I agree with what everyone else said, and cannot stress taking the rider's safety course enough. Stuff I remembered from there saved my life several times.
I would never drink and ride. Ever, not even one.
I'd always wear gear. Think of having someone taking a grater to every part of your body... anything not protected is going to hurt severely.
City riding at 30ish mph always scared me more than 75+ mph on the open road, just because of all the cars around me.
Fearing something like TAM's experience always led me to blink my brake light when cars were coming up behind me, sometimes I'd honk if I didn't think they noticed me.
I almost went down 3 times over the course of my riding, every time was due to some oblivious car operator, once had gravel mixed into the situation too.
I sold my last bike, a ZX-6R, when I spent almost 6 months on crutches and couldn't ride. It was just too depressing to stare at it. So I guess there's a 4th type of rider: Those who never went down and no longer have a bike.
Though I will get another one when money allows, so that might still happen.As for your wife... I've said stuff like, "Tell her you're a man, you'll do what you want," to my friends before, the universal response is, "That's why you're not married". Hehe, they might have a point.
Oh, and a funny story. I was going to Wimberley from Austin once on 290 when I came to the red light at RR12 in Dripping Springs. That light's sensor would never pick up my bike and I resorted to taking a right on red, make a u-turn, take another right, make a u-turn, then take another right to get where I wanted to go. Well this time it was still green from a previous vehicle, and I thought I could make it, but it turned yellow and then red. I also had a State Trooper behind me, waiting to take a left. I sat there, and sat there, and sat there wondering what he was going to do but not daring to run the light or even cut across a couple lanes to do my right on red game. After almost 15 minutes he finally got on his loudspeaker and told me to run it. I gave him my confused look (helmet tilted, arms out, palms up) and he goes, "Seriously, run the light, I won't give you a ticket, unless you keep holding up traffic."
Hehe, true to his word, I got to run a red light in front of an officer without getting in trouble.
