In the spirit of "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year", I'm pleased to say I sneaked out a couple of weekends back and rode out to our local Rider Ed training site (a magnificent 46 mile round trip). I'm doing some of the computer entry work for them and they needed a certificate with an updated name. I walked out to the driveway with my car keys expecting to drive. But it was in the upper 50s and sunny as I stood next to the garage doors. So I went back inside, put on my gear, opened the garage door, and pushed whatever was the closest bike to the door outside. It's been almost 6 months since starting anything. Keeping the batteries charged has never been an issue before, but I guess it is now. After a somewhat labored crank, the bike (2007 BMW F650GS Dakar) started and ran. I'll take it! After a quick inspection, I rode it out to the school, dropped off the new certificate, and rode back home. It felt good and solid and I had no problems holding the bike up when stopped for traffic lights, etc.
Now I'm looking forward to riding in 2024 with some of my MSTA family. My vintage 1980 Suzuki GS450 was trashed in my incident, but I have stuff to ride. The week before the incident, I had committed to the purchase of a 1993 BMW K75S from a friend here in town that has given up riding. The K75S has been on my short list of desirable BMWs for a long time, but this one is a beauty with only 16,000 miles. And the previous owner had it completely serviced so that its new owner could start riding right away. Well, I haven't ridden it yet, but my good friend, Roger White, from here in Knoxville, has. He declared it ready to go and now so am I. The K75S is actually living in Roger's garage right now, but I hope to have it come home soon. But even prior to that, back in April, I happened to be walking through my local Honda dealership and noticed they had a used 2019 NC750X. Not a powerhouse of a bike (but gets great fuel economy), but it was accessorized smartly with less than 10,000 miles. I called them a couple of days later, made a near-insulting low offer, and they took it. And now it's waiting to be ridden more as well.
I'm getting out and walking pretty much every day now from 1/2 to 2+ miles. My wife mentioned that she had prepared herself mentally to accept that it might be a couple of years (or never) before that happened, so she's ok with the idea of me riding since I'm making acceptable progress. I have promised myself that I'd get back into riding gradually, and would prefer to ride with someone else for a while on any kind of long trip. We'll see how that goes.
