My wife is undecided whether to ride two up or rent her own bike.
A little background. She commuted for two years on a Yam 650 in the mid 1970’s. 80 miles a day rain or shine, April – Sept (our good riding months).
Not any riding until last year when she put 400 or 500 miles on my Trophy4, (tried a Yam FZR600 but it was taller than the Trophy).
Decided it was too tall (especially when stopped at an off camber uphill stop sign) just didn’t like being on her toes, she’s 5′ 5″. Felt it was also top heavy, which probably goes back to her height. She just wasn’t comfortable. Yes she’s told me to get rid of one bike and then she would purchase something that suited her. She does have a motorcycle license.
The question is would you allow her to use one of your bikes given the above and if so do you have a bike that would fit her, with a screen or fairing and either a tank bag or top boot to hold some camera equipment?
We had a recently retired ballerina from New York with similar experience tour with us last year with her husband. We put her on a cruiser with a very low seat. She was 5′ 2″, 100lbs. We’re talking Tiny with a capital T. We gave her a bit of time on the bike in a quiet area, and then asked us to show she could stop and turn well, and weave in and out of some cones that a confident rider could tackle with ease. She passed that and decided to ride. She was a little nervous, but rode well. There was the odd very windy day where she opted to put the bike on the rescue trailer and rode in the van with me. As long as your wife is feeling confident she can handle the bike, and that she can demonstrate to both us and you to our mutual satisfaction that she is in safe control we dont have a problem. If she has an unrestricted motorcycle licence, our insurance company is happy, so there’s no problem there either. Ellen (ballerina) went home a much better rider and learnt a lot. We hold advanced rider instruction days at our dealership (Thunderbike) and though we’re not trained motorcycle instructors, we feel we have a good grounding in motorcycle riding and survival skills and we enjoy passing these on to others. If we see somebody on the tour who we think can benefit from a bit of help (and they willing to listen) we’re quite happy to share our knowledge. Though we don’t recommend that a rider takes one of our tours to learn how to ride, it may benefit your wife to ride and hone up her skills again. There’s no doubt she’ll go home well practised in twisty roads 🙂 and a better rider.
