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Hallo from San Antonio

morfic

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SAN ANTONIO
First Name
Daniel
Hallo,

"Long poster" from San Antonio here.

I don't have a bike right now (haven't owned one since I left Germany 20 years ago (listened to the "I know you loved your bike, but you'll die in Texas, please don't ride one, you're a dad")
But plan on getting one again. (above suddenly changed to "Maybe you should get a motorcycle instead of us getting another car", not going to analyse the logic, just going with it)

Figured I'll join a Texas Motorcycle forum to help me figure some stuff out (like what all I can omit if I have a Texas Class C and a unrestricted motorcycle license from Germany, so far it looks like I won't get around a safety course even if my license included braking and evading, climbing curb with clutch, walking speed, slalom, full stop from 40mph exercises on the little Virago 250 most driving schools used at the time. Most safety courses sounded like I'll bring my own bike, the one I won't have without a license? Which I won't have without a safety course? (I seem to have thought myself into a circle there)) and right off the bat TWT threw me a curve ball when the new posts on front page surprised me with 2strokefun's 1979 XT500 for sale thread.
An email and additional details gained (his XT500 seems to be a pretty nice specimen) later it's only the distance of close to 6 hours or a almost 12 hours round trip that gives me enough hesitation to take a moment to think if I'm just drunk on nostalgia or if I do want to get another XT500 over a SCR950 which I had been considering until sometime 1am this morning. (It's this 1976 XT/SR vibe the acr950 gives off that intrigued me and 942cc wouldn't struggle as much to move my now increased mass (already started to lose top end speed on my XT500 before I left Germany as I increased my mass back then already))

If you read up to this point (Thanks), I would really appreciate any suggestions on good places for that safety course in San Antonio since I don't have anyone I can ask in person for a recommendation. Or maybe suggestions on what jackets work great in this heat (my goretex jacket worked great for me year around, but we don't have that many hot days in Germany, so that doesn't say much I guess)

Post length I think suggestions it's a good time to stop for now.

Thanks for having me here,

Daniel


Do I sound giddy? Thought to have a bike again is intoxicating...
 
:welcome: & enjoy! The only input I have is mesh riding gear helps in the heat.
 
All of the motorcycle courses I am aware of in the area have a bike for their clients taking the BRC. Asking a customer to 'bring their bike' is a huge hassle, and likely a liability. Call the school closest to you and ask, they all teach the same curriculum. I'm pretty sure the MSF would blow a gasket if they deviated from it in the slightest.
 
Don't go cheap on the gear. In the summer I ride with an Olympia Airglide jacket which is mesh. Olympia makes very nice gear at a reasonable price. See Revzilla for a bunch of gear reviews. The rule of thumb that I've seen is that any air above 94F going across your body is actually warming you up instead of cooling you off. Bottom line, I try not to ride past noon in June, July, August in San Antonio. Have fun with your adventure.

Every Motorcycle Safety Foundation Basic Rider Course I've seen supplies the motorcycle. It's 16 hours and then you take the practical test which qualifies you to get your license. If you already had one in Germany, the course will be easy for you but still fun.
 
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I would rather sweat for hours on end than experience the pain of road rash for weeks/month on end. Stay hydrated, keep skin covered. Sweat it out, that is your body cooling itself. I ride and race in 100+ wearing leathers . No it's not like riding in a car with the air conditioner on, it's not supposed to be.
 
+1 on the mesh gear. I find it more comfortable with a wicking base layer (long sleeves, long pants.)

Please be careful getting acclimatized to the heat and in The Woodlands-the humidity.

Welcome to TWT and back to moto's!
 
Thanks for all the feedback I didn't even notice in my inbox.

Maroon12: I looked at them last night after DPS told me my German license doesn't mean anything for waiving anything.
Wasn't too thrilled to be told "No.", but if you think about it, "haven't been on a bike in 20 yeaRs", it sunk in eventually, will be fun getting on their 250 before I end up with anything like my last bike or bigger.
I'll call them Monday to see if I can get in next week.

It'll be easy to stay hydrated as I usually always rode with a backpack anyway, had some rain gear in it but more importantly a spark plug wrench and that Allen for the breaker cover and a lighter.
So won't be a problem having liquids with me.

I came across mesh gear just didn't know what brands I should look at first, thanks to kme9418 I have something to start looking at.

Funny that the basic course has a test at the end, I didn't even consider that, I'm a terrible test taker....Which is probably why I managed to suppress that thought.

Hopefully I'll get the gear stuff figured out for TX because I enjoyed riding my bike 365 days of the year in Germany, even if that required two sets of pants/boots/gloves, jacket had a liner for winter that meant only one of those needed.
The closer I get the more nervous I get that something gets in my way last minute.

Thanks again to all for all the welcomes.


I'll probably end up lurking mostly until I do have a bike.
 
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Welcome from Houston!

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My wife and I both went here:
http://www.swmotorcycletraining.com/

It was recommended to me by a friend from work.
It looks like a rough part of town, but it was fine.

Good luck, and stay safe.
my wife took her training at this sleaze place. she was the only woman in the class. they (instructors..the fat one) were the most foul mouthed, F-bombing, pieces of slime you could ever meet. There is a MUCH better place right off of LP410 and Fredericksburg? my son's girlfriend got her training there. she said it was a pleasant experience.
 
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I think the Fred Rd /410 place is out of business.

My kids trained there a few years back.

The one at Rolling Oaks Mall looks like it would do the Job. I still have a son that needs to go so let us know what you decide and what your experience was,


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my wife took her training at this sleaze place. she was the only woman in the class. they (instructors..the fat one) were the most foul mouthed, F-bombing, pieces of slime you could ever meet. There is a MUCH better place right off of LP410 and Fredericksburg? my son's girlfriend got her training there. she said it was a pleasant experience.


Guess who signed up today during work? This guy.

Got my course 7/29-30, let's see how that turns out, now that I have a thumbs up and down on the place :) Thanks for the feedback.

I'm mostly concerned about the after.
tearing up the net, looking at a lot of bikes (as my want increases, I start to wonder what's actually an attainable goal), jackets, helmets (haven't seen a single MX helmet that's convertible to open face to wear with goggle+mask), (gloves+boots I seem to think I'll find something suitable easier)

Realizing I have a hard time with "biker english" as "highsiding" in reference to a crash had no meaning for me, in German I grew up hearing terms, in English? Nope, I lived a sheltered life in SA
Turns out keeping my rear locked that only time I had to brake to avoid a car that pulled from right most lane to take a left turn and stopped due to left turn signal red....on MY lane, he wasn't yet on left turn lane, avoided a "highside", I had control over front but rear left a skid mark I could see for weeks. He didn't see me when he switched, when he stopped, he didn't hear me come when I howled towards him, he didn't see me stand broadside next to him.
I was livid, don't think I've ever been this livid again.
So never had a "highside", did have two "lowside" (both rookie mistakes early on, casualties a shifter, which made me get the one that folds (froze up and kept braking in a curve I thought I was too fast for until I exited asphalt and woosh (if I could have made myself let go of brake, I could have easily turned at the Speed I had at the time) ), and a mirror (found a patch of extra smooth cobble stone in the rain))
Thanks to apparently having been "ATGATT" I only had scratches on back of helmet.
While I only wore jeans, between boots and long jacket, no jeans got any of the "action", either time.

I surprise myself at how much I want to talk about any of this that I just keep on posting here even if I don't even have a bike yet.

Thanks for putting up with me ;)



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I think the Fred Rd /410 place is out of business.

My kids trained there a few years back.

The one at Rolling Oaks Mall looks like it would do the Job. I still have a son that needs to go so let us know what you decide and what your experience was,


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Didn't notice that before, sure, I'll let you know how it turned out at SWMT.


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Welcome to the site. For gear shopping recommendations, a lots of us use motorcyclegear.com (google NewEnough). Great folks, great customer service both before and after the sale. And they're from TEXAS!!
 
Welcome to the site. For gear shopping recommendations, a lots of us use motorcyclegear.com (google NewEnough). Great folks, great customer service both before and after the sale. And they're from TEXAS!!



Thanks, noted.


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From the combination of your various posts, I'm taking it that you're an immigrant from Germany, rather than a military person who lived in Germany. Too bad they won't take your German license credentials; having been stationed in Germany myself, I understand how high a licensing standard they have there.

Without a doubt, summer riding here is a totally different experience (I don't remember ever breaking a sweat on my Yamaha back in Germany). But like anything, you get used to it. And you'll love winter riding, since there are essentially NO real winter days in San Antonio.

As for gear, most of us end up with a multitude of jackets for different seasons. I have a Tourmaster winter jacket, a Tourmaster all-season, and an offbrand pure-summer mesh jacket. If you are looking for a single, do-all riding jacket, I would recommend the Tourmaster Flex III. I'm on my second one and love it. I spend most of my riding days wearing a pair of Joe Rocket mesh pants; if it gets cold or wet, I just pull a pair of rain pants over them.

What city are you from? I was stationed in Pirmasens in the mid 70s, which is where I got my motorcycle license. I also lived in Munich & Garmisch in the 60s, and in Karlsruhe in the 50s.
 
Welcome along, you have already discovered one of the best things about this site, no matter what your question is, someone here will probably know something about it!
Good luck with the bike choice and the training, maybe we will meet each other on the road one day. Until then, good luck and ride safe.
 
From the combination of your various posts, I'm taking it that you're an immigrant from Germany, rather than a military person who lived in Germany. Too bad they won't take your German license credentials; having been stationed in Germany myself, I understand how high a licensing standard they have there.



Without a doubt, summer riding here is a totally different experience (I don't remember ever breaking a sweat on my Yamaha back in Germany). But like anything, you get used to it. And you'll love winter riding, since there are essentially NO real winter days in San Antonio.



As for gear, most of us end up with a multitude of jackets for different seasons. I have a Tourmaster winter jacket, a Tourmaster all-season, and an offbrand pure-summer mesh jacket. If you are looking for a single, do-all riding jacket, I would recommend the Tourmaster Flex III. I'm on my second one and love it. I spend most of my riding days wearing a pair of Joe Rocket mesh pants; if it gets cold or wet, I just pull a pair of rain pants over them.



What city are you from? I was stationed in Pirmasens in the mid 70s, which is where I got my motorcycle license. I also lived in Munich & Garmisch in the 60s, and in Karlsruhe in the 50s.



With the right gear, German winters were no problem, anything but ICE was ok on my XT500, so winters meant getting up and dressed early and walking onto asphalt to test condition.
Fresh dry snow on clean asphalt was surprisingly pleasant to drive on.
Same jacket, padded liner removed that kept me warm in winter worked in German summers, wearing nothing that would contain my sweat and my real worry in stop and go was my oil temp going up on the air-cooled bike, if enough of an alley existed I'd drive until the next gap and keep bike cool (cars at rest, not in motion)
Seems that would be frowned upon here. While I've never had anyone tighten up the alley in a jerk move on me, nor observed it happen to anyone on a bike in Germany, I have seen cars and pickups scoot towards the bikes to keep them from advancing plenty of times on stopngo traffic here.

I'm from Nürnberg, just a bit north of Munich along the A9.
Lived there from birth to age 24, at which time I followed my wife back home to San Antonio.

One thing I keep seeing as suggestions is people saying to bring your own bike.
To seemingly unlicensed people.
While it would be nice to do a course on what you drive later, I don't get the legal concept of driving unlicensed to that course :)

Is that username t shelfer or ts helfer?



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When I bought an unplated bike a few years ago and asked how to get it to the inspection station, I was told "Just drive it and don't worry about it." :ponder:

The screen name is tshelfer. That's from my first name (Tim) and last name (Shelfer). An Anglicized German name, by the way. My multi-great granddaddy Tobias Schoelffer got here around 1708, according to my dad's genealogy research.

I've been to Nuernburg - haven't spent much time, but what a beautiful Old Town area! My riding in the 70s was confined to the Pirmasens area. I bought a Yamaha 360 2-stroke enduro just to get around. It clearly wasn't safe on the Autobahn (and I never tried), but it was perfect for the smallish two-lanes that covered the German countryside. Also quite fun for riding the logging roads around Waldfischbach. One of my bucket list items is to return to Garmisch, join up with an American friend who is retired there, and tackle the Alps. Sigh, some day.....
 
I admit I never made it to the Alps, loved my bike just not long distances on it.
Seeing all the trip distances on TWT is pretty impressive.

It's also a big influence on the ever larger pool of "possibles" which now includes (as Yamaha decided not to have a XT600) all of the Suzukawonda enduros.
I won't be able to pick one now unless I can sit on every single one of them and nitpick.
If BMW wouldn't have the "can't touch this" (as work on it) feel from cars I'd include G 650 GS and F 700 GS, really not looking at big, that all others were in 900 range is just that it seems to be "the scrambler size"
I gave myself an upper limit of $9000ish, might end up being an older bike for cash (even nice XT500 in for sale section here), *shrug*, I'm too intoxicated by the thought of buying one, I can't pick ONE. Even the FZ-09 looks ever better. Did I mention the XSR900 looks interesting?

High up if new would be a Triumph Street Twin.
(Street scrambler is outside above budget)

About your Alps trip...Wife saw round trip Houston to Frankfurt tickets for $500 around Thanksgiving, why wait?
Met a lot of Americans of German decent since I live here, with all the German settled towns around here not surprising I guess, funny fate drew me here.


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I will.

Just got in trouble, daughter was supposed to show initiative on her car license if she wants a car and now there's no test available for her until August 2nd, cause I haven't scheduled her one before she did parallel parking. If I had known I'll be in trouble if she is taking her time I'd have pushed her...
In trouble cause I scheduled safety course, the thing I showed initiative on. :>


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Does anyone have a rough idea of what full coverage costs on a motorcycle like BMW 700 GS, Suzuki Vstrom 650 XT or Triumph Street TWIN? All in 9000-10000 range new.

What I can google are huge ranges that are a little too broad for budgeting.

I'm 44 so I have that over 25 bonus.

Does Nationwide really offer the best pricing? I'd like to limit the number of quotes I send out because of the following non stop callbacks even if I already said No.

I currently have Mercury Ins., for reference.

Thanks,

Daniel


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