To ride or not???

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Doug, first off what kind of bike do you have? Do you live on a gravel road or pavement. I have a 1500 Goldwing and unless totally necessary i dont ride on gravel with it. In riding one has to develope a technique that he's comfortable with. Taken several riders courses myself and still learn something everytime i sling a leg over one. If you aint learnin you aint ridin right. Take a course if there is one offered in your area. Target fixation is the biggest killer on a bike. You ride where you look. Remember that one. When going into a corner look through it. Dont look at it. If a car is coming your way dont fix your sight on it. Sure, check it out then resume a focal point past the car with frequent glances at the auto. Dont look at that dead racoon in the road. Look beyond it. Also ride with the idea that behind every trash can or every bush something is wanting to nail ya. When you see a car on a side road fixing to turn onto your road get a visual of the persons eyes and begin to slow down and be ready for anything. Are they looking at ya? Flash your headlites at em. Get their attention. Last but not least in this situation look at their front wheel. If you see the wheel start to roll take evasive action. Use brakes and have a safe alternate path picked out ahead of time. Hope some of this sticks for ya. Oh yes, remembered one important thing. Never ride beyond your own ability and every chance do some parking lot practice when ya can. Practice situations.
Small Block
 
I'm really surprised this thread went in this direction, my first thought was that I was going to see all negative's on riding. I was happy to see the post, because most of them were well thought out .... everyone that rides has the same thoughts, now days one could have the same thoughts on different driving scenario's when driving a car because of all the distractions while driving,.... phone's, eating, music, ect.;;; I know a guy who dropped his joint down next to his seat, and fished around for it for a few minutes, after trying to re-light it 4 -5 times he realized it was a french fry...... now that's a distracted driver...lol
I have been riding since about 1991, I cannot imagine not riding, my last bike, an 05 Electra Glide, I put 62000 miles on it before trading it in on my Ultra, I hope to put that many more miles on it .
Its your call, I would never let the WHAT IF"S stand in my way of riding, because there are many other WHAT IF"S in everyday day life that if I just sat and pondered on them that would stop me from doing a lot of things.
 
I am surprised this did not get ugly. Can't find the pictures of it, it is just a kit bike chopper from Custom Chrome. Soft tail, 110" Rev Tech, 6 speed gear box, about 9 foot long. It runs, the harness that is trashed is the blinker/light one. Selling it is out of the question anyways, a friend has the exact bike as mine, has been on the market for 60% of what it cost to build/buy and not one bite. I think he finally gave up trying to sell it. Shop that built the bike was a bunch of knuckle heads. I commuted for 7 years on my one bike, got rid of it at 99997 miles. All total I must be close to 250k miles on 2 wheels. I do live on a dirt road, some years it is graded. 1.4 miles out one way, 1.6 the other. But there is zero traffic on it. Have not ridden in several years, carpal tunnel got bad enough I could not pull the clutch in. But that side is fixed & I am going in for the other one on the 11Th of January. Have fallen once, nobody to blame but myself. Have gotten tagged by a car merging onto the freeway, the kind of a..hole that goes form the on ramp to the express lane in under .1 of a mile. Luckily did not go down. I did not ride for a couple of years a few times before & went thru this everytime before I started riding again. To a point I think riding is in my blood. Grandpa, that I never met, on my Mothers side was in the Pagons way back, as well as my Uncle George, Uncle Chick & my Mother.
 
I'd replace the harness, if bikes are in your blood, you will get the itch to take it out for a spin and then go from there! I mean, you have to test blinkers on the road.... they just won't work the same sitting there in the shop or driveway....LOL.
 
69B-Cuda said:
I'd replace the harness, if bikes are in your blood, you will get the itch to take it out for a spin and then go from there! I mean, you have to test blinkers on the road.... they just won't work the same sitting there in the shop or driveway....LOL.
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Gonna have to wait until after my surgery. Unlike after my first carpal tunnel surgery I am not going to wait for therapy, surgery is the 11th, stitches should be out on the 23rd. I scheduled the first therapy session for the 30th. Will need to run thin oil in it up here. The bike is brutal on the battery. Compression is up a ways and it likes to kick back. Will need to get a different set of pipes on it as well, it has 14" long or so weedburners pointing at the ground, the dirt storm it leaves on pavement is bad....can not imagine what it will be like riding it out of here. Hopefully this time I will get all of the bugs chased out of it. Have never really went any great distance on it, tank is small and the mileage is horrible, but I am pretty sure that is thanks to the builder trying to get rid of it's inherit popping and belching of flames out of the pipes. Under heavy load there is a brazing type of flame coming out of both pipes. I did go on a nice little 600 mile 1 day trip on it when I first got it. As I am sitting here typing this I am starting to get that anticipation tingle......
 
Ride It!

I dug my '78 Yamaha DT125 out last year and fixed it back up and converted it to 12 Volt. My dad calls it the "Yamahahahaha" or the "Yamahog" :D

Mine now has an MX175 Top End on it, which is more than enough bike for me. I weigh in at 125 pounds at 5'11", so it doesn't take a whole lot of bike to move me along.
 
74Dusted said:
Ride It!

I dug my '78 Yamaha DT125 out last year and fixed it back up and converted it to 12 Volt. My dad calls it the "Yamahahahaha" or the "Yamahog" :D

Mine now has an MX175 Top End on it, which is more than enough bike for me. I weigh in at 125 pounds at 5'11", so it doesn't take a whole lot of bike to move me along.
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Good deal, I am double your weight & the bike is pretty heavy, but the motor supposedly puts out 115hp with 120ft/lbs of torque so it scoots along at a pretty good clip......
 
I have been riding for over 45 years, and I feel safer on my motorcycle than I do driving my cars or truck. When the weather permits, I ride to work every day, 80 miles round trip, in rush hour traffic. I'm a better driver/rider on my bike because I pay more attention to the traffic around me, road conditions etc. I have owned motorcycles most of my life, but as a poster ahead of me said, if you don't feel right about it on a particular day, don't ride. In addition to myself, all my kids ride, my brother, some grandkids, and my wife too, in fact my wife decided to learn how to ride when she was 60 years old, and she LOVES it. Although riding is not for everyone, there would be a big void in my life if I could not ride my Hayabusa anymore.
 
My neighbor across the street just bought a new Harley. We are fixing to do some riding come spring. I ride during the winter time but he doesn't like the cold. I believe I will change his mind about the cold. I will help him find a nice warm motorcycle suit.
 
I say RIDE! I'll bet you'll feel better once you get out there and feel it. I laid my bike down one friday afternoon on the 10 fwy, and I was a little weirded out and off it for about 6~9 months, but I don't have any fear at all now. It's a cheap mind relaxer, IMO.
 
I've ridden most of my life but had a scare about six years ago with my young son on the back. I parked my bike and it got ridden very little and then eventually sold. All of my buddys have bikes and are always going on various rides and I never missed it...much.

Last summer, my brother bought a Kawasaki GPZ1100 that someone had warmed over and then laid down. He fixed it up and brought it over one afternoon. I rode it for about 30 minutes and got the bug again!! I bought this little fixer upper for a winter project and it's engine is now in pieces all over the garage. Should be a fun time come spring!!

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If you've always ridden, I think you'll eventually get the urge to ride again. It's in our blood.
 
Broke my back and was nearly Paralysed from the waist down because of one idiot that hung a left in front of me. Have lived with that pain for my entire life. You know my answer.
 
inkjunkie said:
Good deal, I am double your weight & the bike is pretty heavy, but the motor supposedly puts out 115hp with 120ft/lbs of torque so it scoots along at a pretty good clip......
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I think my bike is rated somewhere around 68hp (with the MX175 top end / MX175 specs)

My grandfather on the other hand, he has a 1974 Suzuki GT550 3-Cylinder 2-Stroke. A lot of motor and one seriously heavy bike. And my dad had a '77 Suzuki GS750 with a 4-Cylinder 4-Stroke :wack:

Those kind of bikes are what my dad calls "4.5 guys bikes" As in, it takes 4 guys and a kid to set it back on its wheels if you dump it over :D

EDIT : Sorry, My Yamahog is nowhere near 68hp :eek:ops: I Just looked it up and the DT125 model is rated at 16hp. Didn't see specs for the MX175, but I'm guessing I picked up maybe 4 - 6hp by going bigger and using the more aggressive MX/off-road parts.

Of course the bike weighs in around 240 pounds (DT125 specs), so not as much motor is needed :glasses7:
 
California Dart, wish you could have read and adhered to my post before you had your accident. I'm certain it wasn't the bikes fault. Remember, when on a bike, EVERYONE is out to kill ya. Now your ready to ride when you understand the full equasion.
Small Block
 
Small Block said:
California Dart, wish you could have read and adhered to my post before you had your accident. I'm certain it wasn't the bikes fault. Remember, when on a bike, EVERYONE is out to kill ya. Now your ready to ride when you understand the full equasion.
Small Block
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Sounds about right. One of my friends once told me this about riding.

Half of the people on the road can't see you, and the other half wants to kill you.
 
I can't tell you what to do...

I can tell you what I do and that is ride. Not as much as I would like but when I can.

I like to tinker as much as I do riding so I have an older bike 1980 CX500 kindof a quirky bike and nothing insane. I did own a CBR for a few years and sure it was more seat of the pants fun but I didn't enjoy the riding experience anymore than I do on the old Honda.

this is no joke but the agreement I had with the wife was I needed to have life insurance. I have 2 daughters as well and something one day will take me from them I hope it's not for a VERY long time but if it happens it happens...at least they will be taken care of.
 
inkjunkie said:
I have been diagnosed with some paranoia issues.....
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I'll bet this is part of the problem, but with safe riding and a healthy respect for the bike......... GO FOR IT!

I'm sure once you have a couple of rides under your belt it will ease the nervousness.
 
get your a$$ on the bike! if you did a solid job and your confident in your riding skills, then you have nothing but other people to worry about. if your not confident, then its about time to send the bike down the road to someone that is. My apologies if this comes across as me being a D!ck, but unfortunatly its exactly how it is...
 
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