When you're about to turn 40, you develop an edge. You start doing things that you wouldn't normally do.
I decided to start riding motorcycles.
Yep. I was one of those conservative weenies....."you'll never catch me on one 'a them things!!! I'd kill myself!!!"
Then harmonic convergence set it, and the next thing I knew, they were everywhere. My old friends had them. Coworkers had them. My boss was looking to buy one. What was I missing out on?
After an incredibly motivated and intense week of research, I settled on purchasing a Honda Pacific Coast. The ultimate commuter bike, it was practical, safe, slow, and handled well. Best yet, it was a Honda.....I have owned five different Honda cars and saw no reason to roll the dice on a different brand.
I dorked around for a week, trying to find one for sale, before I ran into this dude from NJ who saw that I was looking to buy one. "How about making an offer on mine?" he asked. Five minutes later, the deal was done. A 1996 PC800, 16k miles, hadn't been ridden for a year and the owner was bored with it, only minor cosmetic issues. I committed sight unseen to a $2900 purchase, which was well below market value.
Here was the only picture that I had to go on:
Pretty descriptive, eh? This was an eBay default picture. Notice the clean lines....the strong rake....
Now came the small matter of how to execute the transfer. We decided to meet approximately halfway, in Pittsburgh. I would take a Greyhound bus from Columbus, OH.....and he would ride from NJ to Pittsburgh. We would do the exchange, and he would get a ride back home from his wife who was visiting an old friend in NJ.
And I would ride the bike back home 160 miles.
No big deal, right? Well, it was, since I hadn't ridden in over 13 years, and my skill was only to the point of knowing "shift DOWN for first, then up from there.....clutch is on the left grip......etc". Still, I felt that I could do it.
The night before, I was as excited as a 10 year old before getting his first Playstation. This was ADVENTURE, and lots of it! I boarded the 2am Greyhound bus for the first time since my college days.....and found out that it was PACKED with holiday travelers, none of whom wanted my suburban rump near them. As I walked down each row, I was met by the same surly glance......with their eyes communicating the same message:
"don't sit next to me, man. i'll breathe on you, dude."
I finally got to the last row and had nowhere else to go. I settled in next to some older guy, obviously pissed at life and now even more pissed as I had taken up the second half of the seat that he had previously heretofore been hogging. I leaned away from him, in a rough fetal position, and spent the next 3.5 hours trying to get some sleep. That was miserable and reminded me of why I went to college in the first place.
So I could quit riding Greyhound.
I arrived at the Pittsburgh station at around 0530am, grabbed some grub, and settled in to wait on my NJ buddy who was expected at around 0700am. Killing time in a bus station is tough work at that hour.
At around 0645am, my Spider-Sense tingled, and I went outside....there it was! The Jersey guy was just dismounting and spotted me immediately. Damn, the bike looked nice.
Jersey and I grabbed a brief bite in the coffee shop and chatted about stuff, and exchanged cash/title under the table like it was a drug deal or something. He was a neat guy and a lot of fun to deal with.
The time came to shove off. I pulled on all of my gear, and Jersey watched with amusement as I fired up the bike and duckpaddled through a U-turn and fumbled my way out to the intersection. One of the advantages of this plan was that it was downtown...on a Sunday morning.....very little traffic. I hit the freeway onramp within a mile and WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! I was on the road!
There wasn't really much to report about the ride itself .....it was 160 miles of mostly highway riding in good weather with light Sunday AM traffic. Since I only had a temporary Ohio license, I wasn't really supposed to be taking the superslabs, so at some point, I headed onto US 40 which parallels I-70, and rode the rest of the way home.
My first trip. I was hooked.