After two weeks of not riding, I've been itching to get on the bike. The last time I was on the bike I was experiencing disorientation, and decided to head for home. Perimenopause sucks. I've been experiencing this "change of life" process since January of last year. I have come to accept the hemorrhaging which comes at remarkably inconvenient times and tests my tolerance for the absurd. Recently I began a new phase where I feel as if I'm losing my mind for weeks at a time. As a child and in my teens, I observed middle-aged women go through periodic emotional and physical ups and downs. I thought disparagingly about their inability to keep it together. Now I am eating crow by the pie-full. I'll just stay off the road when I'm about to start weeping for no reason (tears obscure one's vision), and when I'll bite someone's head off for changing lanes without signaling.

If you are wondering about the coincidence of my riding obsession and the onset of perimenopause, you aren't the only one. Is it possible that in a few years, one morning I will go into the garage, see the bike, and wonder how it got there? Maybe, but I hope not.

Reading David Hough's book was the best thing I could have done during the last two weeks. Got the bike out of the garage. Checked the tire pressure and the oil. I am better about doing this for the bike than I am on my car. Took the bike over to a business area that has very light traffic on weekends. Found a nice straight section of road to practice quick stops from 40 mph. Karolyn says that when hard braking is done right, the bike will settle into a crouch like a cat that has just landed from a leap. The bike crouched when I was using both brakes, and tried to nose-dive when I used the front brake only. More practice needed for hard front braking. Found a parking lot with trees planted about every fifteen feet, and ran a slalom course at low speeds to reconfirm balancing and basic steering. Did a bunch of figure eights. Found a curved section of road and practiced straightening up the bike in the turn before applying the brakes. I could use some more work on that, too. My body remembers more about how to ride the bike than my brain does.

I tested a route to a place that I'll be riding to on Tuesday. I have no sense of direction, I can be reading directions that clearly say "Turn right at such-and-such street" and I'll turn left believing that I'm turning right. This has nothing to do with perimenopause, my spatial orientation and reasoning skills are nearly nonexistent. Test riding the route is the only way I can know that I'll get there. A little bit of freeway riding, some big scary intersections, and some business streets. I can get there now. Good ride. Of course, Sunday traffic is light, but Tuesday afternoon it will be pre-rush hour, so traffic will be slow because of the volume.  

Got home and cleaned the bike until it gleams. I'll make another pass on the chain later. It certainly would help to have a stand, rolling the bike forward, section by section, is a tedious way to clean the chain, but it works. I'll be putting the bike on eBay in a couple weeks. If freeway riding wasn't such a big deal, I might keep it longer - it is a comfortable, simple bike, and it is paid for. But, I would like to ride whenever I can. That means riding it to work. Around here, that means riding on the highway, and this bike is too low and underpowered for the local highway speeds, so I'll be passing this wonderful "first bike" to another new rider by the end of June.

Rode to the world famous Helimot store in San Jose with Bart. Helmut, one of the owners, is a charming, engaging fellow. More about my delightful chat with him and trying on the leather bra later.

Maxed out the Suzuki on the highway coming back on 880. We were coming in to a bit of a headwind which Bart probably didn't even notice. He was a good lad, stayed in the right lane so that I could keep up, and he resisted the urge to lane split. To maintain 60 mph in the headwind I had the throttle rolled all-the-way to its physical limit. The last device with tires that I maxed out was a moped in the mid 1970's. Also got to watch Bart's lines as we traveled the freeway on and off ramps. They looked clean to me, certainly cleaner than mine.

I'm buying the Lady Star Daytona boots. They add about two inches to my height. The boots, plus customizing the seat on the CS, plus modifying the position of the shifter should allow me to put the balls of my feet on the ground when I'm on the CS. If necessary, I can also have mods made the suspension, but maybe I won't have to. I'll buy the back protector in June, just before I order the CS. Helmut has a designed a very cool model that puts space between your spine and the protector so that any impact is distributed away from your vertebrae. After reading one woman's description of how a back protector saved her from injury in a collision at an intersection, and listening to Karolyn extoll the virtues of the Helmut-designed back protector, I decided that I had better get one.

So, I've been back on the highway, and it was okay.

About the leather bra...there are several mannequins at Helimots, each wearing a leather riding suit designed by Helmut. If you are sitting in the shoe section of the store, it is hard not to notice that one mannequin is wearing her bra on the outside of her suit. The bra is made of red and white leather, with red straps. I had tried on the Lady Star boots and had a fit question. While waiting for Helmut to finish with another client, I decided to try on that bra, so I removed it from the mannequin and put it on - over my knit top - clearly it was designed to be "outer wear". Bart and the fellow helping him with racing boots were grinning from ear to ear. The bra did not fit me, so I took it off and put it back on the mannequin. Helmut was thoroughly amused - apparently the cups used to be the knee coverings from another suit. Else showed me that in fact, the straps were sewed on to what should have been the bottom of the cups, but the mannequin doesn't mind. The bra is definitely an eye-catcher, but I don't think it is going to give Title9 Sports or Victoria's Secret any competition.

Pictures of Bart and Karolyn, and the first glimmer of the design for my suit. I have a pact with Amanda - she and I will take a track class on or before my 50th birthday. That's five years to prepare.

Part II of the Hicks Road Ride remains elusive. It wasn't supposed to rain today but it did, and we weren't dressed for it.  We tried waiting out the rain at Red Rock cafe. Reasoning that enough time had passed for the cars to "de-slickify" the highway, when there was a break in the rain, we got back on the highway only to ride right into a more intense downpour. Instead of going to another cafe, we had lunch. Now I know what "cafe racing" is.

Do you know what happens if you don't sync the engine speed with the rear wheel rotation speed when downshifting? Yup, the rear wheel skids out. Not a good feeling on a wet surface, so I started using the brakes more. Since downshifting is one of my riding (and car-driving) pleasures, I asked Karolyn for guidance. She explained about "blipping" the throttle to bring up the rpms to match the engine speed to where it will be once you have engaged the clutch in the new gear. Blipping the throttle comes after pulling in or disengaging the clutch and just before you let the clutch back out again.

I had plenty of opportunity to try the technique on the way home, but will save it for a day with a nice dry road.

I also tried riding the line that Karolyn set exiting from the highway on the way home. That was a mistake, what she can do on her sport bike and 17 years experience and what I can do are, umm, not worth comparing. I went way wide.

I'll complete Part II eventually. Wonder what the universe was trying to protect us from today.

A couple weeks ago Bart offered to take me into San Francisco for a taste of city riding - traffic and hills. Thanks to all the work Karolyn has done with me, I was willing to ride to South San Francisco (the meeting place) solo and try city riding.

I was out of the door Sunday by 6:40 am, heading north on 280. Within twenty minutes I would have paid good money for heated grips. By the time I arrived at the meeting place my fingers were frozen. Rode with Bart to San Francisco via Skyline.

Bart had prepared a "ride up and down hills" course. I did okay on the little hills in a residential section, around 41st - 45th streets. Making square corners is a skill. I don't have that skill yet, and I'm going to punt - the steering geometry of the GZ250 doesn't make that maneuver easy. On the CS, I won't have any excuse.

His idea of a "medium" hill was Divisadero and the downhill at Webster and Jackson (might be Pacific, haven't had time to look at a map). Think "Big cliff, Roadrunner, and Wile E. Coyote." Mr. Roadrunner scoots down the hill, no problem. Beeb beeb. I'm perched at the apex looking down at what appears to be a 70% grade, quietly having an anxiety attack. I stall the bike. Not once, but three times. After the third stall I acknowledge it isn't the bike stalling, it is my resolve and I give the car that is waiting behind me the "go around" wave. At this point in the cartoon version, Wile E. Coyote falls over the edge of the cliff, and the motorcycle lands on top of him. In my reality, Bart rides back up the hill, parks his bike on the sidewalk. We do a baton hand-off with the squeezed front brake, I get off the bike, he gets on, fires it up and rides it down the hill, and back up.

Okay, so my bike can do it. I'm still paralyzed. Bart tries another tactic. I get on the back of his bike, and we ride down and up the hill together. No words are spoken but the look on his face is clear, "See? You can do it." My turn? Ha. Maybe next life. Maybe in six months. But not today.

We were close to Grace Cathedral. I would have liked to visit the labyrinth again, but will save it for another trip. I had told Bart I didn't want to be crossing street car rails, and he took me seriously.

Time for a snack. Riding across the city to the Castro, I felt like a porcupine under a non-specific threat. My "quills" were slightly raised and extended in all directions with heightened awareness. There is so much to pay attention to but I have no discrimination filters. Each approaching entity causes a ripple in my quills.

New sensations from city riding: buses, tunnels, city traffic density, left turns from a stop sign across a boulevard. Crossing the boulevard, I played remora figuring that Bart isn't ready to die. When he went, I went right next to him praying for both of us. Yes, I looked at the four lanes of traffic but honestly I just trusted his timing and went.

Bart's ride debrief was thorough, complete with street diagrams. Here is the pre-ride (with 20/20 hindsight).

Rode home on 280. The pass over the reservoir around the intersection with 92 is particularly windy. I was getting blown around, so I ducked under the fairing to reduce the "sail". I maintained a speed that the bike liked under the windy conditions - 55 mph. I stayed in the right lane and let all the cars zoom past at between 70 and 90mph. Enjoyed the smell of eucalyptus, anise, and summer.

I bought the bike to help Carolyn's end of month numbers (smile). The seat is a Sid's Custom Upholstery, getting scooped out along the sides and off the top. Both should be ready on Tuesday, June 4th. Carolyn offered to bring the bike to my house so I won't have to worry about dropping it in the parking lot of the dealership and dying of humiliation. I expect I'll take her up on it.

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