Love At First Bike

Love at First Bike

New Rider of the Purple Sage

JOHN ZAVONA

I guess I'm lucky I live in Texas, where gas prices hit "only" about $4 a gallon last summer. Still, they've almost doubled in the last two years and I had to do something to contain that expense.

I weigh my options. Maybe some sort of super-subcompact car that gets 40 or 50 mpg? That makes sense but I'm 6-foot-i and 25Oish. No, I need a two-wheeler. But motorcycling's never been part of my• i~e•~ I have to educate myself.

A scooter might work. Great mileage and serviceable trans portation to and from work. My teenage boys quickly pooh-pooh that idea. Besides, at my size, I might look like a circus bear rid ing a scooter.

So I begin looking for a "real" bike. I know I want something I can ride for a long time, not a "starter" bike I'd replace in six months. I've always liked cruisers with their deep growl and clas sic profile. That's my image of a bike.

I just need to find one. I start with the daily newspapers; I’m surprised at how few bikes are listed. On to cycle-trader mags and the web, and I discover more than I can imagine.

Then I find the next-best source: I know a guy who knows a guy.

Stephen has a ’99 Yamaha V Star 1100 for sale. It’s everything I could want. Black with royal-blue accents. He’s installed aftermarket pipes that compare favorably to a lion’s roar I once heard at the zoo. Deep. Throaty. Resonant. And he’s added chrome, lots of chrome.

It’s love at first bike!

I get a great deal.. .$3000. All it needs is a new battery. Oh, one last detail: Now I need to learn how to ride.

I make the best decision I possibly could next to buying the bike: I enroll in a Motorcycle Safety Foundation beginner’s class (iwww.msf-usa.org). But classes are booked a month out and I’ve got this stallion in my garage, snorting at me every time I go out there, pawing at the floor, just daring me to mount up.

What harm could it do? It’s just a spin around the block!

There’s a not-so-cliché cliché that there are two kinds of riders: those who have fallen and those who will. I make it around the block the first time without knowing anything about friction zones or looking through your turns. Hey, this is awright!

Exactly three-fourths of the way around the second time, I pop the clutch. The bike bucks. I twist the throttle. Off goes the bike and off the bike I go.

Undeterred and with a well-wrapped, scabbed-over elbow, I complete my MSF class nine days later. Taking my lessons to heart, I practice

drills in the parking lot at a nearby school over the next couple of weeks.

It's time for a real ride. My brother-in-law Tim, who rides a Road Star 1700 Silverado, announces plans for a backroads trip to a bike rally some 100 miles away. But first there are some unexpected costs. My V Star's front tire needs replacing. While changing the worn tire, the guys at the shop tell me I really should to have the carburetors cleaned/re-jetted and some other work. I'm looking at about $650 in all. Shortly thereafter, I'm sitting at a light and the bike stalls. I hit the starter and hear it spin. But no roar, no nothing!

We remove the starter and its gear is sheared off. I find a ser viceable replacement at a salvage yard for $210. So my "great deal" has now cost me about what the book says I should have paid in the first place.

I'm fine with that. Riding to the rally and back, I get 50 miles per gallon and log 210 miles, one of the best days of my life.

It gets better.

Soon after, I'm off for my second big ride, headed west with the early-morning sun at my back, and I catch my shadow on the pavement. It's hard to look the MSF-prescribed 12 seconds ahead when you look that cool. I've found the feeling.

It's unfettered freedom. I began to feel it the first time I realized how fast 20 and 30 mph seemed without that familiar steel cage around me and four wheels under me. It's that one-ness with the surroundings that comes with the wind all around you, the rumble of the road and the vibration of your bike.

I'm now officially totally geeked about riding. In two months, I've already put more miles on the bike than the guy I bought it from, and he had it two years. I ride the 1100 to work almost every day. My kids now think Dad's pretty cool. I sent my wife an e-mail one day and she replied that she was excited to see such a long message. . .until she read it and it was all about motorcycling! She later asks me if I can envision myself ever not rid ing Without hesitating, I emphatically shoot back No'' And if I had it to do over would I invest in biking Faster than you can hit fifth gear.