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How many of you feel that you are good motorcycle riders? Me too, or at least I thought I was. I am now thirty-one years old and have been dreaming about motorcycles my whole life. I’m not sure why or what attracted me to them, but my fascination with two wheels and a motor can be traced all the way back to the first couple of years of my life. My mom swears that my first compound word was “motorcycle.” She tells stories of me climbing out of my car seat just to get a glimpse of one passing us on the highway. A dirt bike got top billing on my Christmas list each year and I never missed an episode of CHIPS. Unfortunately, my family and I lived in a small city in Northern New Jersey where concrete and asphalt covered much of the ground and kids played basketball and stickball in the school playgrounds. There were no open fields or wooded trails anywhere nearby to warrant having a dirt bike so it seemed I would never get one.
In 1983, at eight years old my luck would change. My aunt, uncle and two cousins moved to central New Jersey and built a new home in what seemed to me to be the middle of the woods. It was glorious. On my first visit I could hear two strokes in the distance. My cousin and I rode our BMX bikes down a few trails and about 2 miles from his house was a big open sand pit with dirt bike and 4 wheel drive trucks everywhere. It took a lot of begging but my Dad finally conceded and bought me my first bike, a 1983 Honda XR80, to keep at my aunt and uncle’s new house. I couldn’t even touch the ground with either of my feet, but that was a minor detail. I was riding. My Dad even got his own bike as did my uncle and cousin. We rode trails all over central New Jersey whenever we had the chance. By 1989, I could handle a bike well. Wheelies, jumps, etc were all second nature. Unfortunately, as I got older I had less time to ride.
After the summer of 1989, I sold my bike and entered high school. My focus was on the usual high school things, homework, sports and girls. My four years at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, NJ were very enjoyable. I made many lifelong friends, graduated in the top 15 in my class and was a multiple varsity letter winner in two sports. It was great, but I didn’t once ride a motorcycle.
In the fall of 1993, I arrived on the campus of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA as a freshman. As a pre-med student I struggled academically. The workload was intense. Returning for my sophomore year, it didn’t get any easier and I almost transferred out. Finally I was forced to drop out of the pre-med program and find a new path. At this point, two things went my way. I found that I was much more adept at studying History and I over heard a friend talking about a motorcycle his dad had taken apart and didn’t know how to put back together. I ended up buying that pile of parts for $250. Two weeks later, I had a fully operational 1983 Honda Magna V45 750cc bike to ride. I graduated in the spring of 1997 with a respectable GPA and my Honda Magna.
Over next few years I purchased and sold several other bikes. Some on the sportier side like a Suzuki VX 800 and Ducati Monster 750. Some more cruiser orientated like a Harley-Davidson Sportster and Super Glide. At twenty seven years old and a decent amount of motorcycle riding experience on both the dirt and on the street, I really thought I was a good rider.
In the summer of 2002, I made the decision to return to school to obtain my Masters Degree in Business Administration. I choose to leave my full-time job so that I could focus on getting through the MBA program as quickly as possible. I needed to make some extra cash part-time so I applied for a sales position at several local motorcycle dealerships. A Harley-Davidson dealership hired me at the end of September. I promptly ordered a 2003 H-D FXDX Super Glide Sport model for myself which was due to arrive in February. Being that it was the 100th anniversary year for Harley, bikes were selling quickly. A regular customer of the dealership came in looking for the exact bike I ordered for myself. I sold the ordered bike to him. Almost simultaneously Buell unveiled the new XB9S Buell Lightning. The bike looked like fun, similar to the Ducati Monster that I had previously so I bought it instead. That winter I customized it so it would be one of a kind. Bill Lamb, now of Lambspeed, was just transitioning from auto repair to custom bike painting and hooked me up with a great looking paint scheme. I had the wheels, swingarm and a bunch of other small parts powder coated. A custom header, a D&D muffler and clip-on style bars were added to make the transformation to streetfighter complete.
In August of 2003, B.R.A.G., Buell Rider Adventure Group, had contracted a sportbike club called Team Promotion to host a day of instructed riding on the East Course at Pocono International Raceway. I signed up and went with my good friend, Craig West. The morning was very humbling. It only took 3 classroom sessions and 3 track sessions with the coaches to realize that I really wasn’t as good a rider as I thought. During lunch, a massive thunder storm cut our day short and we packed our equipment back into the trailer. A short three hours was all I needed to catch a glimpse of the true meaning of owning and riding a sportbike.
I waited until the following spring to get back to the track with Team Promotion. I started all over again in the Advanced Rider Training class as a “newbie.” Improving my riding skills, overcoming fears and becoming more comfortable with my bike was very addicting. The enthusiasm with which I approached my very first Honda XR50 was back. Yep, twenty years of riding experience and I’m just learning what it takes to ride for real. I vowed to go to the track to ride at least once per month to get better.
Fast-forward three years and I have completed my MBA program, work full-time as the Sales Manager of a Harley-Davidson/Buell, own a specialized powder coating facility called GrandStand Designs and I am about to embark on a journey to compete in the Mid-Atlantic Division of the Championship Cup Series (CCS). Because of time and distance constraints, I will focus on the races held in West Virginia at Summit Point Motorsports Park. My goals this season are: 1. to build a competitive Buell XB9R to race in several of the lightweight class that CCS offers to amateur racers, 2. to learn more about riding and racing by improving myself, my techniques and my equipment, and 3. to accumulate enough points to place in the top 3 in the Summit Point Track Championships.
Follow me and my grass roots effort here at Riderznation.com or on my website at grandstanddesigns.com, as I chronicle my season for you. And for anyone out there that thinks they have nothing left to learn about riding, I challenge you to make an appointment to ride with a local track day organization and find out if your skills are as good as you think!
Peter Alesso
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