Nobody told me what fun this would be.
I hadn't ridden a bike at all, apart from 1 1/2 hours doing my BHS, ever. My bike ( a Hyosung GV250) was delivered by Nth Island Motorcycle Movers (major plug, great service, good price)to the local bike shop Wednesday morning and I picked it up lunchtime Wednesday. Hey, find a bike shop where the people care. Bay City Motorcycles in Tauranga have been fantastic even though I didn't buy my bike from them. Trish, my biking mum (hey, even 61 year olds need a mother figure for advice), made sure my helmet was on right and I was wearing all the right gear before she let me go off on my first ride.
Any way, my first ride was hell. My heart was beating faster than the engine was reving, I stalled the engine on the only roundabout on the way back to work, I forgot to cancel the indicators, and I arrived back at work in a lather of sweat ( yeah, that was the Bay of Plenty summer!!! definitely not nerves). So I wasn't really looking forward to the ride home on Wednesday evening.
But, only a few hundred metres into the trip home on Wednesday evening, everything clicked into place and it became such a wonderful experience. I swear I felt the wind in my hair - whatever hair I have left - even though I was wearing a full face helmet. To lean into a corner and accelerate out was such a buzz, and I even did more than a learner is allowed to do down an urban street.
Now I'm asking if my wife needs anything from the dairy, and I ride to the supermarket instead, about five times the distance, he he he. I forget to pick things up, "Oh, sorry, I've forgotten that, I'll go back and pick it up!!!" There's a lovelly set of curves on the road near me, on the way to work it's a left, then two distinct rights, so I've been trying out counter steering, and gee it works, just a little push of the left handle bar and the bike leans left and around the curve you go, magic!!! Vice versa for right hand curves.
And the number of motorbikers out there that I'd never noticed. I've parked my bike out the back of where I work and the number of people who come into work asking, "Who's bike is that?" is amasing. An old friend called in, I hadn't seen him for five or six years, and he admitted that if I saw a lime green Triumph triple go passed it was him, I never knew he even rode a bike.
But the feeling of oneness with the bike, I know it's corny, but it's fantastic. Even just cruising along in traffic at 50 to 60 on the way to work - I'm a learner, so I'm keeping well back from the car in front - is great. You hear the whistle of the wind in your helmet, feel the pressure of the air on your chest, sense the vibration of the motor under you, and know the balance of you and the machine as you follow a curve in the road, hey you've got to experience it to know it.
And tomorrow is the weekend, HEYYYYY!!!!!!
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WISDOM IS KNOWING KARMA REALLY CAN'T GET YOU. 
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