Certified to Ride

Good news everyone! I passed my motorcycle course and didn't die!

As some of you may know by now, the last two days have been incredibly challenging and exciting for me. I rode a motorcycle for the first time, and finished a course that allowed me a motorcycle license endorsement. In other words, tomorrow I can go down to the BMV, present to them my endorsement, and I get a brand new drivers license that shows that I am certified to operate a motorcycle.

I am also laying here in utter pain because I managed to drop the bike a combined 5 times... on my legs. Thank you to whoever invented bike gear.

The course itself was rather accelerated, in the sense that we would only practice certain riding skills for X-amount of times before moving on to the next lesson, which later resulted in us taking a skills test. I personally have always lacked the "sporty" chromosome. I was never great at sports or anything that involved physical activity (how I still manage to stay skinny is beyond me). So I already knew that I was going to struggle with certain things. For one, I've never driven a stick shift car, thus I had to quickly try to grasp the whole "clutch-shift-break" concept on the bike. I think that was my greatest challenge all together.

I'm so proud of myself, though. I took on something that was completely out of my comfort zone, and had fun while doing it. I haven't done something that "adventurous" since my flying days at OU, which I truly miss. I want to some day purchase a used sport bike, and maybe that can be my way of filling that void in my life where flying once was.

I will admit that there were times when I thought to myself, "Holy shit, what did I get myself into?" I busted my ass through the rain and high temperatures, lugging around this piece of metal that could very well break my spine. It got me thinking about why people fall in love with riding, and I can see why. I also can see why people love sport bikes, because that cruiser they had me train on was probably the crappiest thing I've ever sat on! Booooooo hisss!

Below is another of me with the helmet visor flipped up... proof that it's me because you can see my face. See? I'm not lying!


And here is my friend Julie who took the class with me. She was the whole motivating factor that egged me on to take the class. She's been riding her new bike with her permit for the past few months, and she did awesome in the class. Here she is on her bike beside me at a stop light.


So what's next for me? Well, I'm not going to turn into Amy the Road Hog, but I certainly am considering saving up for a used sport bike, and once my sore muscles heal up, I'll continue to ride around on the back of Vinny's bike until some day I can ride on my own. How many people can say that they have a motorcycle license? I'll have mine for forever. Yep, I'm a badass ;)