The Second Time I Took the Motorcycle Test

[GrayRider]

Ohio requires a motorcycle endorsement on your driver's license in order to legally operate a motorcycle. To get one, you have to take both a written and riding test. The written test is pretty standard and the riding test includes weaving in out of traffic cones that are set about 10-12 feet apart while riding at an extremely slow speed. I took the tests and received my endorsement in 1973.

A few years later, someone asked to see what the endorsement looked like on my license. While they were looking at it they noticed that the license had been expired for over six months. The next day, I went to several different offices of the OBMV, only to be told that I'd have to take the driver's test over again for both..car and motorcycle!

At that time, I was riding a '75 FX with 8" over stock fork tubes. There was no way that I could perform the required maneuvers of the test on that motorcycle. A friend that had a 500 Kawasaki offered to let me use it for the test. "Should be easy," I thought.

The day of the test, my buddy rode over to my house then we both rode to the testing area, he on the Kaw and me on the Harley. Arriving at the test sight, all eyes seemed to be on the long haired guy on the chopper, including the test officer dressed in full uniform and sporting the demeanor of Sgt. Carter or other fictional drill sergeant. He scowled as I dismounted and made some comment about hippie bikers, or such to the group of other riders standing around their small motorcycles.

When it was my turn, the test officer made some smart assed comment about me again, but I ignored him and rode onto the course. Now, I'd never ridden this Kawasaki before and had assumed that it would be a piece of cake. I was wrong. I had only just begun when the throttle stuck open. The two stroke revved up and I was only able to control the bike's speed by riding the clutch. There was no time to leave the course for a repair, as I had already started the test and to turn back would ensure instant failure. So off I went, the Kaw blowin' smoke and making that awful.."ringa dinga dinga" noise two strokes make.

As I passed the first cone and began to lean the bike over between it and the second cone, I suddenly became aware of something on that motorcycle that I'd never noticed before. He had installed an engine guard on the thing and then added makeshift highway pegs onto the guard, which seemed to stick out 5 feet on each side! That's an exaggeration, of course, but that's the way it appeared at the moment!

So here I was,.. on a two stroke Kaw, ..with the throttle stuck open,.. rapidly pulling the clutch in and out.. and maneuvering the thing between highway cones on a bike that seemed to be as wide as a house trailer! ... I passed through the first two cones, with the left highway peg just inches off the pavement, and the right highway peg passing just inches over the top of the second cone. Quicly I swung the bike to the right, repeating the procedure through the next set of cones.

After successfully making it through the coned obstacle course, I rode around the rest of the course then came to the required stop in front of the test officer and beeped the horn, as also required. The officer sneered as he wrote the passing grade on the sheet of paper on his clipboard, shook his head and growled, "Some biker."

I dismounted the bike, took the paper he offered and said, "You don't know how great a ride that was, man..Evel Knievel couldn't have done any better on that bike."

We repaired the crimped throttle cable on the Kaw and headed out. It was good to be back on the Super Glide on the way home. I was certainly grateful that my buddy had loaned me his bike for the test,...but I never got on it again and I've kept a close eye on the expiration date on my DL ever since.