It starts... I become a Mid-Life Moto Idiot

 Well, really, it actually started a long time ago. For some unknown reason (mom and pop if you're reading this feel free to chime in) when I was in 9th grade we aquired a little Kawasaki motorcycle that sat, unused in our garage for a couple of years. I remember the thing as being blue (maybe it was a Yamaha?), it was shiny and relatively new and it looked like one of those bikes the Japanese cops zipped around on in Godzilla movies. Strangely, brother Mike and I never mischievously fired it up- not until we moved to Spokane, Washington. This was the the summer after 9th grade. We were two little surf rats suddenly landlocked in Washington and we quickly found out that if you were going to have fun, you'd have to make your own. That's when we noticed the bike. 

We knew nothing about motorcycles. Somehow we kickstarted it up and figured out how to get it into gear. Mike hopped on the back and, with no drivers license or driving experience, I drove the thing. At first we were tentative- going up the street and back stuck in first gear. Eventually, I figured out how to shift into second and we started extending our little forays. Back then, there were lots of big open fields and roads around the lake with almost no traffic. We rode in shorts and flip flops with no helmets. How cool was my mom who just said, "Be careful and have fun". Man, those were different times! 

The night before the first day of football practice (double days in the hot Eastern Washington sun) our luck ran out- well, not so much our luck as our gas. Mike and I were way back in the hills behind the lake on some gravel road when the little bike just stopped running. Funny how a little bike triples in weight when you've got to push it up hills for a couple hours. Eventually a local in a truck passed us up and stopped. The guy helped us load the bike into the truck and drove us home.

I was exhausted and cramping from pushing the bike for hours- wondering what my first day of practice was going to be like. I don't remember how that first day of practice went down for me but I never forgot how free I felt zooming around on that bike on those open country roads. I may have repressed it for many years but when my friends started talking to me about the trail rides they were doing down in Southern Baja (a spot I've been surfing and visiting for decades) long neglected moto-yearnings came bubbling to the surface. I really, really, really wanted a motorcycle. So I bought one: 

Meet my bike: 1991 Yamaha TW 200 - this thing is killer!

And so the adventure begins again- a Mid-Life Moto Idiot is born! Check back to learn more about my moto-transformation.