I've been an avid cyclist most of my life and figure that I've got more than 150,000 miles on a bicycle. Some might suggest that riding a 600+ pound motorcycle is somehow different than riding an 18-pound bicycle, but surprisingly, so far, some of the most important lessons have carried over:

1. 4-wheelers don't see you when you are on two wheels (no matter how wide the wheels are).
2. Never assume you know what the "other feller" is going to do. Position yourself as safely as possible and stay alert. (It is possible that those 6 half-full beer cans didn't accidentally fall out of the window of that pickup truck, into your path...)
3. Always be thinking about "Plan B" (...now if that tractor-trailer runs off the road into that oak tree and that hornet's nest falls in front of me, I can down-shift two gears; lean hard to the left, jab the rear brake, and....)
4. Life on 2 wheels is fuller than life on 4 (the music of the early morning can not be heard through an 8- speaker stereo, even if there are steering wheel mounted volume controls)
5. You meet the nicest people on 2 wheels.
6. You always know where the not-so-fresh road-kill is.
7. It is more blessed to smell road-kill, than to be, road-kill.

Once I made the decision that I was moving to motorized 2 wheeling, the first step was to enroll in the Motorcycle Riders Safety Course (aka MRSC). It took me four months to get into a class. I was lucky enough to spend the second weekend in July, in Georgia, in long pants, high boots, long-sleeve shirt, full-face helmet, and full-fingered black leather gloves, on a large, black asphalt, parking lot. (You know it's a long day when you put your feet on the cherry red exhaust pipe to cool them from the parking lot...) With a start like this, you know that "real" motorcycling is going to be a lot more fun!

If you haven't taken the class, don't waste another minute -- sign up and take it. Take your spouse/SO with you: even if they don't ride (or if they only ride as luggage with you...at least they'll learn the right way to "ride luggage". The weekend is grueling, but there is a real sense of accomplishment when you finish. Rarely will $50 buy you so much satisfaction. For couples, taking it together is shared experience and accomplishment that contributes to great relationships. (My instructors told me that if I got 50 people to sign-up, I'd get my money back.... or was that my vacuum cleaner guy...?)

Let me warn you now, there were four important lessons that this first-time motorcycle-rider DIDN'T learn at MRSC. But I'll get to them in a minute...

Never having been on a motorcycle before, the MRSC was a great way to start. I wasn't sure that I could chew gum and shift gears at the same time, and that is what I wanted from the course.... it was time to find out.

By Sunday evening, after an exhilarating though exhausting weekend, I passed the course and qualified for my motorcycle operator's license. Now it was a matter of public record that I could indeed chew gum and shift gears at the same time (though chewing gum in a full-face helmet isn't that much fun...and, oh by the way, don't blow bubbles in a borrowed helmet!).

Now all I needed was a motorcycle.

I had fallen in love with the looks of the V-Star Classic months before (driving me to sign-up for the MRSC in the first place). I'd worn the gloss off the catalog and pasted pictures all around my domicile. My PC screen saver was the black Classic from the Yamahog site.

(Obsessive? Are you talkin' to ME?)

Monday afternoon found me in the local Yamaha shop. I was having second thoughts about a 650 (without ever having ridden one). My introduction to ISRA was asking questions to strangers (with numbers after their name) to determine if a 650 was going to be enough to keep my interest. I was impressed by the friendly helpfulness of Star owners/riders towards someone (with no numbers after his name) asking "stupid" questions. Of course, asking 20 of my closest motorcycle-riding friends afforded me 20 distinctly contradictory first-bike recommendations from a de-tuned Vespa... to my mother who told me not to consider anything less than a blown small-block Chevy (but she's a different story all together).

The Dealer made the decision easy for me. There was a stunning black V-Star 1100 on the floor with my name on it (okay, maybe I'm stretching the truth a little... for the first time in this tale, of course), and his last Classic for 99 was long gone.

So, with a whopping 25 miles of Suzuki 125 experience under my belt, I took delivery of my new VS1100. The ride home from the motorcycle shop, a five mile trek of steep hills, high crown blacktop, numerous railroad crossings, loose dogs and other villainous spirits -- real and imagined -- was a memorable experience. It taught me four important lessons that were NOT covered in the MRSC:

1. An 1100 is different than a 125: When cracking the throttle of your VS1100 for the first time it is important to know that the brake light assembly is not designed to stop you from sliding into the street. Alternate arrangements should be made in advance.
2. 55 is different than 15: (the max speed we got to on the parking lot) Now I know how it feels to be a sail. Little did I know that once I figured-out how to stay on the bike through first gear, it would try to blow me off in 5th!
3. No one said anything in class about having to breathe while riding: Fortunately, less than 4 miles into my ride I remembered the Lamaze training I went through with my wife before the birth of our son 8 years ago. I was able to recover before the EMT crew got to me.
4. It is NOT possible to squeeze the throttle through your fingers while riding in traffic: Well, okay, maybe I was a little tense on that first ride....

Now that I've got a whole month of riding there are a couple of other lessons I've learned:

1. My V-Star makes getting to work a LOT more fun…but it doesn't make it any more fun to BE at work.
2. Carpenter Bees (those HUGE fuzzy black and yellow things that have cross-genus sex with your flowers and then eat your wooden porch railings) are God's way of reminding you to wear a - zipped ALL the way up -- when you ride.
3. Spouses get suspicious when you do the weekly food shopping (for your family of 12) in saddle-bag-sized trips to that little convenience store on the other side of the county...especially when the Super Piggly Wiggly that your brother-in-law owns is at the end of your driveway...
4. It was a mistake to put-off, for more than 20 years, the experience of motorcycling.