With the good news that the family is set to expand, something had to change. The bikes had to go.
Bri and I got motorcycles a few years ago; originally I had an Aprilia Shiver 750, an Italian sportbike, and Bri had a Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200. The Italian had electrical problems and the Sportster was unstable, so Bri and I ended up with a Harley Fat Bob and a Harley Softail Deluxe, respectively. We enjoyed them immensely, went on longer rides on the weekends, and introduced my parents to motorcycling.
In addition to enjoying the freedom associated with riding, I was also able to use my bike to ride on the High Occupancy Vehicle lanes (reducing my commute to nearly 20 minutes instead of an hour) and to park for free near my grad school classes.
In the back of our minds, however, was the knowledge that accidents involving motorcycles usually hurt the rider rather extensively. On top of this, it seemed that people in cars seemed to randomly become enamored with the idea of killing a motorcyclist. From the beginning, we agreed that, once we had a positive pregnancy test, we would sell the motorcycles. So, with a pink line came two Craigslist posts.
Admittedly, her bike went faster, but this week saw mine go to a new owner as well. Sadness abounds, but we’re also glad to get out of this (our motorcycling phase) alive. We now look forward to the day when our daughter/son finds old pictures of us and asks, with a shocked look on his face, “you rode motorcycles?!” Hopefully that is not followed by, “I want a motorcycle!”
