You know that one friend you have, who always seems to come up with random stuff that you still somehow end up getting involved in? No? Well then you really should get one!

In my case, this friend is called Constantin (yes, a bit like that Constantine you've probably seen chain smoking on a roof, except: no "e", does not smoke, drink or kill demons – as far as I know). I talked to him about wanting to learn to ride motorbikes. You know, in a "Ciao" sort of way, with my bag over my shoulder and on a Vespa.

So he invited me over to try a bike out and we proceeded to take a Code 111 course (in Austria, if you are in possession of a licence to drive cars for 5 years, you may just take a 5-hour course and off you go). And it was magnificent. The course was more of a formality, getting the attendees ready to face traffic and learn the basics of cornering and braking. Alas, safety first.

The – normally rather slow – bureaucratic system in Austria went to new heights in speed and productivity and send me my brand new licence just two days after I handed the paperwork in ("Yes, I took the course, here, see the nice piece of paper from my driving school?"). And since the days were slowly getting longer and ever so slightly warmer Constantin and I decided to get ourselves some bikes and take a lap.

Now this is basically the biggest bike you may ride with that Code 111 course we both took and as these bikes were available to us, that is what we rode. Technically we rode some very classic looking Yamahas before that, but when we took the Dukes for a spin we never looked back.

Now I am obviously a beginner and the availability of the bikes kept me from practising a lot, but they are a lot of fun.

What follows are a couple of pictures we two took while taking a break from basically just riding around, enjoying the sun. Previously we had been riding around, enjoying early sunsets and subsequently freezing our collective behinds to our respective bikes. You know, just to make things clear.