motorcycle moma….ha!

As a young child, I stood by and watched as my three older brothers and father all learned how to ride motorcycles. When I was a teenager, I expressed my desire to learn to ride; my mother would say to me, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with one leg or one arm?” Not really, I thought. Basically she scared the living daylights out of me and I became fearful of bikes in general.

Fast forward many, many moons, and my daughter, while in High School, says to me, “I want to learn to ride a motorcycle.” I replied without a thought, “Ah…. no way, not going to happen. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with only one leg or arm?”

OMG! I looked around and saw myself in my daughter and my mother in myself. Even with that visual, I stood my ground for the remainder of her senior year. The next fall she was of age and living in the Big Apple, and I just knew she wasn’t going to let it go. She did all the research on her own and told me what “we” needed to do, and we did it. I would never have done any of this without her. It was her steadfast and strong desire (some may call it relentless nagging), that pulled (forced me to give-in before going insane) me along, and helped us accomplish “the goal.”

Last weekend we completed the Basic Rider Coarse together, and passed all requirements for a full motorcycle license. We have matching full face helmets, hers is flat black, and mine is shining black. We have matching over the ankle boots and riding gloves. These items match for no other reason than we both needed everything for the class and we shopped together at the last minute.

My daughter actually scored better on her evaluation than I did, so she has bragging rights, but she returns to college soon and the bike, pictured above, will be staying in Ohio. It was an exciting, and at times, a nerve racking experience. I am so happy that we were together sharing the drama; the extra moral support was incredibly comforting to both of us.

In my house, girls are the bikers, and the boys are on the sidelines …..girls rule - boys drool….. at least for the summer of 2008.