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July 28, 2004
D-Day - 15
It stopped raining early, so I went to see my bike. Time to learn how to handle her... She's a big girl, be she's loving. After figuring out how to get her in gear without stalling (she's really really sensitive, kindof an all or nothing clutch response) I took her for a couple counter clockwise spins around the block. Ok, more like 7 or 8. Now these are the back roads of back roads we're talking about. The only things I crossed on these roads where a couple of dogs and a lawnmower. I got the feeling for how to start her, shift into second, break etc... Once she gets moving, she's a beauty to handle.
Then it was time to take right hand turns, so I started doing clockwise turns around the block...
Lets just say that it is much harder to turn right than it is to turn left. You see, in a car, ballance isn't such an issue, so you just crank the wheel to the right, and accelerate slowly. Now on a bike, moving slowly is the hardest thing to do, and moving slowly while turning is even harder. Which means that taking a right hand turn while staying in lane is ... let's just say I'll get it down eventually...
The other thing that is really rough is taking a right hand turn from a stop sign. Not only do you have to turn and try to stay in lane, but you also have to get the bike into first gear without stalling. With practice I'll learn to control that.
I went home for dinner, and Larry called me to go riding, so we rode some more back roads for a couple hours. Here's some more things I learned: my bike is really comfy. After 2 hours, I was pretty much fine (sorta like sitting in one of those massage chairs for a while). Larry was all sore on his bike. Also, my bike has some guts... we found a road in westhampton (I think) called Reservoir rd that is wide long and very very straight. There was no one around, great visibility, so I hit the gas a little and before I knew it I was easing up to 60 mph as Larry was becomming a dot in my rear view mirror. I found out later that he was in fact trying to keep up, while I was just gently cruising... That's my girl...
Anyway, I put 110 miles on the bike today with a daily average speed of 25 miles and hour. I was riding for about 4 or 5 hours. Not bad for my first day on a motorcycle (if you don't count the time Larry let me ride his bike down Jake's driveway and back.)
Posted by Cyclops at July 28, 2004 08:18 PM