"You're always out testing everybody's crazy cars, you should try my bike, it's basically the same... ". Yeah. Right. After years of knowingly keeping my distance of even the smallest, slowest motorcycles, I've finally had my first little taste, although this may not have been what I had in mind. Enjoy reading all bout it!
A bit of history...
I've always liked bikes, ever since I was young kid reading Joe Bar Team comic books and trying to get motorcycle sounds out of my BMX bicycle with a variety of playing cards and other contraptions. In Belgium, you are allowed to ride mopeds and scooters limited to either 25 km/h (no license required) or 45 km/h (some license required)... so of course I was riding around on those owned by friends from since I was about 13.
By the age of 17 I had a water-cooled scooter with a butterfly-ported 70cc cylinder of a snowmobile that revved to about 16000 rpm. It melted racing exhausts, required a ridiculously oversized and tuned carburetor and was in no way able to be cooled by the factory pump and radiator.
It was good fun but a bitch to use as a daily and to keep up with in parts-costs, so after realizing that, I got the classic moped: a 50cc Honda Camino.
After that the cars came and the little bikes moved to the back of my moms garage where they stayed until I got my own storage a couple of years ago.
While sharpening my teeth on 4 wheels I realized that limits are a subjective thing and that mine might have been a little bit out there sometimes. Something about young, dumb and crazy, so I stayed far away from bikes and focused on improving my car control. But regardless of work, relationships, common sense and life getting in the way, the itch remained in there somewhere.
So I've been making plans for some time now to rebuild a mate's dirt-bike and just go and learn how to ride in a field somewhere, far away from things to hit and hard surfaces to land on. Yep, that sounds like a responsible idea. Little did I know it was about to go out the window...
A bit of the present...
So a couple of weeks ago I met up with a mate on a private piece of farmland from some guy he knows. He was out riding his bike in the area and I was cruising through on the way home from work so we met up. Started talking and out of nowhere he's like "You're always out driving other everybody's crazy cars, you should try my bike, it's basically the same,.. ". Yeah. Right. I protested with a couple of arguments about never having shifted something on 2 wheels that I wasn't pedaling around on and about being in the process of emptying a beer, none of those he seemed to hear.
Then he says "I'll show you real quick, clutch and gears on the left, brakes on the right." then he started it up and buzzed off to the end of estate to u-turn it and return. By then I started to realize he was serious and this might just be something I can't pass up with all the fear-conquering life decisions I've been making recently. My heart was pounding in the back of my throat and I was very nervous.
But when would I meet the next guy that's both trusting and crazy enough to hand me the keys to his white Kawasaki Ninja 600cc crotch-rocket. Me... an absolute newbie.
When I got on the bike I started really shitting myself and told him my strategy was to just let it roll a bit on the clutch in first gear to get a feel for it with him by my side just in case, and to see how that goes. I kicked it down into first and started hesitantly letting out the clutch and started rolling, feet on the pegs, and like he said, it felt like old times, strangely familiar.
I had ridden gearless bikes with clip-on's a couple of times before so I wasn't really phased about the riding position and instantly became more comfortable.
I gave it a little bit of throttle and I felt it wasn't happy anymore so I carefully pulled in the clutch, clicked it up into second, and let it out as smoothly as I could again.
By then it hit me: I was actually doing it and it wasn't that scary, let's give it a little throttle now... And the next thing that hit me was a pure adrenaline shot from within, like a tidal wave, just as suddenly as the engine's rpm rose and the bike's front lifted itself out of it's forks, screaming like an angry banshee.
I snapped back into focus and started thinking again about braking and downshifting and rolling the bike onto the berm to get it turned around without fucking it up or looking too retarded.
And as soon as I got it rolling straight again I tapped up for second and went for the gas again.
That was the time my mate heard me curse to where he was standing on the other end. And I really really really liked, no I LOVED it! I got off the bike and my arms where shaking, my heart rate was up for hours after, I had this weird vibe of finally understanding it now. The way these things deliver their power, the amount of noise and vibration, the way it felt like it was angry and annoyed with me and plainly wanted to kill me. Even weeks later just thinking about it while writing this is getting me way too excited.
I can't believe I've waited so long to try this.
I'm so glad I've waited so long to try this.
Big thanks to my crazy friend for the semi-forced offering of this experience!