My First Motorcycle Ride to Work

I work about 35 miles from my home. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but I ride a 250cc motorcycle and that’s a ride of about an hour and 15 minutes, one-way.

Last week I took a motorcycle ride to work for the first time. It was cold, under 40 degrees when I left, and there were wind gusts of about 25 miles per pour. This small bike, my first motorcycle, gets pushed around quite a bit in the wind gusts. Nothing scary, you just have to fight it a little bit.

I came across most of the wind in Farmington; a small city at the base of one of the canyons along the snow capped Wasatch Mountains in Northern Utah.

The ride into work was okay. I leave early, around 6:00a on Monday mornings, so there wasn’t a lot of traffic. My finger tips were a little bit cold, but otherwise I was warm. The drive in was about an hour and 15 minutes and mostly uneventful.

On the way home there was a lot more traffic. At this hour people are in a hurry to get home after a long day at work. It makes a motorcycle ride, where you’re vulnerable, a lot less fun. It was a bit of a white knuckle ride.

In one case, a woman cut in front of me at a stoplight, fairly close but at very slow speed. I can’t be sure if she didn’t see me at all or if she just knew that a motorcycle would have to slow down and let her in; I suspect the latter.

I also started to get some cramping in my right leg, my high blood pressure medicine makes cramping all too common, and some soreness in my butt. I need to add a little bit of height and some padding to my seat. Looks like I need one of those butt pads that everyone talks about in the motorcycle forums.

So, the ride to work was nice but not particularly fun. The busy drive home was just an exercise in using caution and being ready to get home. Daily commuting, on my first motorcycle, is probably not for me. Having said that, it’s been a week now and I’m already starting to think about riding to work again.