2 up for the first time!

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Glad you and your daughter enjoyed the time together........:waving:







Let me ask a serious question. Was it hard to control? I don't know what size your daughter is. I have never rode two up and I want to with my wife. I feel pretty good about slow speed control with just myself, just wondering if it affected the slow speed adversly two up.... Yes this is a confession..............

I don't mind if I fall off and hurt myself. I just don't want the wife to be scared. She road two up with a friend couple a years ago so she is ok with the concept, maybe I should just get out there and do it......

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The main thing if I remember this correctly is, tell your passenger NOT to lean away from any turn...That will straighten you up too quick???? They just need to let you do all of the leaning and set straight up behind you....Second thing sit still when coming up to a stop, don't start moving around until you have both feet on the ground.....My wife got so comfortable riding behind me on our last bike, that she would set behind me and go to sleep...I could always tell when she was going to sleep. as she would turn her head so the visor on her helmet didn't dig into my back, put her head on my back and pass out.....:shock:....Take your first ride together slow and easy, don't try to break the 0-100 land speed record....:cheeky1:.....It takes some practice to adjust to the extra weight, and after a while it becomes second nature, you don't even give it a second thought.....Charles just get your wife to ride with you for coffee and donuts at Shipley's then expand your rides....

Claude.....

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Myself, I don't have a lot of solo experience. It seems I've always had someone who was waiting to ride with me since the 70s.

A passenger needs to get some experience & learn a few things, like don't lean on curves or movesideways at slow speed or stops.

For some, it is instinctual to keep bike from leaning on curves... they think the bike is falling. I always tell new folks to just lean back & enjoy the ride. Except for a little extra braking time, 2up shouldn'tfeel any different than solo. Some are real naturals from the first ride.Once they are okay with the bike leaning on curves, they are pretty much ready to go.

Wings make it so easy. My wife dozes off all the time & the only way I can tell is the intercom goes quiet.

Don't tell her I said that.

It's great to have someone who likes to go on 5 day rides with. :action:

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This is one of the areas the GW really shines. Mama Bear's comfort is unmatched. My biggest problem is realizing she is there. I'd say 75% of my riding has been solo. Thus, my riding 'nature' has developed, over the years, on that. I really can't tell she is back there. I find myself glancing in the rear view mirror, to make sure she is still there.

This has made for an interesting dilemma. I used to ride 'the fast lane'. I mean ride it. However, with her on the back, I must temper those old urges. Even though she enjoys a good, hard, ride. Between the two of us, I am the only one who has ever paid the price for bad decisions on a bike and I would like to keep it that way. So I am ever mindful, when we ride.

She see's most everything I do. So, at first, I kept the rides to low traffic roads and times, country, ect, no city/down town riding. So she cold get the feel for it and enjoy it. Her introduction to morons in cars would come soon enough. We hit our first (for her) tar strip. This came as a big surprise, to her. She had never experienced this before. I knew about them and never gave it a thought. So, I sat her down and talked to her about all the hazards, I could think of, that are particular to motorcycles.

I can't think of a better machine for the road. To date, the GW has served us well.

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Tandem54 wrote:

I know what you mean ScooterTramp My wife really dislikes the super slab! She's always telling me to be really careful

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My problem is she likes going fast. So she is no help, to me, keeping the road beast in check. She knows when I've gone over 80, the wind pushes on her helmet. I do enplane things, to her though. At first I had trouble with first gear, at slow speeds. There is a lot of slop in the throttle and in first gear it will 'jump around' some. I've got the hang of it now. But, by explaining it to her, she was more comfortable with the fact that I knew what it was and was working on it.

Riding a GW isn't like riding my old HD, so we both had a learning curve and we shared this. I wouldn't take a long distance trip until we had logged over 8,000 miles, on it, in all kinds of weather. She is a real trooper. Never flinched once. Only time I ever 'heard' anything, from her, was when I went screaming passed the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company on our road trip through California. I was just cruising along and there is was, on the left. I figured maybe she won't notice. Wrong!