Ah! My Hip!

Fast-Track came down from Seattle this weekend to be there for Mr. Drywall‘s surprise birthday party. It was a fun party and afterward we headed back to FT’s folks’ place to say good-bye before heading back over the hill to home.

Of course as we were departing I noticed FT’s little brother coming out of the house and I had to stop and say a quick “Hi” since I hadn’t seen him in ages. We chatted for a few minutes and pretty quickly the topic of his new bike came up.

He has one of those mini-motorcycles: Not the eensy ones that stand maybe a foot and a half tall and make grown adults riding them look somewhat silly although everyone riding them always seems to be having a great time. No, FT’s brother’s bike is about twice that size, standing three feet off the ground but still much smaller than a regular motorcycle. Of course once HB heard about this, he was instantly asking to ride.

HB zipped around the neighborhood for a while and FT’s brother finally had to head out since he had been on his way to other activities. He let us continue to fiddle with his mini-bike and after FT and HB had their turns I gave it a whirl.

The little bike probably gets up to 50 mph when properly tuned, but there was some sort of problem with the bike’s body that made it rattle fiercely when it got up around 30 mph. Still, 30 on a three-foot bike feels pretty fast and the bike wasn’t exactly made for performance turning so it was a hoot as long as you were going in more or less a straight line.

I was having a total blast zipping up and down the street a few times. Eventually I resigned my turn and we asked if Nik or Gin wanted a ride. At first they refused but eventually we were able to get Nik to get on provided we stayed with her, running down the court as she puttered along, keeping close watch to make sure she didn’t fall. She seemed very nervous at first but she was smiling wide when she reached FT’s driveway safely. After a few moments we even talked her into making another lap on her own. She certainly didn’t crank on the throttle the way the guys did, but she rode all the way down and back without incident and declared the experience to be a lot of fun when she was back on solid ground.

So we were having fun, and of course HB decided he needed a real motorcycle fix so he talked FT into dragging out his actual Harley and giving it a spin. At some point (I’m not sure how exactly since I was zipping down the street on the mini at the time) he hit a squirrelly patch of pavement and almost dropped the bike. He caught most of the weight and wasn’t going fast at all so there was no damage but it did force Gin to run down to the middle of the court in uncomfortable party shoes that were more designed for looks than function. HB was fine and the bike looked to be no worse for wear so disaster averted.

It was shortly after that HB and FT began urging me to give the big bike a try.

I should preface this by pointing out that most of my friends are into motorcycles. If they don’t actively ride now, they did at some point in the past and probably 80% of them own or have owned their own bikes. Me, not so much.

I don’t know what it is, really. I mean, I like motorcycles; I think they’re cool. What’s not to like, really? They’re cool looking, loud machines that you can tinker with and ride around and a lot of them go really fast. That’s a guy’s toy if I ever heard one described. But for various reasons I always admired them from a distance and never felt (much of) the urge to procure or ride one. Perhaps part of it is that I’ve always felt they were expensive to the point of being a luxury that I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to afford.

The extent that I’ve stayed out of the motorcycle game is such that aside from the mini bike I had just ridden a few moments earlier and a couple spins around the block on another friend’s little zippy go-kart (which doesn’t really count but is closer to riding a motorcylce than I’d ever gotten to that point) I had never even sat on a running motorcycle.

So I get on FT’s Sportster and he and HB are barking all sorts of tips and explanations: Here’s the clutch, that’s the shifter pedal, this here is the throttle, etc. After several moments of instructions I tried to put the bike in gear and killed the engine. We spent a few anticipation-draining moments trying to get it started again (some sort of fuel lever was acting goofy) but finally it roared back to life and rumbled underneath me.

“Just down to the end of the block and back,” FT said.

“And don’t forget to repsect the power of it,” HB added, “It’s a lot more machine than that little mini over there.” I nodded grimly. Power. Respect. Got it.

I eased off the clutch and twisted the throttle gently, not too much. But I let off the clutch too quickly and the engine died again. I pulled the clutch back in and gave it some gas as I hit the starter switch and listed with satisfaction as the obnoxiously loud engine gave another approving roar. I had coasted a bit toward the end of the driveway and I didn’t have as much momentum to worry about, so I eased back again and turned the handle for some juice. And I started to move.

The first few seconds were a bit nerve-wracking, as I wobbled a bit under the weight of the machine and the painfully slow speed. I remembered how the mini bike was much easier to handle when you got going so I tentatively applied more pressure to the throttle and sure enough, the wheels stabilized under me and I jet forward, amping my speed faster than I expected from such a minor throttle adjustment.

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