Just Like Riding a Bike...Be Specific

Have you ever heard the old saying, “It’s just like riding a bike!” which means that hypothetically, once you learn to ride a bicycle, you never un-learn. No matter how old you are you can just jump back on one and go. Notice I said “BI-cycle”. I did that on purpose because I don’t want you to confuse bike, the pedal kind, with bike, the motorcycle kind. I’m here to tell you there definitely is a difference. For me there is anyway.

            I grew up riding motorcycles. We had dirt bikes at our home in Grand Ledge where we rode them around the neighborhood and through the motorcross track that some of the guys made in a field behind our house. We also had dirtbikes at our family’s summer property in Grayling. We would ride those through the sandy fire trails near Camp Grayling. It was a blast! I never got to be an expert rider by any means. When the guys in our neighborhood would go flying over the jumps on the motorcross track I would putt around them. But I could hold my own.

            Fast forward to about 5 years ago. I had been on the back of Tom’s bike for about 10 years and got the bug to ride again. Basically, I was feeling a little sick of staring at the back of his helmet. My friend and I decided to take the basic rider course offered down at Ferris State in Big Rapids. It was a weekend course where we got reacquainted with the bikes and earned our cycle endorsements.  I have to admit that I was pretty rusty. OK, really rusty. It was like learning all over again. It seemed like when Tom got a motorcycle after 15 years, he just jumped on and off he went. Me? Not so much. I did have fun chuckling about a lady who said she only rode her motorcycle up and down her driveway. Ha! That wouldn’t be me. I was now “street legal” and had that little CY on my license to prove it. Shortly after that class we bought my VW Bug and the dream of owning my very own motorcycle was shelved.

            Here we are in 2015. The bug is gone and I’m the proud owner of a Harley-Davidson Sportster. I stood there and stared at it and wondered, “What was I thinking? I can’t ride that thing!” I actually had it delivered because I was afraied to drive it home. Here’s where we return to the “Just like riding a bike” saying. It wasn’t. First I watched the first ½ hour Tom’s “Ride Like a Pro” video to refresh my memory. 

            Lesson 1: Practice the friction-zone (a brake/clutch drill)

With my boots, jeans, leather coat, helmet, shatter-proof sunglasses and gloves, I got on my bike and started it up. Then I proceeded slowly-slowly down the driveway. Then I pushed-turned it around and went…back up the driveway…just like the lady from my class. It took me almost a week to get out of the neighborhood. But with lots of encouragement from Tom and some good-natured ribbing from our friend Dave, I made it around Lake Charlevoix on my maiden voyage. Just like riding a bike? No, not in the slightest. But fun? Oh heck yeah. Maybe you’ll see me out there. I’ll be the one cruisin’ into my 50’s on 2 wheels.

Look Twice!

Dealing with impatient summer drivers is extremely frustrating to me. Nobody wants to get stuck in traffic, especially when dealing with the bridge in Charlevoix.   If you are a regular reader of this column you might be aware of the fact that my husband Tom and I are motorcycle enthusiasts. One of our favorite things to do on a summer evening is to ride around Lake Charlevoix or just go to downtown Charlevoix or any other neighboring town to “flake out” in the grass and listen to the band. One such night we were on our way out of Charlevoix and found that the bridge was up. We were waiting to turn right on to Bridge Street and joked “Hey! We’re going to be the first ones across the bridge!” We know that even if we weren’t that someone would let us in and we would eventually get across. As we waited a large Super-Duty pick-up came out from behind us and went around us on to Bridge street, in front of the waiting traffic. We were shocked to say the least. I thought he must have been in a hurry to do something like that. I looked behind us and saw a smaller car and figured that at least he had the courtesy not to do the same thing. But just as the bridge was going down I noticed that this car, a silver Chevy Cruze, followed the pick-up’s lead, went right around us, and squeezed between the truck and our motorcycle! Just to get across the bridge before anyone else! When you live in Northern Michigan in the summer you get to see drivers do a lot of aggressive, stupid things in order to get ahead of everyone else. But what people seem to forget when they are squeezing between cars and motorcycles is that while cars are surrounded by metal, we on motorcycles are not. When you are in a big doggone hurry and hit a car you dent up someone’s fender. When you are in that same doggone hurry and hit a motorcycle, someone gets killed. Every summer I hear stories of people on motorcycles who have collisions with cars. Sometimes those accidents are the fault of the rider, but sometimes they are not.   If a person takes the extra time to look a second time for that motorcycle, maybe an accident can be avoided. I’m guilty of being in too big of a rush and seeing a car right in my rearview mirror after I’ve pulled into an intersection. It honestly freaks me out. I want to ask that guy in the silver car if it really would have killed him to be patient and wait 1 or 2 more minutes to get across the bridge. And the answer is no, it wouldn’t have killed him, but his impatience could have killed me.