My bike

The best decision I ever made was taking a week off work to do a five day motorcycle course. I went straight from never having ridden a motorbike to a full licence. Fortunately I had an idea that my riding skills could still do with some polishing [1].

So rather than buy the fastest bike I could afford I settled for something more managable. So I bought a GPZ500S, light (easy to handle), not too much power (Kawasaki say 60hp) and cheap to run in terms of insurance, tyres, chains etc. That was four years ago now, and although I'm still tempted to get a ZX6-R, the GPZ does everything I need.

Like carry two bicycle wheels and a spade.

Sadly the poor thing conked out on the M4. Read the gory details here.

[1] Unlike when I passed my car driving licence, where I thought I could not possibly get better. But I was seventeen then.