Today was great ride with Karolyn. We went back to Hicks Road with the intent of getting to the second half of last-month's planned ride. Karolyn's exercise for me was to not use the brake while negotiating the twists and turns, except going downhill. I was to use "body English" and the throttle only. I think I did pretty well considering that last month on the same road (single lane, all twists and turns, lots of up and down hill), I was using the brake all the time. This time I used no brake at all in except in the downhill. I was not going very fast because Karolyn was riding behind me, I was damned if I was going touch those brakes, unless I absolutely had to.

Coming down the steepest part is where I first felt the back end of the bike swing out. I thought I had just hit an oil patch, and kept going, but the back end started dancing around and it felt really bad, so I pulled over. The problem was quite evident.

When I first bought the bike, I signed up for the AAA-equivalent for motorcycles, Motorcycle Touring Service. You pay in advance, and they guarantee a tow-truck with appropriate equipment for picking up your bike (anywhere in the US!), and a tow to a repair location. An hour later, Pablo of Sunnyvale Towing Service found us, and secured the straps that held my bike upright and stable on the tilt-bed platform of the truck. The annual membership in the motorcycle towing service just paid for itself. If I had been out there in the middle of nowhere, by myself, I would have been very nervous. Knowing that a tow truck was coming gave me immense relief. The only difficulty was finding a location where Karolyn's cell phone was in service, but actually that didn't take long.

I rode on the back of Karolyn's Ducati to find a location where her cell phone could find a transmitter, I got a quick taste of the speed she would normally take the turns. Urk. I'm still a tortoise, but I'm an evolving (punctuated equilibrium) tortoise. I really like the short, tight turns. As with Aikido, my brain can't really help, it's all body feel.

I had Pablo drop me and the bike off a dealership near home. The inner tube will take a few days to order - yup, the GZ250 has spoke wheels and an inner tube, so even if we had been carrying a patch kit, it wouldn't have helped.

I'm told that rear-wheel blow outs are easier to handle than front wheel blowouts. A bit of research on the web yields this advice for recognizing and handling front tire blow-outs: "If a front tire blows, the steering will feel heavy. Hang on firmly and try to steer straight and shift your weight to the rear. When you have slowed down enough, move to the right side of the road."

I'm very grateful that I had this experience at a time when I was traveling at a relatively slow speed, and when I was with a more experienced rider. Further more, there was shade on the side of the road, and the gravel shoulder was hard-packed so the stand didn't sink into the ground. There was a stream running below the hill which made a pleasant sound. Karolyn and I just sat and talked, waited and watched other riders cruise by.

Speaking of other riders, I gotta say that riding a motorcycle has safety issues, but for heaven's sake, we're wearing leather. I watched those non-motorized racing and mountain bikes go screaming downhill and they aren't wearing any body protection at all. I had friends in college who got severe cases of road rash from downhill crash-and-burns. I was lucky, coming down the UCSC hill at 50 mph on my bicycle, I never had to decide whether to swerve to avoid hitting a ground squirrel. Some of my friends did, and next time, the ground squirrel was toast.

Today was a really good day - my brain was quiet, my body did all the work. Karolyn's selection of this location is perfect, the twisties are challenging and I get to practice in a beautiful environment isolated from too much traffic. I'm looking forward to testing my skill more and relying less on tortoise speeds to carve the turns at efficient angles. The Hicks Road ride and beyond is still on my dance card. Third time is the charm, right?

Today was my last day of hand therapy. That injury on January 9th was remarkably edifying, I am now so much more aware of the structures in my hand, which muscles are at work during load-bearing and rotation, and articulation activities. Denise, the senior therapist, assured me that I'll recover 100% use of my hand by summer if I keep doing my hand exercises. There is still a lot of scar tissue left in the knuckles. Closing my fingers and touching the finger tips to the base of my palm requires that my whole body get into the act. It feels like there are round stones in my knuckles, impeding any movement. Six weeks ago, I would have sworn there were boulders in my knuckles, so there has been a lot of improvement. She noted that I had more strength in my fingers than she would have expected; I'm sure that the clutching action contributed to that. Grip strength, well, I have the whole summer to recover that.

Just got into the Two Wheel Safety "Experienced Rider" class for May 8th. 

Just got myself removed from the roster of attendees for the Two Wheel Safety "Experienced Rider" class, I don't have the prerequisite experience. I've been riding for three months, the prereq is a year or three thousand miles.

This is an interesting catch-22; I am too inexperienced to be on the highway, so I want to take a class where I'll get some defensive riding skills in a nice controlled environment where I won't cause an accident as I acquire some experience with swerves. But, it would seem that I'm supposed to be out there with the unsuspecting public, getting experience, in order to get into a class, to refine my hard-earned knowledge and accumulated bad-habits. Whine, grouse, grumble. I'd like to take the class soon. One way to increase my mileage is get on the freeway anyway.

For the past few days, I've been driving my route to work in lane 1 to test the speeds (50-70 mph, slower sometimes) and learn the route really well - where the merge points are, where construction is in-progress. It has been a month since I last scared myself silly, it is time to try it again. Peter is not happy about this in general, and he would like me to be on a more powerful bike. I'm nervous about it too, but I know that it isn't about the bike, it is about the skills that I'm trying to acquire.

The serendipitous side of all this is that the May issue of Friction Zone's cover story will be about freeway riding (thank you, Amy), and Carolyn let me know that this month's issue of Motorcycle Consumer News also features information on the same topic, so I will study up and give it a try. I'm also going to make some mods to that runner's night-visibility vest I bought awhile back so it doesn't flop around at high speeds. I saw a rider on 880 wearing one over his/her black jacket - definitely increased the rider's visibility.

Oh shit. Carolyn just let me know that the lower seat for the F650CS is in. Now I actually have to go ride the bike. I've been so happy that the seat was on backorder.

(several hours later)

Preparing to ride over there, I felt as nervous as someone going out on a first date. Bart came to the dealership to lend moral support - this must be cheap entertainment for him. I sat on the bike with the lowered seat. Better, not as low as I would like (no where near flat foot), but tolerable enough to be willing to ride. I must have looked like a scared rabbit because Carolyn offered to ride next to me, which I accepted. While she found some riding gear, I sat on the bike, engine on (music to my ears) and played with the friction point. The placement of the foot pedals was making my stomach twist, they were not where my feet expected them to be. It didn't take me long to accept that I wasn't going to ride this bike on the street. The parking lot, okay, but not the street. And the fairing was wierding me out, I'm used to a fairing that moves with the handlebars, this one is part of the bike body. My brain protests that all is not right and I get motion sick trying to resolve expectations with reality.

Carolyn rides the bike to the parking lot next door where there is less action and leaves me alone to get to know the bike. The biggest hurdle is getting used to the different riding position. Everything is sensitive and hair-trigger responsive. With all due respect to the Suzuki, the CS feels like a race horse, and the Suzuki feels like a goat, well, maybe a donkey. And the ABS brakes are another story. So this is what a finely-engineered machine feels like. Mmmm. I'm ready. My financial resources aren't, so I will have to wait until June. Don't ask me "why June?" because I don't know. I only know that June is when I'll have it together to buy this bike.

Last weekend Karolyn got Peter on the Suzuki and according to her, his grin just kept getting bigger and bigger. When she slyly suggested that we stop by Road Rider's blowout sale so he could get a helmet, he said okay. I had to keep my jaw from bouncing on the ground. This is a guy who hates to shop; if it can't be purchased online, forget about it. He now has basic gear (gloves, helmet, jacket). When he gets himself into an MSF class is his business, but it looks like someday he and I will be able to ride together. This is an unexpected pleasure.

Speaking of Karolyn, she mentioned an agreement she had with her ex-husband who warmed motorcycle engine parts in the oven; her rule was "only after dinner", and, the oven had to air for 24 hours before she would use it for food preparation again. Ick. I mentioned that sometimes there's road-kill (squirrels, mostly) in my freezer - no time to bury the poor things, but I can't leave them lying there in the street. That got her to squeal. Funny how different things bother different people. I bury the squirrels in the garden, they make excellent fertilizer.

I'm almost done with my first reading of Proficient Motorcycle Riding by David Hough. If you are a beginner and you don't have this book, get it. If you are an experienced rider and haven't read this book, get it. If you ride and are thinking about helping a friend start riding, get this book for your friend. Enough said.

Go to May 2002 entries