Proud Dad

[Pittsdriverwes]

I took the class with her mainly to share the experience but hey, I can always use more parking lot practice too. The class was a pretty interesting group of characters that after the first day on the course were pretty humbled by the young lady riding the course. Gracie was pretty tickled at how easy the skills were and, if we're being honest, how much trouble some of the cocky guys were having. There were 3 pretty energetic dumps that hurt nothing but some egos and the nastiest of them was a sales guy from the dealership who tried to whiskey throttle his Harley Street 500 up a rock wall.

In the classroom we all had to construct an hypothetical accident scenario; draw it out; and explain it to the class. Grace and I did one on an intoxicated rider that after a number of other factors came to a bad end. The instructor asked "What was the first thing this rider did wrong?" Gracie replied, "He bought a Harley because they seem to be attracted to bars." Everyone thought that was pretty funny except for the Harley sales guy in the class.

After a trip to the Maryland MVA this week we'll be looking for an opportunity to get off in to PA to ride some forest roads and maybe do an overnight camping.

[justjoe]

That is fantastic, Wes! Enjoy these times as they are fleeting.

[aviator]

Congrats to both of you. Awesome!

[802Mike]

Awesome, now the seed has been planted!

[MattB]

Reading this tickled me, I can only hope to be doing the same one day. And your daughter's humor... I like it!

[Pittsdriverwes]

When we got out on the course doing skills, one of them was to accelerate to over 15 mph and then do an emergency stop. They mentioned that if the bike starts to not respond to the throttle that it's because they're governed to less than 20 mph. My daughter said (where others in the class could hear her) "Dad, I thought you said Harleys were so slow I wonder why they have to govern them at all?"

We might have had a reputation by the end of the class.

[Pittsdriverwes]

My daughter and I went over to the MVA today to get her endorsement on her license. On the way home I called my Allstate agent to officially add her to the policy. I'd told my daughter that she'd have to pay the difference for adding her. I put my agent on speaker phone and asked him to give her the bad news. "Gracie, your Dad owes you $12.50 a year because adding you resulted in a drop in the premium by that amount." There might have been a daughter fist pump. This just keeps getting better and better for her.

My agent informed me that because we'd both recently completed the MSF course for Maryland we were due the discount. We have 3 bikes on the policy now - my '16 1200GS, my WR250R, and her XT250. $242/yr for all-in coverage for the three bikes.

[Pittsdriverwes]

It took me a long time to realize we'd grown deep roots here. Coming from N. Georgia it took a while to get used to the differences in politics, rules, and culture that is pretty different than what this good ol' boy grew up around. Over time I've come to appreciate all the good that's here that more than offsets the heavy government imposed.

[802Mike]

Allstate must've come around.. Years ago I had everything with them
and one bike was over $700. I switched to Dairyland and called my
agent who I'd been with through my parents and then on my own since
getting my driver license. I was almost apologizing. Her exact words,
"I figured you'd switch when you found out."
Within a week I switched everything!

[Pittsdriverwes]

Actually Mike, I think I've been grandfathered in to something new customers probably couldn't get. Been with Allstate since the 1970s. With accident forgiveness, they wrote me a $15K check for my S1000RR and gear and my rates have never been affected by the accident claim. I'm a happy motorcycle insurance customer - but they've got me by the short hairs on the auto policy with my teenage driver in the house.

[Pittsdriverwes]

Weather permitting, our first day trip will be this Sunday. We're going to take off out of Annapolis and head south down the western shore of the Chesapeake bay where we'll find a nice spot on the water to grab some lunch. This is one of my favorite rides taking very lightly traveled twisty roads through the bay side country - scenic, fun roller coaster roads. It should be about 120 miles over half a day to see how she likes being in the saddle for that many hours. All our past experience has been 30-45 minute romps on single track with breaks back at the truck so this is the first step in her road warrior training. Fun times.