ShawneeDispatch.com

The overflow parking lot at Kansas City Kansas Community College was the site Saturday of 20 motorcycles riding in circles and weaving through small traffic cones.

It wasn't an impromptu Hell's Angels gathering - the riders were students in the school's 20-hour, weekend-long motorcycle safety classes.

High gasoline prices have made the classes more popular than ever, with a waiting list for all classes before the first open slots on the Oct. 17 weekend. Classes run from March through the last weekend of October.

The first part of the course is spent in a classroom, learning the parts of the motorcycle and safety principles. The next 16 hours are spent on motorcycles of different styles and makes, all donated by local motorcycle dealerships, which also provided the helmets.

"Don't look down," Liz Resman told riders as they rode a slow slalom course through a line of tiny traffic cones.

Resman has been teaching the classes for six years and riding a motorcycle for eight.

One of the first and basic objectives for students Saturday, Resman said, was for them to get the hang of the clutch.

Resman's explanation of how she began riding a motorcycle would sound familiar to many riders.

"I rode behind my husband twice," she said. "He made it look so entertaining I had to try it. It became a passion."

Now, she rides every day, and only icy roads or temperatures below 25 degrees keep her off her motorcycle.

Resman and the other instructors teach students to be defensive drivers, "to always be aware of their surroundings" and "make them understand they're responsible for their own life," she said.

Bruce Cooper, a residential electrician who lives in Shawnee, was a firsttime rider and student in the course.

"I just bought a motorcycle for the gas," he said.

Cooper said he figured on driving it to and from his work, which is about a 10-minute commute, he said.

Among the difficulties for a first-time rider, he said is "balancing at slow speeds:. It actually easier once you get going."

Another student, L'Oriânne Koneczny can testify to that fact. That morning, Koneczny lost balance while riding a motorcycle slowly in the parking lot. Wisely, she didn't try to keep it upright and was able to dismount without injury before it fell.

"I bailed," she said, in part because a surgery earlier this year means she could injure herself if she lifts any weight more than 20 pounds.

Koneczny is taking the class with her husband, Paul.

The Overland Park couple said they'd wanted to learn to ride motorcycles for a long time, but their four children had been too young for them to spare the time to take such a course. Now, with the oldest able to babysit, they're ready.

Paul said saving on gasoline was another a reason.

Also, with their 14-year-old son soon to start driving, L'Oriânne said one more of their cars will be in use. So she said she'll be able to ride her motorcycle if she needs to run to the store to get bread or milk.

But she took the class "mostly because it's fun," she said.

The husband and wife also praised the teachers.

"The instructors are really great," L'Oriânne said. "They don't make fun of you when you dump a bike."

One of the basic lessons Paul said he'd learned was that "spacing is everything."

That is, he said the more space a rider leaves between himself and the car in front of him, the more time he has to react to that car's driving. Unfortunately the motorcycle rider doesn't have the same control over the space between himself and the car behind him, Paul said.

Carla Pestock, coordinator for Community Education at the college, said enrollment in the courses are at record levels.

In previous years the classes see enrollment of just more than 500, she said.

"This year we're already at 600," she said, and that's with two months more of classes to go.

The program is in its 10th year, and about 3,900 students have gone through the program.

There are 14 instructors, each certified through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, in conjunction with which the college offers instructor-training and certification classes roughly every other year.