Transportation on two wheels

I might have mentioned this before: I come from a motorcycling family. According to family lore, the first time I was on a motorcycle I was less than a month old. My mother was taking a walk in the woods, carrying me. She reached a steep hill and saw that she would have to struggle up it with me in her arms. My father happened to be nearby on a dirt bike, so he took me in one arm and drove up the hill.

By the time I was 6, I had my own kid-sized helmet. The law stated that children could only ride on the back of street bikes when they could reach the footpegs. So my father (the literal engineer) installed foot pegs, much higher up, that both my brother and I could reach. We used to ride into town, one kid per parent motorcycle.

When I got married, my father immediately started asking when his son-in-law was going to learn to ride. To help persuade my husband, our wedding gift from my parents was a motorcycle.

Andrew took to motorcycling like a fish to water, and it was his main transportation when I moved to Miami and took the car with me. Since he's moved down, he's been stuck doing some repairs to the bike. But it was fixed just in time for our car to go to the shop, so it's our primary mode of transportation this week. I was a passenger earlier this week, but only once (and then I found a carpool). It's fun to be on a bike again, but biking in 90F (32C) in an armored jacket and helmet is unpleasant. I think I'll be waiting until the cool winter months and leave the summer biking to my fanatic husband.