I can’t believe I haven’t shared the story of my love of motorcycles with you, or perhaps I have and can’t find it, either way here it is.

I love motorcycles.  I do, really, really do.  I don’t love the drivers in their cars who don’t shoulder check and the yahoos that drive 160kms an hours, so I got rid of my bike.

In High School, there was this boy who had a bike.  He was pretty cool, but not ‘my type’ kinda cool.  Everyone knew him with his long hair and talent for his guitar.  He was one of three guys who had a bike back then.  We knew each other, but didn’t really hang out.  I used to covet his motorcycle.  My Parents refused to let me get one, which is probably why they helped me buy my first car.

Then, my parents moved to Manitoba.  One day I realized that I could now learn how to drive a motorcycle and buy one!  In the Fall of 1989, around the time that the boy in HS sold his bike, I took the Provincial course on learning to drive a motorcycle.  Then winter came and went.  I lived just off of Heron Road at the corner near Bank Street.  One day when I was out jogging, I stopped in the Ottawa Goodtimes Center.  BIG MISTAKE.  I fell in love with a bike.  And walked away with it in May of 1990.

Oh man, I LOVED that bike.

Look at me all happy, with crazy hair and the pink stripe on my super fast and cool Kawasaki EX500 (now a Ninja 500). This is from the summer of 1990.  Ironically, where this photo is taken is at my old best friends house.  I used to hang out there a lot.  So did his brother with his friend, boy with the bike from HS.  For whatever reason, I let him ride my bike.

Life went on, I eventually moved me and my bike to Manitoba and back again. Then came a time when I needed a new car.  My old car was tired and I couldn’t swing a new car and my motorcycle at the time.  Add to that the fat that my Dad really didn’t like my bike, so I made a deal.  I would try to sell it and if it sold I would get a new car and if it didn’t there would be no more discussion about my bike.  It sold.

Fast forward to 1995.  I am hanging out at my best friends house (even though he lived in Alberta) and his brother was home for the summer and hanging out with his friends and boy with a bike happened to be there too.  Brother went home and boy with a bike kept on hanging out with me. Neither of us had bikes but we still shared the same love of them.

Fast forward 1999.  Boy with bike became, Hubby!  and neither of us still had a bike.

The dream has been alive in him, apparently for the last 11 years because last Fall he started talking bikes.  Ack!  We have two small children, why? It’s silly.  All those things came to light in the discussions about a bike.  The biggest being that he wanted to get a 900cc bike, much to big for BeachMama to drive comfortably.  Then, he came upon the same bike he used to own, only custom painted.  Not only was it 500cc, but the cost was just right for a little hobby.

On Wednesday, Hubby arrived home like a kid in a candy store.  He is once again the boy with the bike.

It needs a teeny bit of work and Hubby needs a new helmet, but suffice to say, there will be some bike riding in our future and it has made Hubby one happy guy.