(electric guitar music)
(motorcycle revving)
- Lately, a lot of people here at Donut
have been riding their motorcycles to the office.
(motorcycle accelerating) (upbeat music)
It's got me thinking, how do I do that?
Well, join me as I figure out how we get
into the two-wheel scene together.
Grab your notebooks and commit this to memory
'cause at the end of this episode,
we're gonna get our motorcycle licenses.
I've been interested in getting a motorcycle
ever since I was a kid.
And if you were a teen in the late '90s or early 2000s
and weren't in the motocross,
you probably didn't have a pulse.
(upbeat music)
Travis Pastrana was jumping his bike into San Francisco Bay.
James Stewart invented the Bubba Scrub.
Man, these guys were awesome.
Motorcycles are an entirely different side
of being a gearhead and it's a community
I wanted to join for some time now.
First things first, before we even get
to talking about running down to a dealership
or nonstop browsing Craigslist to buy your first bike,
it's a good idea to find out
if you even really truly want a motorcycle.
Motorcycles are alluring.
The sense of freedom and the low cost for high speed,
the idea of never having to look for parking.
Sounds amazing, right?
Well, all that can quickly disappear if you take a ride
and realize it's not for you.
So if you decide to follow through and get
your motorcycle license, the next step is to get
some motorcycle training.
(upbeat music)
We went with a private lesson by Class: M1 here in LA.
It's a little more expensive than a group class
which is the cheaper option.
Today, we're gonna learn how to operate the bike,
we're gonna learn how to ride the bike
and then we're gonna run through a mock test.
(relaxing synth music)
I got my gear.
Let's see if we can ride this thing.
(upbeat rock music)
- [Commentator] Six, five, four, three, two, one.
(motor engine rumbling)
Liftoff, we have a liftoff.
(motor engine rumbling quietly)
- And motorcyclist training course
does a few things for you.
First, it teaches you the fundamentals of riding, braking
and using the clutch, et cetera.
An instructor will go over all that with you.
The course covers street riding skills and strategies
and rules of the road and you'll get actual experience
by riding a motorcycle.
A bike is even provided for you to ride.
Steve is setting up the course right now
to do a mock DMV test.
This class has definitely made me want a motorcycle
even more now.
I can't wait to do more bike content.
So you took a training course, you went down to the DMV,
you got your motorcycle license.
You are now a legal motorcycle driver.
At this point, I'm sure you've been browsing the web,
looking for bikes that fit your fancy.
Let's start off with narrowing down
what you're gonna be using your bike for.
(playful music)
(party horn blows)
(playful music)
Is it gonna be your commuter?
Are you gonna do some weekend canyon carving
or do you want something you can take a longer road trips
and highway cruises?
Once you figured that out, it'll be much easier
to narrow down which models to start looking at.
It's probably not the best idea to go buy a touring bike
if you wanna hop around the city.
- [Rider] Oh, he almost hit the mirror!
Oh, he hit their mirror!
You hit that mirror, hey? - Yeah.
- The second consideration is to figure out
how much bike you can handle.
And before you jump to full boar testosterone fueled status
of believing you can handle any size motorcycle
which I'm sure you can, Dylan.
Maybe you think of it like this.
Was your first car closer to the likes of a Corvette ZR1
or a Camry?
If your parents were responsible adults
who cared for your wellbeing, I'm sure they didn't op
to give you a 755 horse powered sports car.
Treat buying your first motorcycle with the same caution.
The easiest way to get yourself hurt is to buy a bike
outside of your skill level.
I know it's tempting to buy a used Hayabusa
that'd go 200 miles per hour for six grand.
Don't do that.
(motorcycle accelerating)
(motorcycle crashes)
- [Cameraman] Holy shit.
- Aside from the performance of the motorcycle,
the actual physical size of the bike
is an important factor too.
You want something that fits your build
and that you're also capable of handling.
A 313 pound motorcycles are pretty heavy.
I look up the weights of a few and they range a bit
from a 313 pound Honda CB300F
to the 943 pound Harley CVO Limited.
That's a thick boy.
Obviously, I'm jumping categories of motorcycles here
but you get my point.
Physically bigger bikes can be harder to handle
and your first ride should be easier, not harder to wrangle.
(motor engine rumbling)
(mumbles)
Also, like your first car, it's a learner vehicle.
It's gonna get scratched and dinged and learned on.
Your first motorcycle will see the same fate
no matter how good you are at taking care of it.
You're new at this, remember?
You're gonna make some mistakes
that will inevitably end up with you yelling
a few choice cuss words while the bike lays on its side
after a tip over in a Brunswick bowling parking lot.
That happened to Jeremiah,
who wrote this episode.
There are pros and cons to buying new versus used.
Figure out what you can afford and don't be afraid
to ask for help.
If you do end up going the used route,
just like you would if you were to buy a car
from a private seller, do your due diligence.
If you can, bring a buddy who's got some more knowledge
than you to look it over.
Don't have any friends?
Well, one, I'll be your friend.
And two, ask a seller to bring the bike to a shop
that will perform a bike inspection.
Usually it costs around $100.
It gives you some added insurance
that a qualified mechanic made sure everything is okay.
There are online forms where practically every specific
model out there, and a lot of those forms
are people who have gone through this experience before
and they're willing to offer up whatever help they can.
They even go on the Donut subreddit and ask.
We have some motorcycle moderators
who might offer up their opinion.
Two wheels?
Four wheels?
The Donut family welcomes everyone.
So, I'll go through the process I went through when choosing
my first ideal motorcycle.
I've always wanted a cafe racer style bike
so I started on the web.
Seeing what models are currently out there.
I found a bike I liked, searched some forms
to see if that model would be a good beginner bike.
Lo and behold it was.
Then I went over to a dealership and sat on a few of them.
I wanted to make sure the bike wasn't too big
or too small for me, see if they fit my stature.
I'm part of that big boy nation.
So regardless if the bike met my expectation aesthetically,
I needed to make sure it fit me physically as well.
Getting involved at any new hobby can be daunting.
Trust me, I know the feeling.
Just ask me about my snow cone machine fetish.
(beeps)
It's intimidating to join a group of enthusiasts
to have been indoctrinated into the group for years
before you have but the motorcycle community
like the car community is a pretty welcoming bunch.
A majority of motorcycle riders want to grow the community
and do so by helping out and being welcoming.
Now that I've got my motorcycle license,
hopefully this video has inspired you
to go out and get yours.
(playful music)