After a minor false start, we picked up a shiny almost new Honda Rebel last weekend. The prior owner had apparently won the bike in a contest, rode it home and decided to keep his existing ride. With a mere 3 miles on the clock, the bike was priced as if used, but for all intents and purposes, new. I was forced to dust off my clutch and shifting skills for the ride home, and with only one stall and some very minor protests from the transmission, made it home in one piece.
As with most government services in New York, a “delightful” three hour wait at the DMV with angry citizens of the Empire State, followed by rousing discourse with an apathetic government employee resulted in freshly minted NY State tag and registration certificate. I was promised a mere 90 “business” days for the wheels of the machine to crank out the title, while being admonished that I would have less than 10 calendar days to complete various inspections and my end of the “bargain.”
License and registration appropriately placed on the bike, this weekend, Meghan and I went to a relatively abandoned parking lot for her first installment of Motorcycling 101. Like skiing and SCUBA diving before, she picked it up surprisingly quickly and in no time was zooming around the parking lot (albeit at less than 10 mph or so). As a final flourish to her first lesson, she was working the turn signals and giving the throttle a little rev to show off, although shifting into second gear will wait for a future lesson.
To cap off the weekend’s moto-related activities, we made a quick trip up to the local BMW Motorcycle dealer to get Meghan some boots, and drool over new steeds. The motivation for all this two wheeled action is a plan for an “extended” ride slowly congealing in the back of our minds. Stay tuned for details…
good stuff… can’t wait for lesson 2 stories… shifting is the toughest part!!