Greetings from the South!

[GilHirien]

Hey everybody, I'm a new rider down here in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I am 23 years old, a Probation/Electronic Monitoring officer, and I dabble in all manner of senseless things like blacksmithing, bowyering, crafting, and artsy things in general.

I bought my bike about a month ago due to the unfortunate event of my truck engine blowing up O_o . I was looking for some alternate transportation while I look for an engine for my truck ('97 Ford F-150) and happened upon a listing on Craigslist for a GZ250. Guy was asking $1200 for it initially which is about what I had on hand at the time (only because I happened to get a bonus from my job the morning before my engine blew up; Luck, I have none). Talked him down to $900, before he discovered a problem. Darn thing kept blowing the main fuse when shifting out of neutral. Offered it to me for $300 and I loaded up with a friend of my brother who works on bikes to pick the thing up. I figured as long as nothing catastrophic was wrong, I could fix it up for cheaper than the initial asking price and come out okay. Got down there, replaced the fuse, took a quick look at some of the wires, got it running and loaded it up on the back of my associate's pickup for $450. The problem BTW was, as I discovered upon closer inspection at my house, that the wiring harness had gotten pushed up by the chain and had begun to wear away at the wires on a hard shift. The result of course was that it eventually contacted bare wire jumping into first and grounded the wire causing the fuse to blow. Took all of 15 minutes to fix. I have since put on some additional lights up front which REALLY help for the night rides. Unfortunately I've either created or happened upon another electrical problem that will soon be posted in the appropriate section for assistance.

Its done me really good so far, and I love the hell out of it. Aside from my first day on the thing (also my first day on a bike EVER) I have never had any problems with it. The first day was an adventurous affair though and I have a lovely 4" scar on my left shin now :roll: . It was a noob mistake. I pulled into the driveway after going round the block and my brother was beside me talking. I tried to kick it up into neutral but went into second by mistake and since I was busy talking I neither heard, felt or saw myself go too far. I let go of the clutch and the handlebar with my left hand with my right hand still on the brake, not that it did any good, and the bike took off toward the house. Being brand new to motorcycles and more than a little panicked I couldn't seem to get my hand back on the clutch. I managed to swerve right and miss the brick of the house by inches but ran myself straight along and slightly inside of the bushes in front of the house before I regained my grip and toppled the bike over in the grass on top of myself. Was LOTS of fun! The bushes gouged my leg pretty good despite the long pants (thank God for 5.11's) and now I have a pretty gruesome looking scar . Anyway, was back on the bike the next day and I've been in love ever since!