What Happened? Part 1: 12 years

The brief answer (which I may expand upon in the future), is that following my last post I failed my test twice in the following month and decided to abandon my quest for a motorcycle licence. At the end of 2010 I had spent maybe £1000 on lessons, the same again on clothing and other equipment, and owned (but had not taken delivery of) an Aprilia Pegaso 650 Factory which had set me back a further £3500. 

I sold what I could of the equipment and clothing at a loss, the dealer who sold me the bike agreed to sell it for me, although it took over a year to get my money, I'd only lost £500 on that and saved myself the hassle of trying to sell it myself. With the dust finally settled and my heart broken, I put the whole thing down to folly and told myself I'd never dabble with motorcycles again.

And that's how it was for years. In 2015 my wife and I moved house and our new neighbour was building a custom chopper. We became friends and I took an interest in his project, and several other bikes he bought over the following years. I told him my sob story of licence-failure, but I'd learned enough during my experience to at least be able to have a conversation with him about the bikes as well as appreciate the steady stream of Hayabusas, Ducatis and BMWs he had over the following years.

Occasionally I'd get a little bit tempted to look at doing my licence, especially when my neighbour had a very nice Ducati Scrambler Cafe Racer - but remembering what happened to me back in 2010 I was reminded that it was one thing to go and buy all the equipment - anyone with the means can do that - it was quite another to pass the test.

Exactly one year ago, things changed. My neighbour was going to the MCN Live show in Birmingham - his friends couldn't make it on the day he was going so asked if I'd like to join him instead. I figured that if nothing else this would be a good day out and went along.

After spending a day walking around all of the fantastic machinery I was pretty much hooked. Two bikes stood out for me that day, the BMW RnineT Scrambler and the Kawasaki Z900RS and I couldn't stop thinking about them.

A week later I was on my way to Australia to work for two months, but I'd made up my mind - once I returned I was going to have another go at getting my bike licence.