Don't be one of those squids who rides in shorts and a tank top. Buy some riding gear. Boots, pants, Jack, gloves, helmet, ear plugs....
What's the old saying? Dress for the slide, not for the ride.
This. Just like carrying a gun. Plan for the worst. Hope to never have to use it.
Saw some bozo on a Harley this weekend......he had leather on, but what I assume was his very young kid on the back in shorts and a wife beater thin t shirt. He was in front of me ripping around on RT 2A speeding and swerving.
Dumb. First off...a kid that age I would never take on bike, second....put some safety equipment on him if your gonna. For the record, Ive never driven either of my kids on my bike, they've asked....but if anything ever happened to them, I'd never forgive myself.
Take the course, get some insight on people that have ridden, listen to the stories, heed the warnings, approach every intersection like the car doesn't see you.
I don't ride alot...mostly just to work. 2-4K miles a year depending on the weather. The older I get the less I ride in cold mornings.
That said, I've nearly been killed twice. Once by a guy talking on his cell where he drifted into my lane and I gave his door a steel toe boot, and woke him up. The other, as I was approaching and intersection and the guy never saw me, but thank christ did at the last second because his window was open and he heard my tire squeal......and stopped....I had locked my rear wheel and my mind was thinking of when I wanted to start my slide. Neither of these were my fault, but I was going too fast approaching that intersection, and should have slowed way down to make sure that guy saw me first.
Good luck and be careful, lot of cell phone texting morons out there.
I started with a "starter bike' Yamaha 750 inline 4 I bought for 600 dollars, drove that for 2 years then sold it for what I paid for it. Then bought a lightly used 1200 Sporty which some here would call a starter bike. But wife never wanted to ride and I never wanted to spend a lot of money doing it so it works for me for the limited use it sees. Why would I want to spend thousands or have a payment on something I use infrequently that sitting in the garage half the year? Anyway, my 2 cents.