a motorcycle.

Never Start on a Gravel Road

Now that I've had some motorcycle riding instruction, and have miles under my belt, I look back at that first experience and laugh. No one in their right mind would attempt their first ride with a sharp turn, up a gravel road.

How did I get from there to now?

Fast forward 20 years. I've graduated from law school, and I've met another lawyer, who rides a motorcycle. I respect him, and like him, and he will not let me ride on the back of his motorcycle.

Worse yet, he takes weekend motorcycle trips - without me.

I decide that it was time for learning to ride a motorcycle. I signed up for the MSF course the next spring.

If you - like me - have that spirit of adventure, and want to ride with the men (or boys) Get your Motorcycle License.

The rest is history.