Cinco De Biko

It’s 11:00 am on Sunday May 5th, 2013. Hence the title.

I am sitting in the car at the Wisconsin Rapids Mid-State Technical College Campus. I’ve been so situated since a little before 7:00AM this morning.

I’m watching people learn how to ride motorcycles.

Mostly I’m watching Kris learn to ride a motorcycle.

I am so proud of her; she’s been working extra hours, getting very little sleep and barely having time to eat so she could arrange her schedule so she could take this class without the distraction of her 3rd shift job. It’s very important to her.

Many years ago Kris had ridden dirt bikes, but that was
many years ago. And that was dirt bikes.

She had always had a little dream to ride. She hadn’t even ridden as a passenger on a Harley until we met. She loved it.

I could look in my mirrors at any time and see her just smiling away enjoying the ride.

So then I told her she could ride.

And the dream started to ignite once again. She went to a Women’s Garage Party at Reel Brothers HD. She decided she just wanted to take the Basic Rider course, just so she knew how to ride in case she ever needed to.

So we got her signed up for the class.

While she’s waiting for May 3rd to come around I happened to take in a
trade at work that I knew the minute I sat on it, it would be the perfect bike
for her. A 1996 883 Hugger. The Hugger is a very cool bike.

So I bought it.

I had a big master plan how I was going to keep it a secret till the end of May.

Fat chance. Good luck with that.

She came in to have me do something for her and she just thought it was incredible and I wanted to make her day brighter, so I told her and showed her the bike.

She sat there dumbfounded and kept saying “This is my bike? This is REALLY MY bike?”

After it sunk in, she went full tilt.

She studied and took her permit test and passed. She worked her ass off to get her work schedule set up so she could go to the class without worrying about having to go to work before or after class.

Our friend Tim gave her a $500 Gift Card for the shop and she got herself a windshield, a luggage rack, a helmet, gloves, rain gear, head gear, all the stuff you need plus a couple things she just liked.

She went to the first and second day of classes. She was nervous but kept working on it. She’s been exhausted from the driving and learning and thinking.

She is right now in the final moments of the class. Less than an hour to go and she’s in the testing part.

She’s soon to be a license holding, Harley riding woman. I’m so proud of her and can’t wait to ride with her.

I’ve been watching her progress all morning. She was ok, but had some things to work on and as this morning has progressed, she has gotten them all.

She’s confident but I still sense nervousness when she comes to talk to me during the breaks. I encourage her and answer any questions she has but I’m trying not to input too much. I want to leave the instruction to the instructors.

She looks so good and so happy riding that little V-Star. She’s going to love her Harley.

Since I decided to get the bike for her, I’ve had this image of her riding in my mind. And it’s exactly how she looks. The images matches reality perfectly. [At precisely this point, my laptop battery died and it has actually been a couple weeks since I started this and this is my first opportunity to continue. For the record, this missive is no longer live action]. :) 

So I continued to watch as the clock ticked closer to noon when the class was scheduled to be finished. I watched the testing closely and it seemed everyone was doing pretty good. I saw a couple minor things, but nothing that was going to cause a failure.

Then Kris came up for a test where she was supposed to do a figure 8.She takes off, comes into it and starts the 8, then quickly turns out of it. Ouch. As she proceeds to the next step its a stop, the instructor says something and she turned her head back and got a bit shaky. At another point she stopped a little short of the line.. They let her do it again.

All that was minor, but I was a bit worried about that figure 8 maneuver. Turned out that the instructor knew she had to get more experience with tight turns and told her ahead of time not to do it if she didn’t feel comfortable. It wouldn’t be enough points to fail.

There was one girl that kept having issues and I was sure she was going to fail. Actually felt really bad for her because she really seemed like she wanted to learn and pass and be able to ride.

I didn’t get to find out Kris passed right away though. Oh no. Had to wait for them to have everybody ride the bikes to get gas and then come back. I asked the guy and he said “she can tell you after I tell her”.

So we had to wait for everybody to get back before he announced who passed.

As it turned out, Kris’ whole class passed. The one girl was close but still passed.

Kris was nervous as they went through the scores, waiting for her name to come up.

When it did she went from nervous to immensely proud of herself in seconds flat.

It was an amazing instantaneous transformation. She was happy, she cried. Made me cry. I had to take her picture in that moment because she was just so happy, I wanted her to be able to always remember it.

As it turned out, one of her instructors was MY instructor almost 11 years ago. Which reminds me I’m really due for a refresher course or the advanced rider course!

From there we went to Checker’s Drive In for lunch and discovered that Checkers is quite possibly the best fast food place on earth. Or at least in Wisconsin Rapids.

We came home took a nap and went to put Kris on her bike for the first time.

She was again nervous but confident, got a feel for the bike and buzzed around the building a couple of times and decided that was enough for one day and she wanted to just enjoy a ride.

So we jumped on my bike, took off and stopped at Dairy Island for an ice cream cone, stopped and saw Tim & Tina and came back on the interstate.

Then things got busy again and the weather got crappy again.

Fast forward to yesterday Thursday May 16th.

It was a nice day and Kris wanted to come down and practice riding in the parking lot. As it turned out, our friend Tim was out of work early because of an appointment and was going to go riding anyway. So he came down to the shop to work with Kris for two hours before I got off work since I didn’t want to be trying to teach her while I was on the clock. Plus I know how Kris learns and the more hands on input she gets from different sources the better.

So I just got her bike ready, put her Goofy doll I got her for Mother’s Day on and a flame accent cover and 100th Anniversary Derby cover.

Well I’m at work.  And the mechanics are there.

So when anybody at work tries to work on a bike, all the mechanic’s have to stand around and tell you want to do like you couldn’t possibly know how to do things. And they mean well.  50% of what I know about working on bikes is information that they gave me just like this. The rest was direct answers to questions and experience.

So anyways, four mechanics standing over me made me nervous and I presented Kris with her newly decked out bike just to see the flame accent on the air cleaner cover was upside down.

Way to impress my woman with my mad skills!

So I went back to work and Kris learned from Tim. I’d come out once & awhile and check the progress and could she was improving quickly. I determined that I was going to try to push her into leaving the parking lot.

At one point I checked and couldn’t see them or hear their bikes anywhere and thought “they better NOT have went out on the road without me”! Turns out they were on the other side of the building. It was just really important to me to be a part of Kris’ first solo ride on the road. I wanted to experience it with her, I wanted to show her I believed in her and I wanted her to see on the road I’ll be right there where she can see me, and keeping my eye on her. Just like in life. :)

When I told her we were going on the road she started to say no. And then she looked in my eyes and she knew I really believed it was time for her to get out of the parking lot. So even nervous at mid “no” she switched to “ok”.

So we went. Down the highway into town, off on the first side street and back for turns and curves in the subdivisions, across the highway and on a couple back roads.

On the  way back to the store I needed gas. Kris did not.

So she proceeded on her own, leading Tim. She got up to 50 miles an hour and 4th gear. She was happy as could be.

This Harley thing is going to mean a lot to her in the future and she is going to love it and get so much joy from it.

And that’s the real gift you want to give to someone when you give them a Harley. A vehicle to carry them down the highway of self discovery, happiness, and the pursuit of dreams.

Now if I could just find her graduation card that I took and laminated so nicely for her...

**UPDATE**:  5/20/2013 Three days after I completed this story, I took Kris to get her newest tattoo. It turned out awesome and she became the only person I know to have their own bike tattooed on them!

**UPDATE** 5/28/2013 Kris took her first solo ride! She did 50 miles all by herself, learning the bike, the road, and experiencing just letting your mind go, just you & the open road. I'm very proud of her!

Today she rode to Mauston & back! She's getting it and her confidence level is high. I love it!

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