That’s a great question. I’m probably not the right person to recommend a school, because the truth is I learned in a very unstructured way — and Elisa’s path was different again. So all I can really do is tell you how we each got started.
I learned to ride in Japan when I was about 13. My father was a U.S. Air Force officer stationed there, and we lived off base. At the time I had inherited my dad’s stamp collection and had joined a Japanese Boy Scout troop.
One day I was visiting a small Japanese philatelist shop that liked some of the U.S. Special Delivery stamps in my collection. I wouldn’t sell them — until one day I walked in and saw a used
50cc Honda Cub parked in the shop.
The owner made me a proposal:
“How about trading some of those stamps for this Honda?”
Of course there were a few problems. I was 13 years old. No license. No insurance. And if my parents found out I probably would have been shipped back to the U.S. to live with my grandparents.
The shop owner must have seen my hesitation. He said, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep the Honda here for you. I know you’re a Japanese Boy Scout. Find someone in your troop to teach you. It has an automatic clutch and three gears — it’s easy.”
So technically my first motorcycle was purchased with
postage stamps.
The entire Japanese Boy Scout troop immediately volunteered to teach me to ride. Before long they even introduced me to their little motorcycle gang and gave me a proper initiation. Those were different times. We would ride around Tokyo and sometimes end up near the Shinjuku gin bars where the hostesses thought the American kid was amusing. The U.S. airmen who frequented those bars often knew my father and kept an eye on me. This did not prevent me from smoking Parliament cigarettes, drinking way too many gin fizz, fondling the young Japanese hostesses and keeping a bottle of Acdama wine with my Honda. This was circa: 1959 occupied Japan. From Japan we moved to Ankara, Turkey where I graduated High School.
That’s how I learned to ride.
Elisa’s story was much more civilized.
When we bought our Hondas in Buenos Aires, she had first taken a
one-day course in Arizona that allowed her to add a motorcycle permit to her driver’s license. We then bought our bikes here and immediately escaped Buenos Aires traffic by taking the
Buquebus ferry to Uruguay.
In Uruguay I spent about a month riding with her on quiet roads until she was completely comfortable on the bike.
She actually tells that story much better than I do in an interview here:
https://adventureriderradio.com/adv...trouble-if-i-survive-ill-never-complain-again
So unfortunately I can’t really recommend a formal training program. But I can say this: learning slowly, on quiet roads, with patient friends around you worked pretty well for us.