Yep, that's right, never. Been street riding for 22 years, never had a bike license. Never been pulled over on a bike. Up until this year, the fine was only $25, now it's something like $2500. Yeah, I know... bad Buzz, irresponsible behavior, flagrant disregard for the law, all that, I know.... go ahead and chew on me, I don't care. I'm a miscreant.
But less of a miscreant than I was yesterday, cause today I ran down and got my bike license. By 'ran down' I mean I rode 150 miles into Edmonton and took it. They test here in town, but they only do it Tues. thru Thurs., and you need to book it 10 days in advance. And from all reports, the guy that does the testing is a bit of a wanker, and fails most everybody at least once, since he gets paid by the test(privatization
). And I ain't taking time off work to do it.But in the city, you can book a test for the following day at dozens of places. So I did that Sat. for today. And I took the test. And passed. And now I'm all legal-like and good to go.
Some observations on the whole deal....
They never once asked me to prove the bike had insurance or registration, or how I got it there from Wainwright. Odd
All the checked was signal and brakelight function.
The tester laid out some cones in the parking lot of the stripmall the office is located in and had me weave and shift and brake and all the basic bike control skills. During one of the u-turns I had to make, some chick in a mini-truck came backing out of her parking spot some distance away and kept backing right past my front wheel and into my cone-course. I had to emergency stop during a slow speed u-turn, right when I had the bike leaned right over. I waited for her to do whatever the hell she was doing and leave(she gave me the finger as she went past again on her way out) and I finished my run. I asked the tested if I got extra points for that, as he had said, "don't worry about traffic or anything, nobody will bother us over here" ... good thing I always look around and trust nobody, she came at me from my blindside. No extra credit, but he had a choice name for her just like me.
Then I had to do a road test. He gave me directions once, a route with 14 turns in it, in Millwoods(you have to have driven in Millwoods to understand this) and said I would be judged on not making any route mistakes on top of the riding part. Trying to remember and find my way was harder than riding..... I turned too close to some bum jay-riding his bicycle against the light and lost 2 marks for that, other than that, I got everything right. Yeah, I know, I'm amazed too. 100% on the written exam(moron-level easy) and I'm legal to be turned loose on 2 wheels. The tester did ask me if I just bought the bike. I said, "uuhh yeah, sure, whatever......". He said, " well it looks like you've been riding it for awhile..." and left it at that. So did I.
And that was it. As a bonus, I renewed my license as it's due in a few months anyway, and my new pic is me with helmet hair and in my Alipinestars jacket.
