Tuesday was back to work, but ALL day I was fantasizing about cruising around on my bike! I texted DH half way through the afternoon, “You wanna ride tonight?” As soon as I got the “Sure!” response I started planning the route. I knew I wanted to do a longer ride than we’d done to this point; I wanted long roads where we could sustain 45-55mph and I wanted curves of various angles to practice on. So I picked some back country roads that I’ve traveled quite a bit on “horsey” business that I knew were pretty light traffic-wise.
As I was driving home, I got a call from DH. Apparently, the bike shop had left their diagnostic part attached to my bike when they prepped it! They politely requested that we get back over there ASAP to return it. So, as soon as I got home I changed into jeans, threw on my gear, and we were off. Instead of taking the direct route to the bike shop, we took the round-about way to avoid most of the rush-hour traffic. They were SO excited to see us riding! The motorcycle community is better than family – what you look like under your gear really does NOT matter, it’s all about being safe on the road and loving your machine. I also learned another newbie lesson at the shop: without thinking I just pulled straight into the parking space. Well, it happened to be facing somewhat downhill. When I handed my key to the guy to take the bike back to service and retrieve their part he looked out the window and said, “Oh! You’re gonna make it hard on me! Just pull right in!” Then I realized… motorcycles don’t have a reverse gear! He’s gonna have to push 500lbs backwards uphill! That’s when I thought, “Wow! Better him than me!” Lesson learned – avoid parking on any kind of hill if at all possible, if not then park so that you don’t have to push the bike uphill to get out!
Then it was off on our country cruise! First we had to wind our way back out of the “city” traffic to the back roads. There were a few traffic lights that we had to face and on the very last one, it turned yellow when I was right up on it. So, I hit the throttle and zipped right through. But, as I looked in the rear-view I realized that DH wasn’t going to make it. [[**snicker** I’d told him before that he would be so far behind me people wouldn’t realize that we were together!]] So, I decided to pull over on the side of the road and wait for him (there really wasn’t anywhere to just pull off the road). This worked out ok, but people did have to slow down to pass me. We will have to re-think this strategy in the future (comments and advice welcome!). But, the good news was that no one appeared to be upset with me, I guess they realized what I was doing. So, we made it to our back roads just fine. It was about a 25mile loop with only five stop signs and a BUNCH of twisties!!! I probably slowed down more than I needed too for most of them, but again I lean on the cautious side. I think it’s a great loop for us to practice on and my turns will only get better.
When we got back to the house all I could say was, “AWESOME RIDE!” My endorphins were really flowing and I felt great! We love these bikes and LOVE to ride them!
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