Yngswen > Yngswen's Blog Posts > Introduction

December 09, 2006 19:34

Hello

As this is my first foray into web logging, and as BMW has been kind enough to give me some server space, I should probably introduce myself.

This is a photo from last summer of my fiancee and me with the ‘75 r90/6… but I’ll come back to that.

I learned to ride when I was 14 on my friend’s 80cc trail bike. I thought riding came as naturally to me as breathing and I was hooked from that day forward. A year later, I bought a Kawasaki CSR 250. My first ride was just around the block in a residential neighborhood, but when I got off my hands shook with excitement. I took my first motorcyle safety course, got licensed, and opened a new door to adventure.

The southeast Nebraska of my youth was a grid of roads in all flavors of dirt and gravel. Those roads led to other towns, friends’ houses, and a lot of unknown. Summer allowed time for exploring, as I loaded up my camera and went out to see as much of the world as the little 250 would allow.

In my senior year I sold the 250 and moved up to a Honda CB750. Now I could ply the paved highways to other towns and really cover some ground. I got my first speeding ticket on that bike [#-o]. With a fairing and a generous gas tank I thought I could go anywhere and do anything. That was fun while it lasted, but I had to part with the Honda before the end of the year. Bummer.

After high school came the navy. Six years of moves and deployments, outdoor parking, and frequent theft made motorcycling a low priority. Living in the middle of a city seemed to remove me from the sense of adventure that my high-school years had. Besides, I now had beaches and ocean to play with, and it’s hard to carry scuba tanks in even a 41 liter saddle bag.

After the navy came school. After graduation I moved to Colorado and that’s when the bug bit again.

After I had been here a couple years, a friend lent me his Honda Transalp, and I took it for a ride in the hills. On a June day I got sun-baked in town and rained on in the foothills, I rode through snow on top of Guanella pass, and I flew down Interstate 70 from Idaho Springs to Denver. The excitement and the shaking were back. I was grinning from ear to ear, but the time was not right yet. That winter, I decided instead to propose to the young lady you see pictured above. No date is set, and the planning is ongoing.

Last summer, three-dollar gas gave me the excuse. I had wanted a BMW since college but couldn’t quite justify a new bike in my mind. Opportunity met interest when I found the bike pictured above in Boulder. Now the adventure continues. If you see us on a Saturday morning, go ahead and wave, we will. [:D]

I love riding. I love to talk about riding—any aspect from mountain roads in the morning to the fluid dynamics of carburetors. My name is Swen, and I’m hooked.

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