After the Thunderhill track event, I did not get on my bike for nearly a week. I looked at it, such a pretty beast, but didn't touch it. When I did get back on it, I felt awkward, my riding was jerky and I felt like I had regressed about six months.

The weekend after the track day, Karolyn, Amanda and I rode Hicks road. The ride was mostly to give Amanda a taste of the tight Hicks twisties. I took the "sweep" position mostly so that Karolyn wouldn't be able to watch me. Karolyn did watch me for a short section, her comment was that I demonstrated "intent". True, I had a better sense of where I want to be in the lane when I start a turn, and the lines are more clear than before, but my bike handling felt worse.

The next weekend, Dennis, Karolyn and I rode Hwy 9 into Boulder Creek. They took turns baby sitting me while the other took off and got some speed. Beautiful roads, redwoods, open space, very relaxing. Then we got to Summit road, another "goat trail" of sorts. I thank the universe for Summit road because without it, I would have been toast on the Stage Road ride the following week, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Not once but three times, we encountered cars coming towards us on Summit. The road was so twisty that we could not see each other, so when that SUV came barreling down on me, I didn't know that Dennis had just avoided it, and the SUV probably thought that there weren't any more bikes on the road. Not that the SUV could have moved to one side or the other if the driver had wanted to. My heart was pounding after I slipped by the SUV. I stayed as far to the right as I could which was good when the white sedan went by. The last reminder was the red coupe - there was inches between me and the side of the hill as the coupe went by. No one was doing anything wrong, the road was just very, very narrow. I would say that the technical aspects of riding Summit well - which I certainly did not - were equal to the challenge of staying aware. I was exhausted after that run, and very demoralized with my riding.

This past weekend, Peter, Dennis and I went out for Peter's first group ride. On Friday Peter had stood in line at the DMV for an hour and a half, paid his money, got his picture taken, and then was told that the DMV was closing, that he would have to come back. We took our unlicensed rider out with us anyway for our Sunday ride, but we kept it local. Peter did really well for a guy who just completed his MSF class - it took me six months to do what he was doing after a few weeks. After lunch, Dennis and I headed on the back roads to West 84.

There was something about riding West 84 again, maybe because it is becoming a familiar road, maybe enough time has passed since the track day, I felt better on my bike. Dennis was working the turns, going for smooth, constant acceleration. I was working on just holding steady throttle in the turns. We had a groove going, good rhythm, good pace.

At the San Grigorio General Store, another blue CS appeared, the first one we have seen "in the wild". Cynthia and I have been riding about the same length of time, and we both agree, BMW got it right for novice women riders with this bike. She told us about Stage road, right across from the general store, which runs parallel to 101 into Pescadero.

Off we went with me leading. Hoo boy, blind curve after blind curve. Remembering the unpleasant surprises on Summit, I kept myself to the far right of this single lane road. Great road, cuts through scenic farm land, meadows on one side, farm house on the other. At one point the road runs through an arch of old eucalyptus trees.

Dennis lead the way on the return run on Stage road. Good thing we were paying attention - coming around a bend we met up with a semi-truck. I wouldn't think that a semi would fit on this road, but there it was. We were already on the right side of the road and there was enough room that we didn't have to paddle walk and scrape the side of the hill, but still, the scene could have been a clip from the "expect the unexpected" section in the MSF videos.

The ride back up 84 was the best I have ever done. Mind you, my objective isn't to be the fastest rider out there, but I am trying to use speed as one factor in managing how I maneuver the corners. Most of all I'm trying to be smooth, and smooth hasn't been in my vocabulary for the past two weeks. It was so good to rediscover smooth again. The track experience must have finally assimilated into my body, I'm clearly riding at a new level. I'm just about ready to start moving my butt off my seat and leading with my shoulder.

Karolyn stopped by the next day. I confessed to her that my riding after the track event had been really awful, but it looked like I was out of the woods now. She said it was normal to ride poorly after a track event - you've just taken in a huge amount of information, your body needs time to sort through it and assimilate what it can. She also reminded me that I need to be extra careful now that I'm riding at a new level because I'm probably over-confident. Okay, so I got to enjoy a swelled head for 12 hours. Back to "Beginner's Mind".

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