When I was a young adult, my best friend’s husband took me out for a ride on his Honda.  Well, he immediately headed onto the freeway – absolutely scaring the bejesus out of me!  I swore I would NEVER get on a motorcycle ever again!  Then I met my husband, Doug, who had ridden motorcycles his whole life.  He had once owned a Harley, but lost it through a lay off and had pined for one ever since. The year of his 50th birthday, we decided that would be his gift – but fate intervened and we had to use the money we had saved for a down payment to replace our kitchen cabinets when our house flooded.  So the following summer, we bit the bullet and bought the bike anyways.  This was 2003.  He bought a beautiful, 100th anniversary Heritage Softail.  He rode home from the dealership, we dropped off the car and I promptly jumped on the back of the bike for a ride – feeling totally safe with him.  I later took a riding class for my endorsement and learned what a stupid idea that was, since he hadn’t ridden in a few years.
So…fast forward a year or so.  I loved being a passenger, but I was a little uncomfortable on curves and a lot uncomfortable on the freeway.  Being a bit of a control freak, I didn’t like the feeling of not being in control in those situations.  So, I decided to take the class, get my endorsement, and get my own bike.  I ended up taking the class twice (it’s a long story), and bought my bike the weekend after I got my endorsement.  I am the proud owner of a pearl black, 2005 Softail Deluxe (I had the need to put both my feet firmly on the ground).  I absolutely love my bike, but don’t ride as much as I probably could.  I don’t like to ride alone that much, so I don’t ride to work very often – maybe that will change now that gas is so expensive!  I’ve been riding since spring 2005, so this is my 4th summer coming up. My best riding experience was May, 2004 when we rode down to D.C. for Rolling Thunder (I was still a passenger then).  As we came out of the mountains, into Maryland, we went over this rise and started heading down into a valley.  All of a sudden…all you could smell were honeysuckles.  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply and leaned forward and said to Doug, “This is why we love to ride, right?”  I was hooked