Love it,but she rides behind me somethimes !!!

 

My fiance had been bugging me about her riding for awhile. So I finally caved and got her a shadow 600. We spent MANY hours with her putting around the local high school parking lot. She went 3 wks ago and took the MSF course and now has her license and is doing o.k.

But......I HATE IT. I hope it gets better with time but I dont enjoy my ride at all right now. My Anxiety level is through the roof everytime we hit a turn or come to a light. And dont even ask me about leaving lights or parking lots with a slight incline.

 

I think some women have it, and will always have it, or can learn to have it... and then there are others who don't, and never will.

My father has always been big into the exotic cars so my love for all things automotive started when I was very young. At 15, I bought my first book on Harley Davidsons. I have no idea why. My father doesn't ride, never will, and doesn't like it (not safe in his opinion). Rode on the back of a few sport bikes when I was in college and grad school. Bought my Nightster when I was 29 and had no idea how to ride it. I took the BRC with the MSF a month after I bought my bike, and I haven't looked back since.

Rode the Dragon with not even 5,000 miles of riding time under my belt. It's definitely not for every beginner, but I had been riding curvy roads in Middle TN for quite some time getting the experience. While I was initially extremely nervous about riding it (all the frickin warnings my friends gave out, videos I watched, and so forth), a friend led me through and I thought it was a great ride... and not as difficult as everyone made it out to be. I actually feel that my first time riding on the Dragon, Foothills Parkway, and Cherohala Skyway increased my riding skills tenfold. I grew up on a mountain so I am used to very curvy roads and driving up them as fast as possible (I did not ride like that on the Dragon though). I'm going to finally RIDE up the mountain I grew up on during the first weekend of June and I have to admit, I'm incredibly stoked. I cannot wait.

I've made my fair share of mistakes but I can tell you that I think I'm a better rider than a lady I know who has been riding for over 30 years. The last time I rode with her, I thought she was going to get herself killed. She didn't look to see if cars were coming, didn't stop at one particular stop sign that was on a hill (and then wondered where "that car" came from...), and so forth. I told myself that day that I'd never ride with her alone again. And I was behind her watching it all (as opposed to looking in my side mirrors). So I can understand how many of y'all feel. And I have made mistakes so I know how those people feel when they've seen me do something similar.

I want to take the MSF's ARC soon. I feel quite confident riding and maneuvering my bike so I'm ready for it now. I've always been an assertive driver (not timid at all), and my riding style mostly reflects that. When I'm just not sure or not feeling it while on two wheels, I don't push it. I have a 3 year old son who I don't want growing up without his mother.

I would highly suggest any new rider take a course. Even seasoned riders might gain some valuable knowledge from an advanced course. Just my $0.02...

 

My GF rode a grand total of 2 times on the back of my bike before she decided she wanted her own. After that, she only went for one ride with me. She took the MSF course right away and got her license.

We thought about getting her a metric for a year or so but figured we may as well do it right and get what she wanted right away and settled on a Softail Deluxe. She had never ridden outside of a parking lot the day we went 100 miles out of town to pick up her new bike. She was expecting me to ride it home, but I told her to get her *** on it and ride. She did, and I was very proud of her...but very nervous at the same time.

Mistake I made was letting her ride ahead of me for most of her first season riding. My thoughts were that I could help her out (somehow) if she got into trouble. Of course, after I realized there would be nothing I could do if she got herself into a mess, she now rides behind me. She is able to pick up on cues of how I ride and adapt that to her riding style.

She is now in her third season of riding and the bike hasn't been dropped yet. I wouldn't call her an experienced rider, and I am CONSTANTLY checking my mirrors to make sure she's ok. She's well aware of this and it actually reassures her. As a bonus, she loves the feeling that I'm watching out for her.......and I end up getting rewarded when we get home...

At the end of the day, I've never liked riding with someone on the back of my bike, even if they had their hand in my crotch. I love the feeling of riding together and watching her on her own bike. There's not much sexier than a hot chick on a Harley....

 

My wife has been riding her own bike for 4 years now and has really improved since she had first started. She took the motorcyle safety course prior to riding on the street. I prefer to have her ride in front of me only so that she can set the pace of the ride, I have a tendancy to ride about 8mph faster than she does, this way she isn't trying to play catch-up while coming out of a curve or even just coming off a stop light I seem to use a little more throttle than she does. But this doesn't mean that while we are cruising with a group that she can't keep up, her nature is just to ride at a "comfortable " pace. Experience on the bike will be her teacher. The only thing I would do is to burn into her memory to ALWAYS look both ways when pulling away from a green light, while riding behind her if she leaves the light and some idiot blows thru the light, you will not be able to hold her back from coming into the path of the vehicle. This happened to me once and it leaves an uncomfortable thought that this could happen again, my wife and I were stopped at a light and when it turned green for us she left at her normal speed and I notice a car approaching from our left and coming down a hill up to the traffic light and at a speed that didn't look like she was going to stop so I just sat there and my wife didn't notice this situation that was about to happen, but my wife just kept going and I'm looking at this car passing thru the intersection just missing the rear of my wifes bike, speed limit is 55mph but this car is going much faster, I was so full of fear that I couldn't even yell out to her to stop, the girl in the SUV of the opposing traffic just raised her arms and covered her face as if to protect from seeing what looked like was about to happen, my wife looked behind her and seen this car fly by and she immediately wondered what happened to me since usually I would have been right behind her, so she freaked out and thought I was hit for a split second until everyone looked around and realized that nobody made contact with another vehicle. The car stopped just past the intersection and appologized and said the sun glare was the cause of her mistake. I will never forget those few seconds.

 

LOL! did the sturgis run w/her did the same thing, all 750 miles

 

i think i will go check out that ridding vid that has been mentioned. i do think it is more me being over protective.

 

I understand how you feel, I would worry also, it is natural. As we want to experience the freedom of riding I can also understand that a woman might want to feel that same freedom. I know women that ride and they do an excellent job and some of them are better than I am. Hopefully she will get better and you won't have to be so concerned. Good luck

 

My GF has been riding for 9 years, 2 years before we got together. She is a great rider and has ridden to Sturgis, the Grand Canyon, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, and most of the western states. She has only packed on the back of my bike one time, because I was doing some work on hers.

 

Hey if my wife got her own bike, I would have room to put my girlfriend on the back of mine.

Lol!

Just kidding.