There was an air of anticipation, a feeling of unease, excitement, wonderment. It's been a such a long time since I last rode a bike, that I was more scared of it than ever. You see, fifteen years ago I swapped my RD250 for a Datsun 1200, an orange, sporty hoon's set of four wheels. A mortgage and bringing up baby saw the dream disappear into thin air and that was that. For a long time there was not a glimmer of hope in sight, but whilst our circumstances have not changed that much, I became more and more aware of a certain lack of me-time, an interest outside of work and family. I wonder sometimes if people point the finger at this middle aged woman who enthusiastically swapped her place in a book club for a spot in a bike club, but I hope that they can also see how much fun I am having now...

Well, back to the beginning. I had checked out a couple of 250cc Hondas, fell in love with a 650 Suzuki's tail and informed myself of the current pricelist. The 'redbook', the TradingPost, Ebay, local dealers and Sydney dealers did their bit to make me an informed customer. My homework was done. And then... the husband tells me about this Ninja up the road. $5,200 they were asking for it. We went to have a look and a chat to the 'Two Wheel' guy, who had done the paint job and wanted to get paid for it.

She looked absolutely stunning. Ten years old and not an obvious wrinkle in sight. 23thousand kilometres on the clock and her previous owner was, wait for it: A WOMAN!!!!

I was suspicious as soon as I realised how little she had been out and about and having been in the bike business in my youth, I remembered vividly how one avoids to klick over and how to rewind... easy!! The 'woman owner' also did ring alarm bells. But when I started to make an offer and he then proceeded to tell me that she was currently in Mexico, I thought of reporting him to the Department of Fair Trading.

So the bidding started... apparently via Mexico... Shortly after my second bid the guys took off to the Phillip Island Race and communication broke down for at least a week...

I had almost given up on it and started checking out another bike at Caringbah Motorcycles, when one evening I took a phonecall from a woman, who had just returned from her holiday in Mexico, and hopefully was desperate to sell that bike to me.

I was glad that it all checked out. The reason why she did not do many kilometers was similar to my situation: Children and a mortgage in addition to an earlier prang, which had her feeling strangely about getting back into it. So the bike sat in their driveway, wasting away.

$4,600 for a 10 year old bike (I felt lucky!), which has just had a beautiful respray and my only problem was that I felt unfit to ride it. So to test ride the bike, I had to sit on the back of it whilst her husband was giving me a double up and down our back street.

Money changed hands and so did the Ninja as seen.

My man made a space in the corner of the garage and there it sat, awaiting to be graced by my presence.

There were many worries and more excuses. No helmet. A Shoei helmet was bought. No leather gloves. Gloves were bought. No leather jacket. The motorbike exhibition was on in November last year and I had a good look around for a leather or water proof jacket. There was this nice French brand, that did fit me well and cost the earth. Ixon. That's my style...

Never ever did I own such a beautiful and protective leather jacket as this one! I felt like I just had stepped up in the world.
Yet, what I thought would be light grey, was light blue in the light of the day and that's when I thought ooops...blue and green should never be seen!!!! People reassure me: it's ok. I also got myself a good pair of booties and Draggin Kevlar Cargo pants. I've never felt THAT protected.

Those worries did not stop for a while. Once I was all decked out I had to find courage to ride down our very steep driveway. I had imagined that I may have to stop at a point where I would lose my balance and simply fall over. The clutch/throttle/breake/hand/foot co-ordination had become so very alien to me and the more I thought about it, the more scared I became about going down that driveway.

I had all the right gear and I had that beautiful bike, but I also had a lot of fear to get hurt and/or hurt the Ninja. Excuses, excuses! The time was ripe... My first ride was way overdue.
Where was my courage?