Thank you KB
Well I'm nearly at 4000 posts... so here ya go
I remember my first ever ride on a bike, I would have been only about 7, I don’t know who the guy was or what type of bike he had (other than by memory it looked like a dirt bike of some sort), I remember him riding up the road, me as pillion crying my eyes out cause I was so scared. He had to stop and I walked back home because I was too scared to stay on the bike. When I got home I had calmed down and wanted another ride… but he said no, maybe because he was scared I’d start to cry again. That was when I caught my bike bug… and I’ve never recovered from that… The biking virus is in my blood stream.
My family hated bikes (My gran’s brother died on a Triumph 600). And my talking about bikes always resulted in a “Over my dead body” response from my mother. I used to sit on the wall at home when I first started high school just to watch a stranger ride past on a bike I loved the look of (A Honda NSR150 Repsol Replica – the ONLY one in Zimbabwe) every evening. Months later I ended up meeting the “said” rider of the NSR150 and his father, who also rode bikes. I then meet through them some more bikers in Zimbabwe (much to my family’s disappointment), resulting in my next two pillion rides on a Yamaha FJ1100 and then a Yamaha Thundercat 600. It didn’t take long for my mother to see my fascination with bikes and the assumed danger of me hanging out with “bikers” and banned me from seeing Tim (the NSR150 rider) and anyone else who rode bikes.
Through a boyfriend I had at the time (yes I had a boyfriend…) I meet his best friend who rode a 150cc road legal dirt bike, my mother loved this guy and thought he was the bee’s knees. And after much begging and pleading she aloud him to give me my first real lesson. I could barely touch the ground, and even harder was holding the bike up (I weighed about 40kg’s at the time), I didn’t understand the concept of changing gears, and rode in first gear around the tree in the courtyard about 4 times before getting throttle happy and accelerating too much and running wide and nearly crashing into the garage… needless to say my mother freaked out and again banned me from any activities related to bikes.
For the rest of the time we lived in Zimbabwe after that incident (about a year) the closet I could get to anything bike related was a South African magazine called “Bike SA” that came out monthly… I had to save a whole months worth of pocket money just to buy it… and buy it I did every month…
When my family moved here to NZ, I was in a daze from not sleeping for 2 days while we traveled over here (first time out of Zim, first time in a plane etc… very excited and nervous) but I can still remember counting 12 bikes that I saw from the airport to the harbour bridge… In Zim (unless you lived up the road from bikers like I did) you’d be lucky to see 1 sports bike every 3 weeks. I was stoked… “Look at the bikes mom” I said as we were traveling to the motel… and she said “Don’t even go there”
The availability of bikes in NZ as well as bike magazines and internet access (we didn’t have the net in Zim… we couldn’t afford it) opened my eyes to a whole new world of bikes… in NZ you didn’t have to be in a gang to ride bikes… you didn’t even have to be rich to have bikes… I loved it!
My mother again tried everything in her might to get the thought of bikes out my head, to the point of even offering to buy me a car… which I declined. Time and again she would say “over my dead body” when I talked about buying a bike. And unfortunately, that’s how it ended up.
After my mom passed away I remember getting the loan approved from the bank to buy my first bike, I had no biking friends and didn’t know a single person who owned a bike. I went bike shopping with a mate of mine and we ended up on Barry’s Pt Rd in Takapuna walking from one shop to the next checking out all the bikes. We ended up at cyclespot and I remember looking at the CBR250’s drooling like mad… the sales guy asked me if I knew how to ride… and I said no… and he refused to sell me a 250… and kept pushing me towards the 150’s at the front of the shop… Eventually I ended up buying a 2002 Suzuki FXR150. I couldn’t ride it… didn’t even know how to start it, but it was pretty and shiny and blue… and best of all… IT WAS MINE!
It sat in the garage at home for a few months with me sitting next to it having a drool… I had a bike… but now what?
I moved houses and started flatting with a guy who used to ride bikes… he took me up to Albany and showed me how to change gears and told me the basics… and said “give it a go” I rode up and down that road about 30 times… getting more and more excited each time I changed up to a higher gear… always stopping next to him saying with the biggest grin on my face… “I made it to third” and vrrrrmmmm I was off again… shortly afterwards doing my basic handling skills and learners…
Not long after this and I moved in with another group of flat-mates. One of which rode a silver FXR150… she took me under her wing for a while… and took me on my first rides longer than up the road and back…
About this time was when I joined KB. I signed up, introduced myself and then forgot about KB for a few months… Then rediscovered it and tried to register and was told “email already exists”. D’Oh!
By the time I was an actual active member on KB I had brought my 1992 Kawasaki ZXR250-C.
Through KB I’ve meet some amazing people and I’ve learnt so much more than any of the bike magazines I bought could teach me. KB gave me my first group ride, my first out of town ride and about 70% of my biking knowledge.
I’ve grown a lot as a biker, and will always consider myself a newbie, after all you never stop learning and there are so many bikers on KB with a lot to teach bikers like myself.
Before I joined KB I never considered racing… stunts or anything… but now I know that the possibilities are endless, and at the end of the day it’s not how flash your bike is, or how fast it can go, its about the rider and the abilities the rider has…
I’ve learnt endless amounts of knowledge from the likes of Jono/Aff-Man (who gave countless hours of his free time to come to the Shore and help me fix up the ZXR after my crash…), Vifferman (with my chain adjustment, we spent hours talking in his garage before we realized the time…) crashe (who is much like the mother hen to the site… and is endlessly supportive and helpful), Words can’t even explain what Sam and I owe to ManDownUnder for his advise and support which we appreciate to no end, not to mention Bugjuice’s help with installing my alarm on the ZXR, which Jono and I ended up ripping out anyway lol, CaN for his support, advise and for letting me borrow his books (which I still need to return lol), Andrew (TIE) who was very patient when us Muppets (Sam and I) both crashed on the same day on the same road, for popping in afterwards to make sure we were ok… to everyone else on KB who has given me advise throughout the last 2 years.
I could go on and list all the separate members of KB who I class as friends even though I don’t see them often. But in short, I love KB. I love the environment, the people, the wide ranges of experience and the general willing to help attitude of all the members.
Biking will always be a part of my life, and hopefully I’ll spend many more years to come learning from you all, and maybe one day I’ll be able to pass on the knowledge I learnt from you on to some other newbie biker. You’ve all made a difference in my life… thank you
keep it rubber side down and ride safe!
Originally Posted by DingDong
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