The wonderful thing about dreaming about riding for years, is that you’ve read information over and over by the truck-load. You’ve surfed the web, scanned the magazines and stood and lusted after every scooter you’ve passed in the street.

Something like three years ago I had stumbled upon the New York City Scooter Club website, and they had then, as they do now, a great forum of local riders eager to share tips.

I was able to get a solid understanding of the process needed to get on two wheels here in NYC and it stuck with me. All I needed was to revisit the forums and and do a refresher course. In short:

1. Fill out a Motorcycle Permit form and take it to the DMV.

2. Take a short written test at the DMV.

3. Sign up for New York’s Motorcycle Safety School’s (MSS) three-day Basic Rider Course to obtain a test-waiver.

4. Take the test-waiver to the DMV and obtain your full Motorcycle License.

Now of course step 3, is optional. Theoretically you can just go ahead and take the DMV test, but pretty much everyone on the forums recommended MSS. Why?

- You don’t need your own bike.
- You don’t need a friend who can ride.
- You’ll do the equivalent of the DMV test in 3 days without waiting weeks for a test date.
- Do you really want to hit the streets of NYC on 2 wheels without some pointers?

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