[fnfalman]

This is a tricky question for me to answer. First of all, the bike that I started on was not the bike that I owned as a beginner. I started on a Honda Hurricane. A dumbass Army buddy of mine who didn't know squat about motorcycles (neither did I) decided to go get a Hurricane because it was the coolest thing out there. We went and picked it up in his pickup truck, neither of us know how to ride a motorbike. We read the manual about the clutch and throttle and brake, etc. He climbed on, no helmet, T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes (I was similarly attired) and roared down the parking lot with the bike careening out of control, skidded down the right side with the lucky bastard rolling in the grass. The whole right fairing was screwed up. THEN it was my turn to get on. I follow suit and fell on the left side. So the brand new bike was fucked.

Anyway, I bought a Kawi EX500 (aka Ninja 500 nowadays). Not because I learned my lesson but because that's all I could afford. MSF? No way, man. I was too macho for that shit. All I need was cruising around town for a bit with the boys on Saturday night, trying to act cool for the chicks. Bareheaded, James Dean-style black dress leather jackets, black Army dress gloves, some sort of cheap half boots and Levi's. The first time I ever rode in a twisty was to ride to Nashville on the backroad, I crashed at an easy 30-MPH turn. An easy low side into the side of the road that was covered with leaves. Walked away without a scratch with minor scraping on the bike's fairing. Didn't understand why and how I crashed either. Later on I realized that I didn't know shit from shinola because I never bothered to learn how to ride the correct way. I thought that leaning was how you turn the bike into the corner.

MSF, MSF, MSF, MSF, MSF. Enough said.