Where to Start?

[RinkRat II]

Congrats and Welcome Berto! Something I learned a long time ago was to find a small Industrial park or shopping center that's closed on sat or sun. Use it as your own private practice track. Entering driveways, leaving driveways,left turns, right turns, slow speed manouvers you get the idea. Put into practice all the good stuff your learning in the courses and most of it will become second nature after a while. Ride Well 

      Paul B

[Tom]

Welcome Berto!.  Hold-off on tackling NYC until you have loads of road experience.  It's takes a lot of street smarts to take on the BIG APPLE.  It's no place to be a beginner on a street bike.  If you have a bike lift, you don't need a center stand.  You definitely can't to a dirt bike milk crate stand for maintenance.

[lucydad]

Berto,

A few more:

-- stay the heck out of NYC until you have gobs of experience, traffic density and roads are vicious (was visiting there 2 weeks ago)
--  you go where you look, this simple concept is CRITICAL to remember, always look through those curves, and down the road as far as possible
--Smooth baby, always smooth on the controls, brakes gradual on/off,  throttle control, everything.

[jumpmaster]

The first place I check when I'm looking for new riding gear is www.motorcyclegear. com     They even have a "customer's closet" section of used gear.  I got my daughter a very nice and barely broken in leather jacket for something like $90 there.

 :1: :1: :1:   Aerostich (or however its spelled) may be the "industry standard" but IMO it has been pretty much caught by several other companies that provide as much product value at a considerably more reasonable price.  The link above carries all kinds of motorcycle apparel from most of the major players, with informal product impressions (which tend to be pretty helpful).  They used to be almost exclusively sellers of factory closeouts & factory seconds (with minor "flaws" like crookedly sewn tags & the like), but they now also are selling some current stuff, when they get a good price from the distributor.  Have the patience to wait & watch for what you need, & when/if it comes up in their "closeouts" section, it can be had for 50%, 75% & even sometimes 80+% off retail. 

[Tom]

Berto,

A few more:

-- stay the heck out of NYC until you have gobs of experience, traffic density and roads are vicious (was visiting there 2 weeks ago)
--  you go where you look, this simple concept is CRITICAL to remember, always look through those curves, and down the road as far as possible
--Smooth baby, always smooth on the controls, brakes gradual on/off,  throttle control, everything.

That's what I said.