Editorial: Learn to ride a motorcycle

A while back, I shared my thoughts on why I ride a motorcycle. For me, it is a part of my life that I embrace and enjoy. Getting to this point meant a lot of lessons learned and I wanted to share some of those lessons to help others who are interested in getting into motorcycling. Keep in mind that I am certainly no professional rider, just an enthusiast who loves to ride, but I hope some of the lessons I learned along the way can help others avoid making the same mistakes.

Lots of people have different ideas about how to approach learning to ride a motorcycle. Some people believe in the "throw you in the deep end" philosophy, which pretty much entails hopping onto a bike and figuring things out. Others feel like the "baby steps" approach is right and take forever to graduate from riding around in parking lots to actually hitting the streets. While no single approach is going to be best for every new rider, there are a few basic things that every person who is interested in learning to ride a motorcycle should think about when they are first starting out.