GIRL!!! YOU GOT YOUR OWN!!!

We woke up bright and early on Sunday morning ready to ride! We decided that as it was Memorial Day weekend traffic would likely be very light around town early in the morning and we could get some good practice in. However, reality is that I refuse to do anything that requires a great deal of concentration first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. So, breakfast was first on the list. We hopped on the bikes and headed to the IHOP.

As we walked in and were seated, our server says, “I don’t know what the bike looks like, but those helmets are awesome!” Well, being that the bikes are new, we wanted to sit where we could see them. So I tell her, “Those are our bikes right there!” as I point through the window. She looks out, her jaw drops open, and she exclaims, “GIRL!!!! You got your own!!!! You GO girl!!!” Seriously, I thought the woman was going to embrace me! She was so excited! Evidently she’d always wanted to ride a motorcycle as well, but was convinced that she wouldn’t have the coordination to accomplish it. I told her that if I could do it, she certainly could. I mean, afterall, I can BARELY drive a manual transmission car! DH and I recommended that she take the MSF Basic Rider class; even if she decided afterwards not to get a bike, it would still be a great experience for her (or anyone for that matter!).

After leaving the IHOP, we decided to tackle some of the roads around our house that we will have to ride down to get pretty much anywhere, but we had been going the long way around to avoid. One of them has a HUGE hill that kind of twists and turns and we were both really nervous about it. So, we did the first pass with me in the lead. I slowed down to about 35mph approaching the hill.  I figure better to go in slower than necessary than to get half way through and realize that I’m going too fast! We make it through just fine and I decide to loop around and do another pass. Well the second time I took it at 45mph! Whoo Hoo!!! Getting more confident by the minute, which is exactly what they told us at the MSF course – the more you ride, the more proficient you become.

Later, around lunchtime, some friends of ours want to come see the bikes and go to lunch. So they come to the house and ooooohhh and aaaaahhhh over the machines. Then we start to get in the car and they go, “What!?! We want you to ride the bikes to lunch!” OK fine. Well, we had never been in as much traffic as we knew we would face going as close as we were to the mall. So, we decided to have our friend follow us in his big diesel work truck. We figured no one would hit him and we trusted him not to hit us. We set off.

I got through the very first traffic light and I hear DH honk his horn. Well, he’d been doing this as a signal to me to cancel my blinker. So, I cancel it and keep on going. Next time I look in my mirror… no DH…. Just a big-ass truck! Again I’m in the situation of thinking, “I don’t know what to do!” I figured if something horrible had happened, my friend in the truck would have stopped too. So, I just kept going and made it safely to our lunch destination where my friend leaps out his truck, looks me in the eye, and goes, “You are bad-ass on that bike!!! I didn’t think you could go so fast!!” (I hadn’t topped 50mph)! About that time DH rolls up… he’d forgotten to secure the chin strap on his helmet and had to pull over to do it.

This brings me to my next piece of advice for newbie riders: If you’re riding in a group (ie. More than ONE), its an absolute necessity that you decide on signals ahead of time. For example, DH and I have now decided that 1-honk means “cancel your blinker” and 3-honks mean “I need to stop”. I’m sure we will develop more as we go along, but these two are a huge step in the right direction!