{"id":94,"date":"2010-06-26T23:10:27","date_gmt":"2010-06-27T06:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/?p=94"},"modified":"2010-06-26T23:32:36","modified_gmt":"2010-06-27T06:32:36","slug":"4-wheels-move-the-body-2-wheels-move-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/2010\/06\/4-wheels-move-the-body-2-wheels-move-the-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Wheels Move the Body, 2 Wheels Move the Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

Motorcycles have always had a place in my heart, but before it was more or less feelings of awe and fascination. Whenever I saw a bike I’d admire it. I’ve been a shadow admirer for a while, but I never mustered up the courage or took any steps to get one. Finally, last month, everything felt right and I decided the time had arrived and it was my turn to ride. \u00a0I signed up for a MSF safety course and went through the whole (boring) process towards my M1 license. Convincing the parents took a combination of persistence and good timing… they knew I was\u00a0committed.\u00a0\u00a0I had been riding bicycles for about 2 years prior to this point. The whole tight spandex wearing, constant and sweaty pedaling in mostly straight lines was starting to wear off on me. At least it was a good stepping stone, if not to only make me more aware of traffic elements as a rider.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a few more weeks, my license was slowly coming into the mail from the DMV… and I had ordered up some gear. The time came to obtain an actual bike. After looking around at Japanese brand motorcycles, I wasn’t particularly impressed by them. Their build quality, looks, and that 4-cylinder engine note didn’t appeal to me. I initially wanted a Triumph 675 Daytona, and then started looking into Ducati 746’s. A bit of deliberation later, it was down to a red 746… and this white 2008 848. The latter was significantly higher priced, but it was without a doubt a better bike. While the 848 was at a far higher league than what I was initially looking for, I knew that it was the one I wanted. I pulled out literally almost all of my savings at the time and went out and bought it. A risky choice at the time, but there is no regrets. Especially because it’s so beautiful, and I keep finding myself making trips into the garage just to look at it. :D<\/p>\n

Here’s the machine that I essentially sold my car for (car was sold after):<\/p>\n

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I remember the first ride was fairly intimidating. I just got on and went around the neighborhood, but when I realized just how much torque the bike had… I had a moment where I thought I really got myself in too far. This might be attributed to my OCD, I couldn’t claim to bike to be mine unless I cleaned\/detailed it.<\/p>\n

So it was into the garage, and off with the fairings:<\/p>\n

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I did what I could and gave everything a good scrub underneath, and then put the fairings back on. Next came a claybar of the exterior followed by some polish and wax.<\/p>\n

Finally, it was time to actually ride it, so after lunch the next day I hopped on and went out into the streets for the first time. The stopping and going took some getting used to, but I felt relatively comfortable afterwards. The day after that I decided to try out the local twisties, and I now hope to keep developing my skills on the bike and eventually attend a track day.<\/p>\n

After reaching this point, and riding the Ducati… I firmly believe that I’m not going to want a fancy sports car anymore. The thrill of riding and the freedom that entails it is\u00a0incomparable\u00a0by sitting inside a metal box with 4 wheels. The sense of turning and cornering just doesn’t feel as fun. Driving a motorcycle is very highly dependent on the rider and his skill. You turn by shifting your weight and making the bike lean with you, its so much more connected. I can’t say the same thing about turning a steering wheel while sitting upright in a car, however…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Motorcycles have always had a place in my heart, but before it was more or less feelings of awe and fascination. Whenever I saw a bike I’d admire it. I’ve been a shadow admirer for a while, but I never mustered up the courage or took any steps to get one. Finally, last month, everything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/98"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}