Most of the people we know love riding motorcycles, a motorcycle can captivate anyone be it the person riding it or the person looking at it. When we begin riding a motorcycle, should we begin with a smaller capacity one or can we just barge into larger capacity ones? Here's the answer. Well, when I started riding a motorcycle, I started off with a 14-year-old Hero Honda Splendor, for a few days, it looked insulting because I was a youngster and I wanted to ride something fashionable like everyone else on the roads, until this incident. One of my friends got a new motorcycle, the Bajaj Pulsar NS200, it looked awesome sounded great since it was something new at that point of time for me. I asked him if I could ride the motorcycle, and yes he did offer me a ride. I was an immature rider at that time, I knew how to change gears go fast, and brake the improper way without control, which I never knew.
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I was 17 years at that time, you know well that the mind of a youngster never remains constant, it just wants to try something new and adventurous without knowing the consequences. And so yeah, I started riding the motorcycle on a street it was just then they had laid a new road. The road looked clear and black, I went really fast around 90kmph, that was when a person with a motorcycle was crossing the road, I didn't know what to do and how to control the motorcycle, neither did I know how to brake at that instant with the brakes or reducing the gears. So I stamped the rear brakes really hard, and boom, the rear tire pulled away to a side and my face faced the ground.
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I was lucky enough that nothing happened to anyone. The motorcycle was safe too because it had a crash bumper. Just a small part of the mirror broke. But I was hurt badly. Nothing happened to my head. My hands and legs were badly injured. I never knew I was hurt badly, I rode back home and told him I fell down, he was shocked and didn't even find a scratch on the mirror, until he saw me under the light, the wound on my right leg was bad, it never stopped bleeding and I was taken to the hospital.
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It was the time when I had my college admissions, I was limping around with pain to every college. After which I understood the value of riding a small bike properly, then I slowly started riding the Splendor properly, learning to brake properly, controlling the bike and so on. After I gained confidence, I moved on a to a 200cc then 300cc and so on.
There's always a saying that states slow and steady wins the race. When you begin to ride a motorcycle at the age of say 17-18 it's the mind of a youth wanting to try new things. So it's always safer to start with a small motorcycle, maybe for a year or so. When you reach 20 years, you get a bit more matured and you have already ridden for a period of 2-3 years, and you are good to go with a 200-300cc motorcycle. Then comes the wish and urge to get a" SUPERBIKE". That's when you have to tell yourself hold on brother, let's get a bit more matured, let's wait up to 28-30, that's when we get the fear that we have a family to support and take care of so you are into a constant and conscious mind, you know your limits and you don't want to over speed or show off to anyone, rather you just want to enjoy every moment you ride the motorcycle.So I have a kind request to the readers, start with a 100-150cc motorcycle, then move on to a 300cc and then a 600cc and so on. We get to live only once, live it happily and carefully.
Cheers, ride hard and ride safe.
Picture Credits: Simon Rajan
By: Rishath Suresh