hppants
Well-known member
They say you never forget your first time.
That phrase can be applied to many activities, some G-rated, some R-rated, and some even worse. But one thing we can all agree on is that we never forget our first REAL ride. To be clear – I’m not referring to our first motorcycle riding experience. Your buddy letting you take his bike down the road and back doesn’t count. Just after you buy your first bike and putt putt it around the parking lot or subdivision – that doesn’t count either in my book.
No – your first REAL ride is the one that allows you to capture the whole riding experience. Where you can engage all of your senses. You can hear and feel the engine between your legs. You can taste the excitement of controlling the bike, and even a little terror of a close call or a safety concern. When you ride through that, it exhilarates your sense of accomplishment, and you realize that you are living a touch on the edge and you love it. You can smell the world that formally existed outside of the air conditioned cage you grew up in. And finally, you can see the unlimited ceiling above and around you, and it gives you a whole new appreciation for scale and how small you are in the real grand scheme of things.
About 6 weeks ago, my 19 year old nephew Jacob started asking me questions about motorcycles and it quickly became apparent that he was bitten by the bug. We talked about safety and learning to ride the right way. He patiently waited for the right 1st bike to come along and about 3 weeks ago, he picked up a nice Honda Nighthawk 250. We shopped together and bought some good riding gear for him, and spent a wrenching day in my shop going over the care and feeding of the 2-wheeled horse. Jacob took the MSF course and got all of his paperwork straight for his new ride. He practiced in my neighborhood a few times to increase his comfort level.
And yesterday, he was nice enough to allow me to accompany him on his first REAL ride.
I hope you enjoy the pics.
Right now, coastal Louisiana is hotter than a whore house on Nickel Night. Any self-respecting ride should be started early in the morning. I met Jacob at his house at 6:30 am. His step dad looks like he is sending Jacob off to fight a war.
We went over a few pre-ride safety items, geared up, and I lead him out for parts unknown. Jacob lives on the outskirts of town, so it was nice to be able to avoid the city and get right to the rural side of riding. I picked a long straight country road to start so that he could settle in and concentrate on the mechanics of his ride.
Looks like he’s doing just fine back there.
Staggered formation looks good – staying out of the grey stripe just like I told him.
About 30 miles into the ride I found a nice set of desolate and wide open curves that I wanted Jacob to practice on. Uh…. looks like he needs a little work on his U-turns as well.
No harm, no foul – we pushed the bike back on the road and commenced to practicing.
Nice looking lean – he’s kind of target fixed on me, but we worked on that too.
We talked about the “outside/inside/outside” way to negociate curves, and 3 or 4 rounds in, he’s doing tons better.
We’ll use these pictures as teaching aids.
We continued to the town of Eunice and stopped for gas. Then we rode 100 yards up the road to a Tire/Bike shop that I frequent. I suppose a ride to a bike shop is a sort of rite of passage as well.
Not much happening this early in the morning, so shortly thereafter, we geared up and continued the adventure. Now heading generally East, we ride through fields of soybeans, cut rice, sugar cane, and cattle. I’m picking well known-to-me curvy roads with little or no traffic and good pavement.
At one point, we found Hwy 190, which is a 4-lane divided 65mph highway. I wanted to give Jacob a chance to stretch the legs on his beast. That little 250 runs quite well at speed and will happily roll down the highway, while sipping gas and providing 65 mpg mileage.
You can almost see the grin behind the helmet.
We continued on our loop back to his house, and arrive safely about 10:15 am. Our ride was approximately 125 miles, 95% of it on rural less traveled highways.
A young man of few words, Jacob was noticeably very excited upon our return.
(Pants) “Well, how’d you like it?
(Jacob) “It was amazing”
(Pants) “Have you ever seen any of those roads before?”
(Jacob) “Other than the one right by our house, I’ve never been to any of that”
(Pants) “Plenty of adventure right in your own backyard.”
(Jacob) “I can’t wait to do it again.”
(Pants, thinking on the way home) - “Me too.”
That phrase can be applied to many activities, some G-rated, some R-rated, and some even worse. But one thing we can all agree on is that we never forget our first REAL ride. To be clear – I’m not referring to our first motorcycle riding experience. Your buddy letting you take his bike down the road and back doesn’t count. Just after you buy your first bike and putt putt it around the parking lot or subdivision – that doesn’t count either in my book.
No – your first REAL ride is the one that allows you to capture the whole riding experience. Where you can engage all of your senses. You can hear and feel the engine between your legs. You can taste the excitement of controlling the bike, and even a little terror of a close call or a safety concern. When you ride through that, it exhilarates your sense of accomplishment, and you realize that you are living a touch on the edge and you love it. You can smell the world that formally existed outside of the air conditioned cage you grew up in. And finally, you can see the unlimited ceiling above and around you, and it gives you a whole new appreciation for scale and how small you are in the real grand scheme of things.
About 6 weeks ago, my 19 year old nephew Jacob started asking me questions about motorcycles and it quickly became apparent that he was bitten by the bug. We talked about safety and learning to ride the right way. He patiently waited for the right 1st bike to come along and about 3 weeks ago, he picked up a nice Honda Nighthawk 250. We shopped together and bought some good riding gear for him, and spent a wrenching day in my shop going over the care and feeding of the 2-wheeled horse. Jacob took the MSF course and got all of his paperwork straight for his new ride. He practiced in my neighborhood a few times to increase his comfort level.
And yesterday, he was nice enough to allow me to accompany him on his first REAL ride.
I hope you enjoy the pics.
Right now, coastal Louisiana is hotter than a whore house on Nickel Night. Any self-respecting ride should be started early in the morning. I met Jacob at his house at 6:30 am. His step dad looks like he is sending Jacob off to fight a war.
We went over a few pre-ride safety items, geared up, and I lead him out for parts unknown. Jacob lives on the outskirts of town, so it was nice to be able to avoid the city and get right to the rural side of riding. I picked a long straight country road to start so that he could settle in and concentrate on the mechanics of his ride.
Looks like he’s doing just fine back there.
Staggered formation looks good – staying out of the grey stripe just like I told him.
About 30 miles into the ride I found a nice set of desolate and wide open curves that I wanted Jacob to practice on. Uh…. looks like he needs a little work on his U-turns as well.
No harm, no foul – we pushed the bike back on the road and commenced to practicing.
Nice looking lean – he’s kind of target fixed on me, but we worked on that too.
We talked about the “outside/inside/outside” way to negociate curves, and 3 or 4 rounds in, he’s doing tons better.
We’ll use these pictures as teaching aids.
We continued to the town of Eunice and stopped for gas. Then we rode 100 yards up the road to a Tire/Bike shop that I frequent. I suppose a ride to a bike shop is a sort of rite of passage as well.
Not much happening this early in the morning, so shortly thereafter, we geared up and continued the adventure. Now heading generally East, we ride through fields of soybeans, cut rice, sugar cane, and cattle. I’m picking well known-to-me curvy roads with little or no traffic and good pavement.
At one point, we found Hwy 190, which is a 4-lane divided 65mph highway. I wanted to give Jacob a chance to stretch the legs on his beast. That little 250 runs quite well at speed and will happily roll down the highway, while sipping gas and providing 65 mpg mileage.
You can almost see the grin behind the helmet.
We continued on our loop back to his house, and arrive safely about 10:15 am. Our ride was approximately 125 miles, 95% of it on rural less traveled highways.
A young man of few words, Jacob was noticeably very excited upon our return.
(Pants) “Well, how’d you like it?
(Jacob) “It was amazing”
(Pants) “Have you ever seen any of those roads before?”
(Jacob) “Other than the one right by our house, I’ve never been to any of that”
(Pants) “Plenty of adventure right in your own backyard.”
(Jacob) “I can’t wait to do it again.”
(Pants, thinking on the way home) - “Me too.”
