o you have a motorcycle endorsement on your driver’s license? I don’t know about the rest of you dirt bikers, but I had never taken the time to get mine. Part of the reason is that a day at the DMV is worse than a waterboarding session at Guantanamo Bay. If you ever wonder why some folks don’t want the government more involved in the lives of American families, look no further than the gross incompetence of the DMV. It’s like Barney Fife trying to run the NYPD.

The other reason I’ve never taken the time to get a street bike license is because the freeways in Southern California are not a safe place to ride. I’ve scraped my fair share of riders off the asphalt with a flat-head shovel after a bad decision left them, to use a professional term, DRT (Dead Right There). But most of those cases involved excessive speed, alcohol, drugs, or a combination of the three. And maybe I’m giving us more credit than we deserve, but I’ve always felt like motocross racers have better instincts than the average person when it comes to driving or riding on roads and highways. We’ve trained ourselves to assume that every asshole within cartwheeling distance is on the verge of crashing and taking us with them. As such, we tend to think ahead and keep our line options open more than somebody whose greatest athletic achievement is logging 600 steps on his Fitbit each day at the office.

So I visited the boys at Malcolm Smith Motorsports and picked up a Husqvarna Svartpilen 401. I really just wanted something I could ride around town or down to the beach, and that bike fit the bill perfectly. Now all I had to do was pass the tests. The written portion wasn’t bad; I spent about ten minutes looking over some sample tests and felt like I was good to go. I missed one question (which was poorly written, in my opinion), and just like that, I had my permit. Next up was the riding test, where I found myself sitting on my bike in front of a row of orange cones. The test proctor explained that I had to weave in and out of the cones, ride around a circle twice, and then weave back through the cones. He told me that if I didn’t pass the first time, we would just call it a practice run and do it again. I navigated the unimaginably simple course quickly and precisely and even got a “Wow, you did great!” from the proctor. Thank you, sir. Beginner’s luck, I suppose. And just like that, I was a licensed rider.

I took a winding back road home through the hills that day and had an ear-to-ear smile the entire time. While I was still a little nervous about somebody pulling out in front of me or a driver drifting into my lane while they texted, I understood the appeal of riding on the street. The boys at Shoei sent me a really cool helmet, and Sena sent me a radio system that mounts inside it. Alpinestars set me up with a jacket and riding pants and shoes; I looked so good, I didn’t know whether to cruise down the mean streets of Temecula or sign up for a MotoGP round at Laguna Seca. The corkscrew sounds fun, but maybe I should work into that.

If you’ve never ridden anything on asphalt, you should. I’ve learned over the years that while I love riding off-road, and motocross in particular, there is an adrenaline rush and a sense of freedom on any type of motorcycle. See you on the streets!