My First Motorcycle

Growing up in Daytona, there are three things that set the town apart from most other towns.  The beach, Nascar, and Bike Week.  I started surfing as soon as we moved there.  I was already a fan of Nascar since my father took me there when I was 8 to see my first race.  And for one week a year, I oogled all the motorcycles that filled the place.  I always wanted a motorcycle since I was tiny.  Mom always told me the normal motherly stuff... "When you turn 18 you can do whatever you want.  Until then, no motorcycles in my house." Well, when you are 10, thats an eternity... for me and mom.  Fast fwd 8 years... I just turned 18, I've been borrowing the parents cars to get to work at night after school for a while, and its Bike Week 1994.  I took a ride one afternoon down A1A to see all the bikes, then back across the bridge near the "old" Beach St Harley dealership... way too many bikes and no parking, so I just continued on to US1.  Hey Look!!  The Yamaha dealership has plenty of parking.  Lets go in there.  An hour later I walked into my dads office, pushed some papers across the desk and asked for a co-signature.  He pushed them back and said "Your mother will kill us both."  I pushed them back with the follow up, "Mom said when I turned 18 I could drive whatever I want."  Still not selling it on him, he told me of a place in Jax that sold late model Vettes for about the same price.  So he called our Ins agent and ran it by him/her.  Ins on the Vette would be about $400 a month,  and only $68 on the bike.  He signed the loan paper work and off I went to the bank, who cut a check to the dealer.  As I got to the dealer, he told me it be a little while as they had to un-crate one in the back and get it ready.  Cool... plenty of time to call around to get a friend w a truck to pick us up, since I've never ridden a 'real' motorcycle before.  And NEVER on the streets.  He gave me a look when I asked for a phone to make those calls.  "Have you riden ANY motorcycle before?" he asked.  I told him I rode a 50cc a year or 2 ago, and a moped once.  "I'll show you.  You'll be fine" he smirked.  I'm not sure if he was looking out for me at this point, or just wanted the bike out the door.  But I picked out my helmet, and waited for the bike to be prepped.  I saw it take off down the road, then come back a few mins later.  Here we go.

I was now the proud new owner of a 1993 Yamaha FZR600, Navy Blue w Purple Wheels and trim.  It had about 90 HP, and redlined at 10,500 RPMs.  It would do 0-60 in 3.3 secs.  And I'm about to ride it home.  In traffic.  By myself.  Never riding a street bike before.  This is stupid.  But hey, I'm 18.  I can do anything.  The sales guy walks me around the bike, pointing out the 500 different parts to it and what I have to do with each one.  Thats alot of info.  "Maybe I should call and get a truck lined up?"  "Don't worry.  I'll show you what to do, and you can ride around the building as much as you like till you feel comfy." I think he is looking at the repair bills that he'll get a commission on too... the same day the bike is sold, and it never left the parking lot.... this guy is smart.  But hes a professional... So I trust him.  I crank her up and he again points out all the controls.  Brakes, clutch, shifter, throttle, blinkers, horn, waa, waa, waaaaaa, waa wa.  He gets me to feather the clutch few times to get a feel for the sweet spot.   Instructs me on braking... More on the front, the back is for emergency.  And off I go in circles around the dealership.  I'm sure there was a pool going on how many seconds it was going to take till  I dropped it.  Luckily... they all lost.  I drove around for about 15 mins... waved at the sales guy, and hit the streets.  I made it home w/o incident.  Mom asked whos it was... I said mine.  And that was it.  I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes w dad... but we didn't see mom for the next 2 weeks.  Didn't have a clue where she was! But she came back, and I drove the bike everywhere.  Work, school, the beach, Jax... wherever I felt like going.  I took me about a week to see how fast it'd really go.  145 slightly in the red zone.  Any faster and I think the bike would literally fly off the ground.  It was real light at that speed and kinda floated down the hwy.  It was as my dad put it... "Not just fast, but sudden."  In a car on the hwy, you pull out to pass at 60, it takes a while to get to 80, then pull back in line.  On the bike, 60 to 90 was 3rd gear and 2 seconds.  It was a dream.  But a few months later I bought a car, then joined the navy, moved around a lot and was always broke.  The Navy really doesn't pay the new guys very much :(  So I ended up selling it for what I owed, 2 years later.  But I always knew I would get another bike.  Some day... just didn't know it'd be 15 years later!