Much to the dismay of probably everyone who cares for me, I bought a motorcycle on Friday.
For about a year now, I have been wanting to get a scooter like the one I had in high school. Lately, the urge has been getting much stronger, especially since my Mom’s death (she always wanted me to grow a beard and ride a motorcycle…whole other story) so I finally went to a couple of shops to see what was out there.
There are plenty of scooters on the market right now and unlike when I was 15 years old, they are now sitting right there at the front of all the motorcycle shops when you walk in instead of being tucked away in some corner at the back. I suppose it’s because of the recent hike in gas prices and the newfound popularity (at least around here) of scooting around town on two wheels.
After sitting on a few scooters, I was walking around and noticed the beginner bikes. After plopping down on an actual motorcycle, I knew I had to either get one or get out. It felt way more comfortable (and cooler) to be straddling a motorcycle instead of sitting on a scooter like a chair. The problem was, they were twice as much money as the scooters.
I talked to a salesman and he said that if money was a concern, maybe I should consider buying something used instead. Turns out, there was a slightly used beginner’s bike in the back. I sat on it, fell in love and after realizing that it was the same price as the scooters I’d been checking out, I financed it on the spot. They delivered it yesterday and I can’t wait to get my insurance and learner’s permit tomorrow morning so I can start learning to ride.
It’s a 2003 Honda Rebel 250 and it barely qualifies as a real motorcycle. In fact, when I Googled it, I found a TON of photos of kids and women sitting on them. Because it’s so small, it’s mainly bought as a first bike or for someone who can’t hold up a normal sized bike. It’s perfect for me since I am not much of a motorcycle guy and all I was really looking for was a scooter to get to work in the mornings.
In other words, it’s pretty small, really inexpensive and completely mine.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
That’s saaaaaa-weeeeeeeet! Hell yeah!
June 18th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Let’s go riding sometime!
June 18th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
as any dad would say…be careful!
June 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Nice bike, but I’ve seen bigger. Probably doesn’t even have any rockets.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Sweet.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:24 am
dude, nice wheels.
June 21st, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Awesome, you get to contribute to the noise that is B, B, & BBQ!
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:27 am
Cool bike!
My first bike was a Sears, Puch 250, a weird, Austrian made, 2 cycle engine bike that had two tanks. One for gas, and one for oil. The bike somehow ran on a mixture of the two. It was slow as heck, and big trucks would nearly blow me off the road. Still, I painted a big Woodstock logo on my helmet, often wore a very tacky, fringed cowhide leather jacket for road rash protection, and fashioned a weird, very awkward, backback contraption using two leather belts and some rope to lash the guitar case to my back. I rode it up to Thayer, Mo from Memphis a few times around 1970, and enjoyed the looks I’d get. Mostly, though, I remember how much wind that damned guitar case caught sticking up behind my head.
I wouldn’t want to ride one in Memphis anymore. Traffic is just too weird there these days, but Fayetteville ought to be fine, and the whole point of having a bike is to ride it on little twisty two-lanes in the mountains.
Now all you need is a helmet camera.
Congrats! Post more pictures.
Don
June 26th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Let’s race!