That's All She Rode

Ever do something so stupid, maybe life-threateningly dangerous, that you just throw up your hands and say in finality, "That's all she wrote?"


I did, just this weekend.


It all began innocently enough. My neighbor bought a Honda Rebel 250, a bike so gutless it would take a half a mile to get up enough speed to dent the fender in a head on collision. But, ironically, a bike so classically cute that my wife fell in love with it as soon as she saw it. Now Lana doesn't ride, but she knows a great looking bike (or truck for that matter) when she sees one, and she fell hard for this one. She mentioned it several times over the last couple of weeks. In fact, my neighbor heard her comment about the bike so he brought it down and parked it in our garage. He then sent me a text message advising me to send Lana out to the garage. The cute little blue Rebel was conspicuously placed so as to attract attention. Lana was lured in and shortly suggested she might be willing to learn to ride that bike. It was perfect, Lana could easily sit flat-footed on a bike barely outweighing her bicycle.


So this past Saturday evening, after the triple-digit heat began to subside, we headed for the parking lot of the near-by school. Lana and Noah rode their bikes while I took the motorcycle. Once there I showed her the controls and how to start the bike. I advised her not to go too slowly as, like a bicycle, it would feel more stable with a little speed. She hit the starter button and the little machine started.


"I don't really like this," she said. But she gave it some gas and popped the clutch. The little bike lurched forward, bucked a couple of times and (thankfully) died. In that second and a half, as I saw the bike and Lana lurch forward I knew I'd made a mistake.


Ie'd made a bunch of assumptions I never should have made. Since she'd driven a car with a clutch I assumed she'd know how to slip the clutch for a smooth start. I assumed the controls at the end of each of her four limbs were sufficiently familiar or simple. In short, I assumed it would be much easier for her than it was. Thank God the bike had quit and that she hadn't hurt herself.


I remained calm, on the outside anyway, and so did she. Wow, what a bad way to start her off. Ironically, I'd never started a new rider out with so little experience as my own wife, the spouse of a life-long rider.


"Let's try it this way," I suggested as I straddled the passenger seat and placed my hands on the bars outside of hers. "I'll drive from the back and you can get a feel for how it's done by feeling how I move the clutch and throttle." I was just hoping she wouldn't hop off and run away.


We circled the parking lot a number of times and I was constantly amazed at how unintuitive this was for her. We worked a bit on throttle control and with the clutch and the foot brake. Even after ten minutes she still seemed unsure which hand or foot did what and was not ready to take the bike around the circuit solo. As a result it began to sink in to me just how profoundly stupid I'd been to put her on this thing by herself in the first place. It also did not seem to be enjoyable for her, but to her credit she stuck with it for about 15 minutes. For the leg home she went back to her bicycle, not on the motorcycle  as I had envisioned.


To my surprise Lana was willing to give it another shot the next evening. Things went more smoothly and we basically repeated the lessons of the day before. But again, after about 15 minutes she was done.


"Okay, that was interesting," she said. "You can take the bike back to Jim now. I don't want to ride it any more."


And that's all she rode.