The Dood Attends Motorcycle School!

Wow, what a week. I know I've been quiet and as I'm sitting here completely exhausted I thought I'd break my silence and share some stuff that's been going on in my personal life. As many of you know I got my learners permit for my motorcycle license a couple weeks back, and not wasting any time I signed up for motorcycle school, passed my road test and I am now a fully licensed motorcycle rider in the state of New York.

A couple days after I got my license I called this number to a local motorcycle training course that's recognized by New York State. It's two days long broken into two 8 hour classes. Most of it was really boring, but a some of it was really fun. When I spoke to the guy from the training school on the phone he informed me that he had an opening on the coming weekend, but I'd also have to complete a 3 hour online class before I could attend. I agreed, crammed the online class and completed it in one night Thursday, and that Saturday morning attended my first class at motorcycle school.

This is the building I pulled up in front of at 7:30am on a Saturday morning. Oh, you could just imagine my delight as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and snapped this picture. It was in this building that I spent the first couple hours of my Saturday and Sunday morning.

Basically, each morning started with a two hour class that explained driver safety, and how to be a defensive motorcycle rider. I learned a couple things, and the other students in my class were a lot of fun. It would of sucked a lot more had my classmates been boring. I should of asked to take a picture of them, but The Dood's a bit shy at times.

So after each morning class we get out on the course. This was the sort of fun part. The class is designed for people who have never driven a motorcycle in their life. So the first part of the class explained the clutch. We pulled the clutch in and pulled the clutch out, Slowly released the clutch and gave it a little gas without stalling the engine. Finally after about an hour of this, we drove slowly across the course in first gear. After another hour we were taught how to shift into 2nd gear. There was one guy in my class older than me, who had learning to ride a motorcycle on his bucket list. It was fun watching him learn how to ride. He really seemed to enjoy the class. By the second day they had us doing you turns, obstacle courses, and figure eights, along with fast stops and evasive maneuvers. For the most part, the second day was a lot of fun.

This was the motorcycle that was assigned to me. It's a Venox by Kymco. It was 250 cc and it was the perfect motorcycle to take my road test on. The final road test was given the last hour of the second day. We had to successfully complete a figure eight, do a quick stop from 15 mph, a u turn, and stop the motorcycle with the front tire in a small box that was spray painted on the ground. Apparently this proved we had control of the bike. There was also a written test and the Dood got one question wrong on the written exam and aced his road test!

One of my main reasons for taking this course was so I didn't have to take my road test on something like this....

This, my friends, is another adventure all together. I'll post more pictures of this in the next couple days. I promised myself I wouldn't buy another motorcycle till I was properly licensed. A couple days after getting my license I found this bad boy a couple hours away from where I live. This is a picture of The Dood's new pride and joy. I'll post some more pix over the next couple days along with a story on where I found it. Thanks for reading everyone, and thanks for taking an interest in The Dood. It's now 11:30 at night and time for The Dood to lay his sleepy head down on some pillows and finally get some rest. It's been a really busy last couple weeks. Goodnight everyone :)