How I Murdered My First Motorcycle

The following is my confession. I murdered my very first motorcycle.

Looking back, I'm not even sure how the whole thing happened. I didn't grow up riding motorcycles. I wasn't brought up to have a burning passion for them, didn't watch motorcycle racing, didn't read the magazines, nothing. I had been raised as a "car guy." Some of the formative memories of my childhood were rides in my Dad's Mustang, or helping him change the oil or rotate the tires in the driveway. We went to car shows, visited the Museum at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and I read most of his issues of Motor Trend and AutoWeek before he got to them.

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Then one day when I was 19, I woke up and decided I wanted a motorcycle. Now.

I asked a guy at the car dealership where I worked how I should go about buying a motorcycle. He gave me the name of a salesman at a dealership in the next town over. The next day, I went to see Todd the salesman, and asked him what I should get for my first bike. Todd pointed out a gleaming, blue Yamaha YZF600R, a holdover from the previous model year, and said it'd be perfect for me. I, the wise 19 year old, took him at his word. I called my brother to co-sign the loan (which he inexplicably agreed to do), signed the paperwork, and promised to return the next day to take delivery.

I snagged the owner's manual from the expansive cargo compartment on the YZF on the way out the door, with the intent of familiarizing myself with the machine overnight. I reasoned that I had taught myself to ride my black and gold Huffy BMX when I was a kid, and taught myself to drive a manual transmission in my '88 Beretta when I was 17, so all I needed was to put the two together, and poof! I'd be a motorcyclist. Great plan, right?

I loved my YZF600R so much, I even rode it to church! My mother did not approve.

The next afternoon, on my lunch break from the car lot, I turned up at the motorcycle dealership as planned. I picked out a matching jacket, gloves and a helmet from the showroom (with the intent of looking cool, rather than anything having to do with safety), stashed the thoroughly-read owners' manual back under the seat, and threw a leg over a motorbike for the very first time. Todd the salesman, by now showing the slightest misgivings about what he had just done, gave me a quick tutorial on how to get it started, and I wobbled off the showroom floor.

In the parking lot behind the dealership, I did a few circles and figure-eights to get the feel of the thing, and then, fully confident in my abilities, headed out into the world. Two right turns later, I merged onto Interstate 70 in mid-afternoon traffic, entirely convinced that I was going faster than I had ever gone before!

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It was only after a couple miles, as tractor-trailers were passing me on both sides, that I realized I was going a mere 45 miles per hour. The sensation of speed on a motorcycle was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and try as I might, I couldn't persuade myself to twist the throttle any further to match the speed of traffic. I arrived back at the car dealership a little shaken, substantially late from my lunch break, but somehow still in one piece.