It all started about a year ago when I decided to buy a scooter to commute to work. The idea was to buy a 50cc scooter as it can be driven with a car licence in Brisbane and it was the only licence I had. I had never ridden a motorcycle or scooter before, so a 50cc scooter sounded easy to start with. I had the money and I should have bought one straight ahead, instead I opted to delay.
Photo taken by Barbara Mürdter
Time is the enemy for any thoughts, especially mine, and 50cc was not enough for me anymore for no apparent reason. Now I wanted a bigger scooter, may be a 100cc. The problem was I didn’t have a motorcycle licence, and you need to one to ride anything above 50cc in Queensland.
So I decided I should get a motorcycle licence, and then came the new problem. The car licence I had was from Sri Lanka, and can get a motorcycle licence only if I convert that to a Queensland licence. This would have been straight forward, if the original licence is from the US or Singapore or few other countries. For a Sri Lankan licence, the only option is to do written and practical driving tests.
Somewhere towards the end of 2011, I did the written test and passed on the second attempt (the first blind attempt didn’t go well). Then I had to go for the practical test. By that time, I might have driven on road for about 18 months and 4,000kms, but I have never driven regularly. So I thought doing some lessons with a driving instructor might help, and it did. After few hours of training I had my Queensland car licence in the post box.
Now I could get a motorcycle licence in Queensland. There were two options. You could go straight for a practical test if you can ride a motorcycle as for cars. But it was not an option for me. So I decided to go the Q-Ride way. It is a specially designed program to learn to ride and get the licence at the same time. It took me another couple of weekends of training and one epic fall before I had my Queensland motorcycle licence in the post box.
What started as a simple desire for a 50cc scooter was now a motorcycle licence after nine months in early 2012. Then I went and bought a Yamaha Virago XV250 cruiser, a 250cc motorcycle, not a 50cc scooter. Now I’ve been riding it to work/uni almost every day and I think I’m enjoying it. I hope to keep on writing on this blog my experiences of riding as ‘My Riding Log’. I won’t be regular or informative, just another random log.
Everything changes around us every day, our thoughts, our perceptions, and our likes and dislikes. I always want to think ‘I’m living in the moment’ and I try to do so.
