QuestionHi Pat. I previously wrote you last year. The post is titled "Worried Wife". I started riding for the first time in my life last year at the age of 46. Took the BRC back then and last weekend took the ERC. My first bike is a 2002 GS500 and still riding it today.....no drops or wrecks to date with over 2K on it. Wanting a bigger, better bike but waiting for a V-Strom 650 with ABS to come available (they are in high demand and short supply). Do bright colored ATGATT and it feels pretty normal now. Anyway, on to my question....I want to take a biking trip with an overnight or two. The wife is not into the biking thing at all and doesn't want to ride with me. How do I include her without excluding her? I haven't approached her about it yet but I know her well enough to know she will not be happy and will be extremely worried about me. Surely there are plenty of bikers out there with my problem. Got any advice?
Barry
AnswerFollowup to Feedback: I ride for fun as well as commute to work every day it's above 32. In Minnesota that gives me a riding season that's usually 8 months long, sometimes 9. I think Lee Parks' course sounds pretty good, I've read his book. Seems like a good step between the MSF ERC course and a full-on track school. The real benefit to doing any sort of motorcycle training or riding school is that you spend a day focusing on your riding, without any other distractions. You learn a lot that way, and it stays with you as long as you keep working at it.
Wow. A motorcycle expert and you're asking me for MARRIAGE advice??? That's giving me an awful lot of credit....
I'm 38 years old and have been married for 7, most of it happy but not all of it. I'm lucky that I was a rider when I met my wife and that part of my life has been "grandfathered in" though I know she still worries sometimes. I try to beat that by demonstrating a daily committment to safety--ATGATT, knowing when I should drive the car instead, constantly honing my skills and mental game, and talking about what I'm doing to be safer, talking about what I learned that day. Rarely a day goes by when I don't learn a little something.
My very few years on this planet has told me a few valuable things. One is that people (humans) fear what they do not understand--or what they misunderstand. I think this is the biggest obstacle that new or returning riders face, especially with family who are unfamiliar with motorcycles. They're scary. They go really fast, you see them on TV doing egregious things, and motorcycle riders, all clad in black leather and dirty and with long beards and bugs in their teeth, well, they're scary too.
So I guess all this is saying that to help your wife not worry so much, she needs to know more about motorcycling--about what you do, how you do it, what challenges you face, your attitude towards the risks, your actions in response (or anticipation) of those risks.
I have heard of people having success when they've enrolled their wives in a BRC--not to teach them to ride per se, but to take some of the mystery out of the whole thing. When she realizes that it's not as difficult as it looks, and that there are ways to minimize the risks you face, and that there is a whole community out there of safe, responsible riders, she may not fear it so much because it's know longer A Big Unknown.
Hope that helps,
P
