The beginning

I bought the bike May 5 of 2008 for $7400.00. It had 6799 miles on it. Due to title issues, I didn't get it registered until May 13 when I took it out for my first ride. I was a little shaky for a while; it has been quite a while and most of my riding experience was on dirt bikes. For the first few rides, I kept it local, slow, and stayed on roads with little or no traffic. I had taken many practice rides before I felt comfortable enough to take on the 35 mile commute to work. I put about 300 miles in the next couple weeks and then I tried my commute. I found an almost direct line from home to work and sort of rode around it. The route was very busy and I prefer to continue moving, even if it's slow going, so I took side roads around the traffic. I found a pleasant route and now travel it quite regularly. The regular route that I take with the car totals out at about 70 miles per day. The bike route averages out around 100 miles a day. The route varies greatly for the different traffic conditions and time of day. It still took me a month of riding before I got out on a highway. And even then, it was a small (two lanes each way, 55mph in some places), low traffic road. I selected a day with almost no wind, so I could focus on a simple ride.