ANORXIC'51 Posted October 29, 2009 Report Posted October 29, 2009 Good morning to the forum. Just thought I'd introduce myself to the forum after getting the suggestion from Cobie to join. I'm 28 yrs old and am an OTR commercial truck driver with a tad over 5 years of experience now. Made the decision to begin learning about the hobby of riding a few months ago after my wife and I bought a home over the summer. Stepping away from sports cars seemed like the responsible thing to do, but realised I needed something else to fill the void. I've always been deathly afraid of bikes, but admired anyone that was involved with it. Anywho, since I live in MN, we only have a few months out of the year to really enjoy sportbikes, so I'm using this off-season of winter to collect quality gear as well as read up on as much as I can regarding safe street riding as well as track riding techniques. I think I've got most of them covered, but still missing a few books. Set to take the MSF Beginner's Rider Course at the local HD dealership in the springtime, and right after buy my first bike. I'd been 85-95% sure it would be an '08+ Ninja 250R, but talking with many people around the country and online of my upcoming plan of attack, I'm broadening my options to start on a 600cc supersport. Main reason why is I don't think it will be very productive at a track riding school if that is my very first time on a capable 600 bike. Hopefully a couple of months of initial street riding, coupled with a few hours per day doing braking/ low speed maneuvers at the HD/MSF parking lot course during off hrs(about 10 miles away) will prepare me to enroll in either the Level 1 & 2 combo or the 2-day session of CSS. We have company terminals in Salt Lake City and Columbus...so it is looking like if I can register to get a slot at either Miller (30 min away from terminal) or Mid-Ohio (1 hr away) when the school visits one of those tracks, it'll be the best setup for me as far as getting to a track location without having to fly from MN to attend. Request load to terminal, drop trailer, bobtail to track for school. YES, please. All in all, I'm very excited to start the addiction and am ready to get some formal education done. Cobie's recommendation of doing a school as soon as I can makes the most sense. I think if I can get onto the track with proper coaching somewhat immediately after learning the basics of riding and controlling a bike, then there will be next to NO bad habits that I will have to unlearn...and can go in with a completely open and willing mind (not hopefully not spilling out of my ears with survival reactions). With Brainerd Int'l a couple of hours north of me, Road America and Blackhawk Farms to the east, and Mid-America due south, I am hoping to get a fair amount of track riding done to hone the skills I learn at CSS. Take care, and I look forward to getting started. Going to be spending a LOT of time lurking and doing searches to soak up more information during the winter, as this is an overwhelmingly informative forum. Christian *edit--Awesome. I misspelt 'formal' in the topic heading....nice. Quote
Jasonzilla Posted October 29, 2009 Report Posted October 29, 2009 Howdy. Seems like you've jumped right in. It's gonna be pretty hard taking in all this info without a chance to practice it and work things out. Good luck, and welcome to the forum. Quote
Cobie Fair Posted October 29, 2009 Report Posted October 29, 2009 Howdy. Seems like you've jumped right in. It's gonna be pretty hard taking in all this info without a chance to practice it and work things out. Good luck, and welcome to the forum. Yeah, Christian needs to get on a bike! Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.