My bike — a Kawasaki Ninja 250
Tonight we brought home a new addition to our family: a 2007 red Kawasaki Ninja 250.
It’s my bike. I walked around it in the garage several times, kneeled down next to it appreciating all the chrome, curves and shine of the new purchase. I straddled the seat and grabbed the handlebars. A perfect fit in every way. It was really mine.
“Think it likes me?” I said out loud. This rhetorical question would only mean something to me who was always convinced that my husband’s Porsche 928 had it in for me. Every time I turned that car on, the alarm went off. Kinda ruined that sexy feeling you would have expected from sitting in such a beautiful and powerful machine.
My husband has already tried out our new bike. It’s fast, he says, and it handles well. I can tell he’s pleased with himself for having found it and brought it home. The purchase is a result of our search for a motorcycle for me.
Since I took the Motorcycle Safety Course a few weeks ago, we had both decided I liked riding to get my own ride. We considered many different makes and models and settled on the Kawasaki as a perfect starter bike. One salesman warns us I’ll probably get tired of it pretty quickly, but he will be happy to sell us what I have my eye on for a second bike: a red, Yamaha FZ6. Quite a bit more powerful bike and I am determined to genuinely graduate up to it at some point.
We decide I will take it out on my own in the morning. Sure enough, early Sunday just after coffee but before reading the paper and getting ready for church, we head for the garage. I review in my mind all the basics – how to turn it on, clutch, hand brake, foot brake, neutral, kill switch. “Just like riding a bike,” my husband says confidently to me and patting me on the bike. He knows I am a little nervous to ride again. It’s been since my safety course, and I am afraid I’ll forget something important. Worse yet, run off the road, miss a turn or run into something. “It’ll all come back to you.” I hope.
Taking off out of our driveway was a little jerky as I try to find the friction zone, where the clutch engages the rear wheel to power the bike forward. I remember how hard it was to learn how to get off a ski lift without falling down – and taking others with you in the process. I think learning to take off on your motorcycle without jerking or killing the motor is sort of the same. You have to expect to have at least one embarrassing moment.
But very quickly, it gets better. I shift into second, third, and increase my speed to the fastest I’ve ever gone – upwards of 30 mph – since our safety course top speed was only about 15 mph. It’s easy, and fun. Yet I slow down considerably when I approach my first right turn. A near miss, I have to grab the hand brake and cut my speed to keep from heading into a neighbor’s yard. My confidence a little shaken, I drift toward the end of a cul de sac, but I tell myself it was only a little rusty. I can do better. So I make the turn around and head back, this time handling both left and right hand curves with no trouble in several places.
As I glide back into the driveway, I agree, it is coming back. In fact, I spend several minutes brushing up on my slow riding skills in our drive, which was my favorite part of the safety riding course. My husband walks out of the garage to watch me turn figure eights and then pull the bike back into its spot beside our others – all without putting my foot down. He has a big grin on his face. She likes it, I know he is thinking.
Yes, she does.
