This summer I bought a motorcycle from my Uncle B, a 1972 Honda CB350 Twin, which looks exactly like this. This bike had essentially been baking in a garage for the past 7 years, but was otherwise pristine and has only ~6k miles on it.

I took it to a local shop with the purpose of bringing my bike into the new millennium, and finally got it back¹ today. As I didn’t have a truck to tow it with, I had to drive it back to my apartment. I do have my motorcycle license, but it had been quite a number of months since I had actually ridden a motorcycle, so some of the minor points were a bit fuzzy, like which direction on the left foot pedal was an up-shift and which direction was a down-shift. As it turns out, pushing down is a down-shift and lifting the peg upwards with your toe is an up-shift; you can see how this could be a source of confusion. This led to me stalling on Marsh St. right in front of Fosters Freeze. This particular location wouldn’t have been especially troublesome if it hadn’t been the first Saturday of the month between the hours of noon and one.

As it happens, between the hours of noon and one on the first Saturday of the month, the San Luis Obispo scooter club meets. Let me emphasize that there are exactly twelve hours in the year that these people meet in this precise location. This meant that a group of people who I (used to) hang out with were watching me as I rode up, first in recognition and envy of my sweet new ride, and secondly, to whistle and yell derisively at my apparent inability to manage a simple stoplight.

1. If anyone wants the name of a motorcycle shop to NOT go to, I’d be happy to oblige.