mentorship

i still didn't have a bike. but i wanted to! i found on the nabd forum a topic for left hand disabled people. most of them were either amputees or paralised in their arm. i started looking at the pictures. the dudes and dudettes realy looked like they knew what they were doing. and they were doing great! i learned that you can ride a motorbike hard, knee sliding in the racing track having only one arm on the handlebar. an i was worrying about having a hard time riding even if i can move the bar with my left hand! slap me pls!

i already had a username on the biggest romanian motorcycling forum - motociclism.ro. there i saw lots of people showing off, bragging around, i saw people hunting accidents topics with the arrogance of road kings, people that pretended to know it all and who always gave lessons to anybody, either willing to listen or not. i saw there kids that defended their fiends who caused serious accidents, even killing people. it was all gross. i had no reason to be a part of this quarrelling community.

i was expecting the same thing on the british nabd forum. but i needed info, and i needed it bad. so, one ay when i was bored at the office, i braced myself and put up a post on the nabd forum. an hour later i already had 2 answers to it on my email surprise-surprise: there were 2 answers with kind advice, from two intelligent people who did not claim to know it all. they were simply sharing their experience with different types of bike mods. they had reasons for which they tried one thing and gave up another. not arrogance, not lessons. only options to help me pursue a common passion. cool!

since then, i got glued to a girl's posts on that forum. i have no idea about her name, but her username was Shorts. she had a paralyzed left hand, and she used a velcro glove to attach her hand to the handlebars. she used twin levers on the right handlebar, brake over clutch like this:



and she's a big fan of this particular setup. Shorts does her own mods on her bikes, in her won garage, supported by a very understanding husband. a year ago she gave up the honda vtr 250 she rode in japan, and a week before i got my bike, she got a suzuki sv650. cheeers Shorts!