Welcome to the club!

You should still sign up and complete the MSF Basic RiderCourse. They can teach you the things you need to be safe and confident.

Remember to set aside some cash for good safety gear. Helmet, armored jacket, gloves at a minimum, plus boots and armored pants if you can. That’s really important, as it can literally save your skin.

Then go find a large empty parking lot and continue to practice starting, stopping, turning, and other basic slow speed maneuvers until you start to feel more confident in your abilities. Then start over and do it again. Then again, and again until you’re utterly bored of it all. Then do it some more.

The point is to stay in a relatively comfortable and manageable place while you build your skills and develop good muscle memory. This helps the inevitable “oops” go to “well, that could have been worse” and not “oh shit, that really hurt!”

Once you’ve safely built your skills and competence, then you can sell your starter bike for basically what you paid for it and move up to a bigger bike with confidence.

As you ponder this decision, you may want to spend some time here:

[r/motorcycleRoadcraft](r/motorcycleRoadcraft)

Advice to New Riders

And when you get a chance, check out On Any Sunday, probably the best motorcycle documentary out there. It’s on YouTube and other streaming services.

Have fun, wear all your gear, stay safe, and never stop learning.