When I first started riding about 18 months ago, the notion of naming one's vehicle seemed rather eccentric. The Yamaha Seca II list I was on at the time seemed to have two distinct camps: those who did and those who staunchly (if that's a word) did not and were vocal about it on some occasions. Now that I'm going on week 3 with my '98 PC and week 5 on this list, I've come to feel a fresh appreciation and respect for the idea. I do really love to ride and it seems that this group has massively different tone to the community than that of my first contact with the motorcycling community (Duh!). Your passion for riding and specific affinity toward the PC has swung my pendulum, so to speak.

I thought long and hard about a name for my beautiful red ride and looked at the registry that Leland maintains. LOTS of clever names out there you guys!! I was very impressed but simultaneously stumped: Just when I thought that I come up with something unique and creative, I found it was already taken. It was humbling. I used to think I was pretty creative but I've learned that maybe I'm not all that AND a bag of chips.

Yesterday though, it hit me. Being a huge sci-fi buff and having a red bike, I think I'll go with, "Red 5". For those of you a little lacking in your Star Wars trivia, that was Luke Skywalker's call sign for his X-Wing in the original 1977 film that began the saga with Episode V. (Uh, that is, until they re-started the saga with episode 1 about 5 years ago. Go figure.)