Imposter no more: Becoming a motorcyclist later than most

Wait... what? Why eight miles an hour?

Well, it was because I was an imposter. The Virago was actually a green Huffy one-speed with a banana seat, and in 1980 I was only 12 years old. I imagined my bike was a Yamaha Virago ever since I saw an ad for that motorcycle in either Sports Illustrated or National Geographic, I don't really remember which. But I followed that ritual every day for a long time. I remember for whatever reason it made me feel happy. So maybe it was fate that roughly 40 years later I actually started to ride after joining RevZilla. Yep, I started riding as I turned 53.

Editor's note: Steve Bontempo is President of RevZilla and J&P Cycles and Chief Marketing Officer for all Comoto Brands.

A life on two wheels, but pedal power

This wasn't a complete stunner to those close to me, as two wheels have always been a part of my life, just powered by legs versus an engine. It probably started as a passenger on my dad's bike as a toddler. From there, like most every other suburban kid of that time, we made ramps out of any plywood we could find (or steal) and jumped at full speed. We crashed a lot. We went charging down any hill near our houses and we raced each other… all… day… long. Bikes were the mode of transportation to friends' houses, to the supermarket with a pocket full of quarters to play Asteroids, or to travel a couple neighborhoods over to play that neighborhood's crew in pickup baseball.

During these years I was also playing organized youth sports and I was good enough that I landed in that "track," playing soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. I played CYO and high school sports and continued to play casually after that. The imaginary Virago was garaged.

I didn’t have a dad who was a rider or a tinkerer. None of the kids I hung out with rode motorcycles. As I have gotten to know so many motorcyclists over the last five years, I have come to understand that the "organized sports" track and the "powersports" track are mutually exclusive. (What surprised me is how many riders I know also play a musical instrument. There are tons of guitarists at RevZilla.)

Even though the imaginary Virago was garaged, I stayed on two wheels. Riding all over South Jersey as a teen, riding all over Philadelphia in my post-college years, towing my kids after marriage behind a hybrid, and eventually becoming an avid mountain biker and racing Cats 2 and 3 in the Mid-Atlantic Super Series. Taking destination riding trips anywhere I could find amazing trails, scenery, and cool towns (think Moab, Crested Butte, Sedona, Big Sky). I used a road bike to supplement my mountain biking and did a couple of century rides every year. Everyone who knows me knows I am a biking enthusiast. I have the miles and the injury resume as proof! It was part of the reason I was a solid fit for the role I took with RevZilla in 2019. I wasn't a motorcyclist, but I was an enthusiast.

That word, "enthusiast," has been a constant throughout my career. I have been in retail my entire working life, over 34 years. I have always served the enthusiast consumer. It started in sporting goods as a product buyer, moved to running the eCommerce businesses for all the professional sports leagues, and serving fitness enthusiasts while working at the Vitamin Shoppe. I understand the mindset of enthusiast customers. They aren't just buying a thing. They are adding one more element to the depth of their passion.

So when the stars aligned in late 2019 and the opportunity to work in a two-wheel-enthusiast-based business in the city I love presented itself, I immediately went for it. The only problem was, I was an imposter again. No Virago in my garage. A non-rider coming on to run a big part of a motorcycle company full of riders. There was no denying I understood enthusiast retail, but I was not a motorcyclist, and this is a tribe. And while it is true that you meet the nicest people on a motorcycle, they also know riders from non-riders.

I dedicated myself to changing that and becoming a rider.

Earning a spot in the tribe

My progress toward becoming a motorcyclist started slower than I imagined as the pandemic dropped out of the sky in March, 2020. But within six months I started the journey towards acquiring my endorsement. One of my peers at work, Stevan (that is spelled correctly) took the time to get me on a little Benelli 300 in the parking lot of RevZilla and got me comfortable with the basics. Like most first-timers, it was the clutch I was worried about. Once in my late teens I took a job as a delivery driver for a flower shop after claiming that I knew how to drive a manual transmission van. All I can say is that it did not end well. But now, with the wisdom and patience of age and a good teacher, I picked it up easily enough.

RevZilla sells stuff, so I purchased some of the basic gear and took the MSF course. A mix of anxious and intimidated is where I was when we started, but the course does a great job at nursing you along. In Pennsylvania, if you pass the course you've also passed your test and get your endorsement. Once done, I picked up a 2021 BMW F 750 GS. Based on my mountain biking history, I wanted something I could eventually use both on and off-road.

Just getting a motorcycle license would not be enough. It wouldn't be enough to be an executive who could ride but didn't really ride. Not only did I want to know and understand the customer better by being a rider myself, I also wanted to earn the respect of the people in the tribe.

For any new rider coming from the bicycle world, the power and weight of the motorcycle take some getting used to. Learning clutch control, slow maneuvering, and cornering at speed takes work and practice. I got the BMW late in the season that first year, so it was really the next year I started to log a lot of miles, mostly commuting to work from Bucks County to the Philly Navy Yard, 35 miles each way. I ride in rush hour, often in congested traffic, and it is an amazing place to practice. I learned to anticipate the "questionable" moves people driving cars often make. In addition to ATGATT, I got an airbag, which gives me and my wife some added peace of mind that I am protected as well as I can be.

As you might have figured out at this point, knowing my background on two wheels, I fell in love with the motorcycle. Riding a motorcycle has all the same benefits to me that riding a mountain bike does with the added appeal of speed and controlling a lot of power. The adrenaline junkie in me gets plenty of exercise.

Next: Trying new experiences

You can ask any one of my four kids what their dad believes life is about and they will all readily tell you "He'd say it is about experiences." So I am on a journey to experience as much as I can on a motorcycle, or as much as my wife, Nadine, will tolerate. I am blessed and lucky to be working at RevZilla so I can blame it on "work." It was work when I rented a KTM 890 Adventure and rode from Denver to Sturgis over four mountain passes, trailing behind three other riders much better than me. It was work when I rented a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide (in the top photo that's me on the right with my colleague, Anthony) and rode from Dallas to Austin for MotoGP in the driving rain. It was work when I rode from Philly to Ithaca, N.Y., over the amazing roads of the Finger Lakes region to visit my son at school. Well, that one really wasn't work.

One recent experience was a track day sponsored by RevZilla at New Jersey Motorsports Park. I was really nervous about this one. As I rode in it was interesting to take in the elaborate setups riders have for these track days. All sorts of RVs, haulers, tents, E-Z UPs to support their day of riding. Bikes on stands with tire warmers. This was serious stuff and I was sufficiently intimidated!

The track-day organization does a great job of easing in first-time track-day riders, with 15-minute sessions on track and teaching skills in between. But damn, it is a different level of intense and you need to commit to pushing yourself. I used my own bike, so I definitely wasn't the fastest, but my more experienced co-worker, Nick, told me I was using pretty much all of the tire and that made me feel good since I feel cornering isn't my strength (on bikes or motorcycles). I had a pucker moment while running off into the grass after going wide in a turn, but I stayed upright. I knew what I did wrong, shook it off, and I was able to correct it going forward. I finished the day with an amazing feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment and greater confidence as a rider.

And no, I didn't get my knee all the way down, and yes, I will do it again.

Most recently, Spurgeon Dunbar offered to take me on a dual-sport charity ride on the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Pine Barrens are part of Wharton State Park in South Jersey. 122 acres of pine trees and trails (not all moto-accessible but enough to get lost and play for hours) with lots of sand and whoops. While slow, I feel like I did pretty well for a first-timer. My mountain bike skills kicked in for getting through sand and hitting dirt moguls. The challenges were shifting while standing; that took some getting used to. Learning to prioritize the rear brake versus the front sent me flying over the handlebar early on. It felt like a mountain bike crash on steroids! I will say, I clearly needed to be in better shape and lasted just short of three hours. We’ll work on that. But, another experience in the books!

The Pine Barrens ride was to get me prepped  for adventure riding in South Dakota later this July at RevZilla’s Get On! Adventure Fest. I’m renting a Aprilia Taureg 660. I will definitely still be in beginner mode, but am stoked for the experience. Last on tap for this year, a ride from Seattle to Sturgis on a Harley-Davidson Pan-America for the 85th Sturgis rally and J&P Cycles’ 45th year at the rally. That’ll be three days of riding through Washington, through Glacier National Park in Montana, down through Wyoming, and into South Dakota. I can’t wait as Glacier is on my bucket list.

After all that, we'll see. On a positive note, while I am still a new rider in terms of years, I feel like the people I work with respect my effort to become a rider and they see how happy it makes my soul. I'm grateful for the opportunity to add these experiences, even if they started later in life.

I don't feel like an imposter anymore, but now I feel every bit of the joy I felt when I was 12 years old, pretending I was riding a motorcycle.