My First Ride To Work

Rode into work on Saturday.

I'd already ridden for about an hour that morning.

I made a quick stop to check out the new Dillon Yamaha/Honda/Suzuki/Kawasaki dealership that opened up today right next to the Dillon Brothers Harley-Davidson dealership.

I quickly realized a few things:

• Don't let your shirt hang open while you ride. Button it up. Sucks at highway speeds to have your shirt blowing around.
• Secure saddlebags before you go.
• I need the Detachable Solo Luggage Rack ASAP.
• If you have the Harley Profile Sunglasses/Goggles, don't forget to bring the case containing the clear lenses for the ride home at 11 at night.

Great ride home. Lots of fun. I went the long way, via surface streets and took my time.

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First Day Of Rider’s Edge Course Done

As I mentioned before, I managed to get into an earlier date for the Rider's Edge motorcycle safety course offered at Dillon Brothers Harley-Davidson here in Omaha, Nebraska.

After waking up, I gathered all the equipment I'd need for the class - one of my helmets, my sunglasses and my gloves - and headed over to Dillon Harley, showing up there at 7:30 in the morning. It was already warm and muggy.

The door to the service entrance was open, and after walking in I was directed upstairs to where the class was going to be held.

A few other people who had signed up to take the class were already in the classroom, watching an introductory video. I was very surprised to see that there were 5 men, the oldest of which was 75, and 5 women, the youngest of which was 19 or so. Most of the other people in the class seemed very interested in buying and riding a Harley-Davidson bike of some kind.

It looks like Harley-Davidson's marketing to women might be paying off?

The instructors were great, they really made everyone feel at home and welcome. They did remind everyone that in order to get on a bike later on that day, we'd have to be fully equipped to ride. Helmet, eye protection, long sleeves, long pants, boots and gloves were all necessary. Because of the heat, I would have preferred to be able to wear some long shorts instead of jeans, but that idea was nixed during an earlier phone call I'd gotten from the safety course instructors.

Did I mention it was already hot at 7:30 in the morning? Did I mention that the temperature was supposed to get up to about 100 degrees? Did I mention how humid it was?

Still, I was excited that I was finally in the class that'd result in me getting my motorcycle license, so I figured I'd suck it up for a few days. The result would be worth it.

After a few "get-to-know-everyone" exercises, we started to go over the Motorcycle Safety Foundation manuals that we'd gotten mailed to us the weeks prior to the class. A lot of the information was review to me, but there were people there who obviously hadn't ridden a motorcycle before so they were getting some valuable info.

Breaks were frequent, but not excessive.

The information presented was useful, and refreshed a lot of what I had known previously but forgotten.

Lunch was at 11:30 and lasted for an hour. Since Dillon Harley is about 5 minutes from my house, I just went back home and ate lunch there. Other people who were taking the course and who didn't live so close to the Dillon Brothers Harley dealership had a good selection of places that they could pick up either fast-food or not-so-fast-food.

After lunch we did some quick review over the common controls of a motorcycle and then headed over to the range, which was right next to the new Dillon Brothers Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki dealership that was being built right next to the Dillon Brothers Harley dealership. One-stop shopping for just about every motorcycle brand that could interest you. Not bad.

It was about 1:30 or so when we stepped foot on the range, and it was hot - at least 100 degrees hot. And it was humid. I started sweating immediately. Fortunately, I had brought a cooler filled with 4 water bottles, some coke and ice - which I went back to whenever we had a break. By the time we were done, all my drinks were gone.

We each picked out a bike. The motorcycles we were going to learn on were Buell Blasts. A Buell Blast is a smaller sports bike - only 500cc. The bikes had seen better days, which I kind of expected. These are the motorcycles that people train on, after all. They're going to get dropped, and they're not going to be pristine.

The class ran through some directed exercises which looked like motorcycle aerobics. We got on, we got off, we turned the bikes on, we turned the bikes off. From there, we graduated to walking the motorcycles back and forth, learning how they felt. Then we moved to turning them on and finding the clutch friction zone, rocking back and forth.

Fun stuff.

It was a little slow for me, but I could tell that some people were having difficulty with it. Others just needed a little practice and picked it right up.

Eventually we got to go from one end of the course to the other, after which we'd go back to neutral, turn around and do it again. My group was slowed down by two of the people in it, but what are you going to do? Because I was being slowed down a bit, I kind of got a little frustrated with the speed of the class and started to "forget" to shift down to neutral while turning. It all came back to me and I did quite well. I would, at this point, have no problem hitting the street on this little bike.

One of the older gentlemen in the group seemed to have a very hard time controlling his motorcycle. He didn't drop it, but didn't manage to figure out how to get to the point where his feet were up. He also looked like he was having a very tough time turning the thing while he walked. I don't think we'll see him back tomorrow.

Another lady seemed to sort of grasp the concept of letting the bike do the work, but she also seemed to have problems controlling things. It was the whole "slowly let out the clutch and roll the throttle" concept which she struggled with - which is understandable if you've never driven a standard shift. She managed along while we were out there, but when it came time to finish up, she neglected to put the kickstand down while getting off the bike and it fell on her.

I'm not sure we'll see her tomorrow either. We'll see.

Tomorrow, we are going to be out on the course the first thing in the morning, which should help a bit with the heat. We'll have a whole slew of exercises to go through, so I'm hoping to learn something.

At this point, I'm chomping at the bit to get my own motorcycle.

Jason Davis at Dillon Brothers Harley-Davidson is in the process of helping me out with that, and I'll give you more info on that later.

Visiting Holstein’s Harley-Davidson Dealership For The First Time

As part of the whole process of shopping for a new motorcycle, I'm going to be checking out as many dealers in the Omaha area that I can. When you're preparing yourself to drop about $18,000 to $19,000 on a new motorcycle, you want to make sure that the place you buy it from is going to be able to take care of you, that you can trust them a bit not to rip you off.

From the looks of things, unless they want to drive for a while, people who are interested in buying a Harley in the Omaha area have three choices - Dillon Brothers Harley at 180th and Maple, Frontier Harley in Lincoln and Holstein Harley-Davidson at 72nd and L street.

While it's not the first dealership I went to, I did have the opportunity to stop by the new showroom of Holstein's Harley-Davidson on the 15th of May, 2009.

Holstein's Harley-Davidson new store is located at 4940 South 72nd Street, right across from where Rod Kush's furniture store is/used to be.

I've been talking with some co-workers about different dealerships in the area, listening to their experiences and getting ideas about what the motorcycle-buying scene in Omaha is about. We have some long-term riders in my workplace, who have been buying motorcycles for decades in the Omaha area. Everyone I've talked to about the different dealerships in the area have been pretty unanimous - with most people having a negative opinion of Holstein's Harley. In some cases, vehemently negative opinions...

I've been told that Holstein's dealership wasn't really interested in selling bikes, that they just kept the franchise to get the dealership discount, that their service department sucks, that they treated people like dirt during the years that they were the only Harley dealer in town - that type of thing.

I snuck the visit in with the wife as we were heading home from Kubat's pharmacy, so I went with my wife and kids in tow. The kids were tired and the wife was tired of the kids being tired, but she indulged me and hauled everyone inside to check things out.

From what I could tell during my visit to the Holstein's dealership, it looked like they'd put some money into the building and the presentation of the place. It was very clean and well-lit. They had a pretty good selection of bikes on the floor, both new and used.

From what I saw, they had about as many bikes on the floor as Dillon Brother's Harley has. I wandered up and down the aisles and checked out the bikes. I noticed that Holstein marks their freight and dealer prep on the tags attached to the bikes - something that was missing during my many previous visits to Dillon Brothers.

I was asked once if I needed any help by a youngish-looking salesguy. I didn't need any at the moment, told him so and he left me alone, which is what I wanted. There were a few other customers in the store, more customers than salesguys, so I figured I'd let him go help someone who might want to buy today.

The selection of clothing and accessory merchandise didn't seem as extensive in Holstein's dealership as it did in Dillon Brothers. I checked out a few helmets while I was there, and was helped by a nice saleswoman. Woman, not girl. She seemed knowledgable about helmets and was eager to help me find what I needed. When she didn't have the exact helmet that I was looking for in stock, she took down my information and told me it would be ready in about 5 days. She asked if I was law enforcement, I explained my situation and she told me to mention it when I pick the helmet up to get a discount. Good customer service there, as long as they get back with me.

Despite what I've heard about their dealership, my first experience visiting Holstein's Harley-Davidson dealership was a good one. I haven't actually talked to anyone there at length, but I'm waiting for that call back about the helmet and will talk to an actual bike salesperson the next time I stop by. We'll see how that goes.
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