Clichéd beginning?

I didn't realise it at the time but my introduction to motorcycling was a gift of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's book, Long Way Round, given to me by an elderly aunt who thought it might be of interest to me.

Nothing could have been further from my mind. Bikes I thought were the work of the devil himself.

Dangerous and ridden by the insane! Not me. No way.

The book lay on the shelf for a few years and occasionally I'd pick it up and flip open the cover and wonder what my aunt must have been thinking of to have bought me this tome. Never did I have any inclination to read it. I had no interest in bikes. McGregor I thought of a as a bit of a prat and Boorman, clearly a parasite living off his pal. Ignorance is bliss, I might add at this early stage!

Sometime in late 2009 something started happening to me. I began looking at scooters with some curiosity. I put this down to my then fragile emotional state as I had been having some personal difficulties and knew that I wasn't thinking straight. This interest would pass and would be replaced by something else. Or so I presumed.

In mid May 2010 I was driving to work. Just another regular day when I pulled up at a set of lights waiting for them to change and glanced to my left.

There I saw a sight I shall never forget. At the time, however I had no idea what I was looking at but I now know it was a Suzuki Burgman. Quite which model I'm not so sure however I reckon it was the 400. It was stunning and I was smote. I had to have one and then an there I decreed to myself that I would have whatever it was I was looking at.

Suzuki Burgman - guilty as charged m'lud!

And so it began. I would have one of these machines come what may and at that very moment my true motorcycling interest began. Little did I know where it would lead and certainly not to a Suzuki Burgman.