We've got the big red pickem up truck for hauling the boat around, but at 13mpg and $3 a gallon, it sure makes for some big money being burnt up.
So the wife says "You have $600."
A week and a half later I bring home Marilyn, a 1975 Honda CB550. Beautiful bike, runs great. Perfect for learning to ride.
And ride I do. To and from work, taking the back roads, learning to shift, work the clutch, start and stop. I get my endorsement and take off on the highways. Then we hit a snag.
Minnesota winters have been rather "weak" the past few years, but it was enough for me to pull the battery, drain and change the oil, and put Marilyn into storage in the garage. For months I would walk by her as I got into my truck to go to work, or anywhere for that matter. As January and February went by, I was really itching to ride. And I mean really. My poor acquaintance Schmuley was in the same boat as well. Our conversations pretty much like this...
"It's sposed to be pretty nice out this weekend. You wanna get the bikes out?"
"Yeah. But do you think 30 is warm enough?"
"I don't care"
"Neither do I"
And we'd ride two blocks and talk about how cold it was. But we were riding.
This spring brought a new adventure. I came across a website called meetup.com. It's an online community, but hardly a virtual community. It is a place to start groups of whatever topic, that use the web site as a means to get together and actually do something.
There were thirty people in the Minneapolis area that were interested in a group for motorcyclists, but no one had taken the action to start one. So I pulled the trigger.
Now, some six months later, the club has grown from 14 at our first meeting to over 220 people joining from the web. We do 2-3 events a week, and the people have been great! It's a constant source of enjoyment, meeting new people, and riding new roads. But alas, this is bittersweet.
Marilyn was showing some age. She wasn't able to keep up with this new crowd. So I had to let her go.
That was when I met Pearl. It was love at first sight. And I took her out, just once. I had never a bike like her before. I had to see how it was.
The Yamaha V STAR 1300 is a beautiful bike. Lots of power. Smooth. Stylish. It's got everything you'd want out of a $15,000 motorcycle. The best part was, she was less than $10k.
So now I ride to work every day, which saves me about $5 in gas every day. I have my Thursday night club gatherings, and my monthly club rides. I've put over 7000 miles on Pearl since May. Loving every minute of it.
