[techweenie]

If you're careful, you'll live through it.

I did. Started with a classic Honda 550-4 (not counting the Norton Commando JPS I never actually rode) and ended up with a Yamaha FZR 600. Didn't drop any of them, ever. But I was careful where and when I rode and didn't let traffic push me out of my comfort zone.

My neighbor, a physician with a major teaching hospital, told me the hospital staff's nickname for sportbike riders: "organ donors."

Lots of 20-something young, healthy men were coming in with massive, fatal brain damage from bike accidents, and providing nice, pink organs for the transplant pool.

Don't be like that. Take a motorcycle safety course and above all, do what my instructor said from day one: 'dress for the fall, not for the ride.'