Well, I started to ride 20 years ago and have ridden well over 600,000 KMs. My wife and I started to ride at the same time and she had about 350K on bikes when an eye issue (non riding related ) stopped her riding .
Riding is inherently dangerous, make no mistake about that and Vancouver and the lower mainland is the most dangerous place I have ever ridden. I have ridden in Rome, Naples, Istanbul, Bulgaria, LA in rush hour, Mexico and no place is as challenging as Vancouver. I have been dumb enough to twice finish the Iron Butt Rally an 11 day, 11,000 mile event around North America so I have some riding chops.
As part of the Long Distance riding community I have lost many friends to accidents, even the best riders can't avoid losing their lives. A pal who has over 2 million documented miles says convincingly that every accident is a result of rider error. I tend to agree
If you have a young family or financial obligations make certain that you have adequate life and disability insurance before you start to ride.
You can mitigate the risk of injury/death by doing some things some of which are going to be against the "accepted" rider's code.
1. Go to a good riding school
2, Before you throw a leg over a bike buy the correct gear, a Full Face helmet , proper armoured jacket and pants, riding boots and good riding gloves. I had a 43 MPH get off at a police type riding school 2 years ago and the instructor thought I was likely dead or severely injured. I had been getting kidded by the jean jacket open faced helmet riders in the class. When I got up with the chin bar of my helmet ground down and only a broken wrist bone (my fault I was wearing a wrist watch) and the watch hit first and broke a bone in my wrist.
Everyone wanted to know what gear I had on.
3. Don't consider any bike that is lacking ABS brakes. Seriously.
4. You say that "I will only ride during daylight on dry days".
All this will do is get you in trouble the first time it is pissing rain, cold, or one night when you get a flat at 8:00 pm and have to ride home in the dark
"I will happily stay off the highway".
A divided Highway is far safer than a city street or a winding country road with blind corners, loose gravel, and farm vehicles .
"I will take the safe riding course".
Fantastic, after you get through the course, take some private lessons. Get up at 5 am and go riding by yourself in the city where you can practice lane position , turning in big intersections, riding on crappy streets. You will not have full rider's vision and practicing with low traffic levels is safer. You need to ride a lot to get better and better is safer.
I only ride with one other person now that my wife doesn't ride . I usually ride alone I find it safer. Riding at night is wonderful and riding through the night and when the first sliver of the new day appears you get this great primal reaction like you have survived another night and the sabre tooth tigers didn't kill you.
Animals are a real danger, annoying farm dogs that try to get under your wheel. Moose are my specialty, I have had close calls with 4 or 5 moose and clipped one in the night . Oh, and I was chased by a wolf on a muddy gravel road in Labrador. I could only get up to about 50 KMH - it was wet clay mud I was proud of that until a pal was chased by three wolves near James Bay
"I have an excellent driving history and I am a defensive driver".
You are a defensive car driver, the horror of being invisible to everyone on the road because you are on the bike takes time to adjust to.
The good news is that you will see a lot more bikes when you ride.
Stizzla, bike choice is the last thing on your list. While that black beauty reeks sexy it may not suit the kind of riding you want to do and you don't know what that is yet.
You will drop your bike guaranteed and scratch it all up, those black pipes and paint will look real nasty with road rash.
I once got a bike to almost 100K before it took a parking lot nap and I dropped another one within the first week.
Read Proficient Motorcycling by David Hough and the Idiots Guide to Motorcycling. Read the Hurt report.(google it)
Join us over on ADVRider.com
There are as of when I wrote this 1,050,452 threads , 39,946,599 posts in those threads , and 403,899 inmates
Links to some threads
Accident reports where we discuss our mistakes
DOH!
advrider.com
Most Important Things to Know For a Motorcycling n00b.
I'm doing some research on what would be more helpful to know at a persons start in motorcycling versus learning it over years in the "school of hard...
advrider.com
Now on to the wife issue. Riding may not be an option for you. If your wife says no you need to pass
If I had had kids I doubt I would have ridden until they were in their 20's.
I own a company and every year when we would head off to Europe for a month's riding (pre covid) I would write a letter to all our client's that started off.
"If you are reading this letter I am dead, likely as a a result of a motorcycle accident. I would then go on to explain what the contingency plans were for the company.
I met with the staff each year to go over the plans if I died or was disabled and how the company would look after them. The company had insurance on my life if I died and if I was disabled we had corporate disability insurance that would pay the company overhead and staff salaries for 2 years in the event I was disabled.
Here is a little video of my wife and I riding Stelvio Pass in Italy on our first trip to Europe. We are about half way down the pass when my wife got out her camera and started filming . Turn the volume down all you can hear is wind noise, ( why we wear ear plugs) The Bike was a 2007 KTM 990 Adventure - a bike I had ridden to Inuvik and Prudhoe Bay two successive summers, along with my wife who rode her own bike on the same two trips.
PM me if you want to talk. I can't help you with your wife.
