Funny story about that. I did the same thing and the cycle I bought was too big for me. I was on my toes at a full stop. I was riding it home and I pulled up to a light not noticing a pothole where my left foot was going to rest. The bike started to tip and that was all she wrote. Pretty embarrassing to say the least.

 

That is funny. Now.

Thats why my first bike was a 500. It felt ok, but people said I looked like I was riding a toy. I would often sit on the passenger seat just because it was an easy reach and an alternate seating position which provided relief.

 

Bob Dylan once wrote something like this: ".. like a bad motorcycle with a devil in the seat. Goin' 90 miles an hour down a dead end street."

 

I grew up riding dirt bikes as a kid so I learned how to operate a clutch and shift gears when I was in grade school. I learned to drive in my Dad's 1969 El Camino with a three speed column shift arrangement (or "three-on-a-tree" as Car Analogy noted earlier). I didn't have any problems with the manual transmission but I was plenty nervous about screwing up while driving with my Dad sitting next to me.

With that in mind I tried to be as calm as possible when it was time for my son lo learn how to drive. During the weekend we would take my old Audi A4 over to a large community college campus here in town that has plenty of really large parking lots connected by small roads complete with stop signs, etc.. He could practice working the clutch, parking, dealing with hills, parking on hills and even shifting all within the confines a parking lot. Once he became comfortable with that I would have him drive around the campus with few other cars to worry about. That worked out pretty well. He's now been driving the Audi for close to four years without incident which is saying something as we live right in the city with it's dense development, congestion, nut jobs, cyclists, nut job cyclists, etc.. I had it easy starting out driving in a small town in rural Illinois. That place didn't even have a single stop light. My son has already indicated that he plans to keep driving manuals. There is no telling how hard such cars will be to come by when he gets older.

 

I learned at age 14 or so on my Mom's "unsafe at any speed" Corvair with three on the floor. I used to take it out and drive around town when they when out for the evening and left me home alone. One time my Mother's old high school sweetheart picked me up turning donuts down by the high school tennis court. He was a nice guy. A town cop. He had me follow him to the police station and then he let me drive home. I don't think he ever said anything to my folks. Those were the days.

 

Nice story. My Dad was no fan of Ralph Nader, as my parents had a couple of Corvairs over the years, lol. The first gen car that they had was probably traded in on the second gen Corvair they later owned. That car met it's demise in an accident when I was around five year old. Our Mom was hauling my brother and I around somewhere and another driver ran a stop sign out on a country road. Seat belts were not mandatory for the back seats in those days. My brother was saved by the passenger seat in front of him but I went flying into the windshield. I've never had a single memory of that accident. A few years later one of my Dad's friends came over to show off his new Pontiac. I don't recall the model, but I'm pretty sure it had a big block based on the torque — once again my brother and I found ourselves in the back seat only this time our problem was just the opposite as we found ourselves being pinned up so hard against the seat back that we weren't going anywhere. Different times for sure.

By the way, I've always worn my seat belt ever since I started driving. I figure that I probably used up all of my luck when I was young.