Truth be told, I was never really into bikes. I remember when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old my brother had a motorcycle that he used to work on all the time. I don’t even think I ever got a lift on it.

So years went by and I never really had any interest in motorcycles. Until 2016 that is. I went to Japan for a couple of months on a backpacking trip. I was walking around an island of Shikoku over 42 days and did around 1200km on foot. During my time there, while walking along the beautiful coastal roads with beautiful ocean on my left and gorgeous mountains on the right… palm trees along the road and the sound of chromed out cruisers bobbing along on these beautiful coastal roads. Something clicked inside me and I fell in love with that idea – the freedom of enjoying life to the fullest. Any time I would have access to Wifi there I started looking up various videos on YouTube and articles about starting out on bikes. Videos on how the gear shifting works and all the terrible accidents that happen. But that didn’t scare me. I was hooked.

I saw a good few Yamaha DragStar’s over there and I fell in love with them. I loved the monoshock construction on them and after reading loads of reviews I knew that this is the bike for me as I thought I would turn it into a bobber at some stage. So, for the next couple of months I got my learner permit and was looking for my 650 and found one back home in Lithuania. I bought it, shipped it over and loved it! It was a perfect starter bike for me.

I joined the Bikers Shed only a couple of months after I started riding back in 2017. It was an amazing experience to be a part of such a great bunch of people who were willing to help at any time and share their years of experience and knowledge with a novice rider like myself. I think this was an invaluable asset to me and I thank the stars every day that our paths crossed, and that Tom Lowe had enough faith in me to give me a chance and invited me to join the team.

A year later went on and bought a Yamaha DragStar 1100 as I just felt I wanted a little bit more power in it, but for some reason I didn’t fall in love with the bike and sold it on and got a Yamaha FJR 1300 as I’m planning to do a bit of touring and I felt this would be a great bike for it.

Still have my DragStar 650 which I did turn into a bobber and I have no plans on selling it at all.