Six Tricks to Convince Your Parents to Let You Ride
Photo by Nathan Tran.
Whenever I talk about riding with my friends who don’t ride, they always tell me that they would ride, but for one reason or another, they can’t. Most of my friends are not interested in motorcycles, but the normal ones almost always have the same excuse: their parents won’t let them. Picture this: you ask your parents if you can get a 2021 Honda CBR500R during a road trip to Orlando, Florida. However, you get shut down immediately and have to listen to an unskippable cutscene about how your father’s brother’s dog died in a motorcycle accident in 1996. While I can’t blackmail your parents into letting you ride, I can provide you with these six tricks that you can use to convince your parents to let you ride.
1. Be a good boy/girl
I am not saying to wash more dishes and vacuum more floors just because you want a bike. That trick used to work when you were 10 years old, but you’re not 10 anymore. However, if you already help out a lot around the house, keep doing that. By showing your parents that you’re not a bum, it will help steer them towards the idea that you are ready for more responsibility. Just don’t make it too obvious. Yes, you want a bike, but that is completely unrelated to you doing housework. Just do the housework to help out around the house, and that may sway your parents to the other side.
2. Have a friend that rides
Bonus points if you can help said friend wrench on motorcycles. There are 2 benefits to this. The first is that you can point to your friend and show your parents that it is possible to ride a motorcycle as a teen without being involved in a 186 mph head on collision every other week. The second is that, if your friend lets you try their bikes, you can tell your parents about a “funny story” of you swinging a leg over a motorcycle, even if that motorcycle is a Coleman CT200U or a Chinese dual sport. Assuming your parents don’t whoop you into next Tuesday after that stunt, this technique’s effectiveness increases exponentially if your friend has 2 bikes and both of you go on relatively far rides. If you can ride someone else’s motorcycle, why can’t you ride one that you bought yourself? That is the argument that you can make to your parents when you eventually decide to pick up your first motorcycle off of Facebook Marketplace.
3. Take the MSF Course
The best thing about this trick is that even if it fails, you get to walk away with a motorcycle license. Instead of telling your parents that you want to get a motorcycle, tell them that you want to take the MSF course. Even if your parents follow up by asking you what you plan to do after you take the MSF course, you can just say that you will get your motorcycle license. By taking the MSF course, you learn how to ride a motorcycle and waive the road test at the DMV. If you take it at WCTC, expect to pay around $290. If you pass the skills test at the end of the MSF course, you get a card. This card, after you pass the written test for your M license, allows you to skip straight to the full M license. Having your M license may be the final straw in the camel’s back to make your parents cave and let you ride. However, even if that doesn’t work, at least you have your M license, so you can simply get a bike when you grow up.
4. Less bike, more gear
Instead of talking obsessively about motorcycles, talk more obsessively about gear. This will make you appear more safety conscious rather than excited to ride. However, if you know your parents would sooner push your grandma down the stairs rather than let you ride, I would hold off on buying the gear. Helmets don’t last forever, even if you don’t get into an accident with them. The foam eventually degrades, so try to buy a helmet as late as you can before going on your first ride. Gear can make you look cool as well. There are so many cool looking helmets, jackets, boots, gloves, and pants out there that putting together a motorcycle fit is a challenge in itself. Just don’t cheap out on gear, for obvious reasons.
5. Get a (metric) cruiser
Everyone here knows the difference between a sportbike and a cruiser, right? An easy way to tell the difference is that the sportbike rider is dressed like a power ranger and lane splitting on the highway at 186 miles per hour, while the cruiser (Harley) rider is pulling out of the bar wearing nothing but their MC vest and sunglasses after having their 17th beer. Neither of these options look appealing to your parents, but what if I told you that there is something in the middle? Introducing the metric cruiser, which mostly refers to cruisers made by Japanese manufacturers. Metric cruisers tend to be very accessible beginner bikes due to their low seat height and beginner friendly engines. In addition, they don’t carry the stigma that sportbikes and Harleys do. If you are going to talk to your parents about motorcycles, your only chance to convince them may be to talk about buying a metric cruiser to show that you don’t plan on lane splitting on the highway at 186 miles per hour dressed like a power ranger on your Ninja 400.
6. Get an even smaller bike
If your parents don’t even want you on a metric cruiser, this may be a last ditch effort before you have to wait until you move out of your parents’ house before splurging on an R1. Instead of getting something normal sized, such as a CBR500R or a Rebel 300, get something even smaller, like a Grom, or even worse, a 50cc scooter. Showing your parents a motorcycle so comically undersized that it looks like a toy in comparison to you may finally convince them to let you ride. The good news is that bikes such as the Grom or a 50cc scooter may actually fit you like a glove. Even if you’re 6’1”, you will be able to ride a Grom. However, bikes such as these are only good for going around town. On the Grom, you aren’t going faster than 55 miles per hour without modifications, and on a 50cc scooter, you will be dreaming about going 55. Full throttle, full tuck, and a 160 pound rider may get a 50cc scooter to 40, maybe 45, at best. If you’re okay with full throttling your scooter so much that the exhaust smokes more than a bathroom full of teenagers passing a vape around, then you might be okay with riding a scooter. Just make sure you know how to repair it just in case you blow up your engine.
So there you have it, 6 tricks to convince your parents to let you ride. Attempting these does not guarantee that your parents will let you ride, but it may maximize your chances of convincing them. If all else fails, don’t be sad! Just wait until you move out and start making some money. If you have the patience to wait that long, not only can your parents not control you once you start making your own life decisions, but it is a great test of whether you truly want to ride or if motorcycling is just a fad for you. Just make sure that you are riding safely, even if you grow up and your parents have no more control over you.
