When I was young and foolish (as I am now old and foolish) I always wanted a motorcyle. Just thought they were SO cool! Never got to drive one, but rode with friends alot, and reallly loved it.
Well, I grew up and got over it, or so I thought. But the past couple years, I've been thinking a lot about it again. I use the excuse that the great gas milage would be nice, etc, etc, trying to rationalize my silly urges. My better half has been adament in discouraging me from this foolish behaviour, since he knows all too well about the "Evil Kenevil" streak I have in my nature allready. He was quite certain I would kill my foolish self. So I am not sure exactly why he finally relented, but several weeks ago we found a Yamaha scooter at the swap meet for a decent price and so he bought it for me. Yippee! My first motorcycle! Ok, so it's not really a motorcycle. But close enough. Has a lot of good points, as it is under 49cc's it can be ridden on the highway, but you don't need to have a motorcycle licence or any of that jazz. And it gets 85 MPG!!!! Since it will only do about 30 mph hopefully I won't hurt myself too bad!

I finally got to ride it for the first time yesterday. We couldn't haul it home in our little car the day we bought it, had to wait a week, then when we got it home we sent it to a friend to do some minor work on it, so it was almost a month, but now it's all ready to go.

Riding however, is proving to be a new challenge. Who was that silly person that says "it's just like riding a bike, once you learn you never foret." Whoever he was, he must not of lived long enough to get old and fat and uncordinated! I rode bikes a lot as a kid, but boy, my balance and cordination for that ability has most certainly gone bye bye! I can almost balance when going in a straight line, but as yet have not figured out the turning corners thing. It is going to take a lot of practice to get the hang of this, I am certain.

So, wish me luck and pray I don't do any major damage to my poor old body!

Wear a full body suit like that kid in that Judy Blume book that I know that I can't remember.

I'm glad you finally got the jump to riding a bike... I would like to also, but what's holding me back is the fear of wiping out. Badly.

Yea, that wiping out. That's what has kept me off the bike for the past few weeks. I rode it around the yard a little, but then kidding season started and I came to the sad realization that I could not afford any injuries until I at least get threw with kidding. Occasionally I let common sense take hold and keep me on the straight and narrow. Not too often, but occasionally.
I think we are about 3/4 of the way threw kidding now, and I hope to soon be back at Trap17 posting away, hopefully before my hosting credits run out. We have over 40 kids on the ground now. It's been crazy here.

If/when you do get ready to "move on", there's always the Atom Car http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52rrpuvawTs. I'm not saying it's any sort of replacement, but with how much he goes on, well, who knows. It's fast but safer.

Good luck!

mükemmelsiniz thnx