Took the motorcycle safety class

I was able to take the motorcycle safety class that I wanted. 2 days on a motorcycle when you aren’t used to it will wear you out! The class I took was from the RIDE instructors. Its a variation of the MSF basic riders course, and I took the class at the Harley dealership in Pelham.

It was raining as I drove to the class location, and continued to rain on and off until 10:30 or so. The rain wasn’t heavy, and didn’t stop us from doing anything. There were 5 men and 3 women in the class, and the instructors weren’t being jerks to folks. They knew I have a scooter, and are cool with it. One of the other ladies has a Honda Reflex that she rides regularly, and had just gotten a Harley Softtail. We were riding Honda Rebels, little 250cc bikes. We were schooled not only on the maneuvers they wanted us to do, but on proper mounting and dismounting of the bikes. We spent a good chunk of time on the bike, learning where the clutch engaged and disengaged, as well as the slow speed maneuvers, the straight weave, 90 degree turns and offset turns. We even managed to start working on shifting gears. I managed to get the bike into 3rd gear and back down!

We had one person go down late the first day in the class, as we were coming back from a break and doing offset weaves. I was a bit disconcerted by it, but the rider picked up the bike and got back on it and kept going with the exercise. After class was over, and most everyone else had gone, one of the instructors was riding his Harley RoadKing through some of the cones for the course, doing the offset weaves on it. I was impressed.

After fighting the clutch and not finding neutral the first day, I was able to find neutral much more often on the second day. I still was fighting the clutch all day long. The instructors knew I was a scooter rider with an automatic transmission, so I have a feeling they gave me more latitude on my clutch handling – say rather my gear shifting skills than they gave the folks who had just bought motorcycles. If I am going to be doing any regular MC riding, I think I’ll be getting a pair of MC boots that are made more for that and don’t have quite so distinct a tread pattern as my hiking boots. They work well for me with the scooter footboard, but fighting the foot pegs on a regular basis is not on my list of things to do.

Nobody had an attitude about what we were learning, so everyone in class was open to actually learn something. Most folks, if they’ve ridden, either hadn’t ridden recently or were there to see about learning something new. Some were very new to it. Nobody was flunked, and everybody seemed to be willing to listen and adjust what they were doing within the limits of what they were physically capable of. I noticed that I was starting out much more tired on the second day, and that I was having problems with fatigue in some exercises in the morning. This afternoon as we were working on swerves and emergency braking at the end of the day I saw that I was making some stupid mistakes from fatigue. Nothing horrid in itself, but not something I would do if I was fresh and sharp. And I was recognizing that it was not right. I was semi joking around with folks about learning the clutch and now needing a couple hundred hours to get good and comfortable with shifting gears.

The nice thing about this particular class is that the instructors make themselves available by phone and email afterward and you have the option of riding another class in the future for no charge when there is an empty seat.

I really would like to take my scooter and ride the course of cones they had. I’ll be taking some of the ones I have and setting up a course in a parking lot and practicing the weaves and obstacle avoidance swerves, as well as emergency braking for sure. I got up to 25 MPH on the last day. I was joking with DH about it, and saying that now I was a real MC rider. I could shift gears up and down. If nothing else, I feel confident now that if we were out riding on DH’s Ural and something happened to him, I could get us home without any major mishap.

Of course everyone asked if I was planning on moving up to a MC. I told most folks that I wasn’t planning on getting anything now. After the entire class was over when I was asked that, I told them that I really wanted to get proficient with my scooter first. I couldn’t say for the future, but that option is open for me. And that DH is looking at possibly getting either a trail bike or a dual sport bike, and that would be one I would be happy to pick up and ride more than the Ural.

My shoulders, forearms and wrists ached and hurt after the class. I spent more time working the clutch than I’ve done with my left hand in a very long time.

Buh-bye 2008

I’ve been a horrible poster in 2008. Part of the my problem is twitter. I’m posting more smaller posts that normally might have gotten channeled into a blog post.

Now I’m sitting here at home, watching the 9:30PM news and listening to the gunfire in the ‘hood. Its New Year’s Eve! We have to pull out the guns and shoot them! bleh. dumbasses. Quite the glamorous life, innit? After being sick, I probably won’t make it to midnight. Oh well.

If I had been industrious, I’d have a list of books I’ve read this past year, and a good set of resolutions for next year. The Terminal already asked about resolutions, and I had some good ones. One of my Christmas presents was a MSF class. I do want to ride my scooter more! My biz was good this past year, and I hope that it goes better next year. Its a chancy thing in the new economy, but I’m not backing down and I already have bookings for 2009. I’m going to try to post more here in ‘09, but I won’t guarantee it.

Thank you to all of you who do come here and hang out occasionally. I do appreciate you all. I wish us a joyous and prosperous New Year!

Order from Barnes & Noble in my hot little hands…

I ordered several books of Elizabeth Bear’s and a couple of books on good motorcycle riding straight from Barnes and Noble. It arrived this afternoon! Yay! More books!

No I don’t have a motorcycle, but lots of the things that apply to motorcycles apply to scooters, too. And as a complete n00b on motorized 2 wheeled conveyances, I will take highly recommended books as starting places for better riding. I do learn from reading, so there are things that I will pick up to add to my store of ideas in my brain for riding. I will be riding during the upcoming long weekend, weather permitting. And reading a bit, around gigs.

More scootering this weekend

DH and I went out riding Saturday morning. I had to put gas in the scooter, so we went to one of the closest stations. I put in 2/3 of a gallon. It filled the tank up. I love it! Then we went putt putting around. The plan was to go to the Pepper Place market, then to ride as we wanted. The overall goal of the day was to get me more comfortable on the scooter. It went pretty well.

After filling up the scooter we drove around to Crestwood Boulevard and down it into town to Pepper Place. After getting the windshield on the scooter, one of the mirrors was working loose. So we stopped, DH puled out his handy dandy toolkit including 13mm wrench and blue loctite. We got it gooped and tightened up, then off we went. The other mirror appears to be staying together. I think I want to have a 13mm wrench in the seat with my standard stuff.

We got to Pepper Place, and we parked in a T, with the scooter at the head of the space and the Ural at the foot. It tickles me to no end to have this wild flexibility in parking. As we were approaching the stalls, DH found a set of what we assumed wer car keys. After turning them into the information booth, we wandered through the market. We saw booth for Artwalk and visited with Joy. We picked up some peaches and a gift for my brother’s girlfriend’s birthday. Then DH had his fill of walking around so we went back to the bike and scooter and headed out.

We took 29th Street up to Highland Avenue, the Highland back east to Clairmont Avenue, then Clairmont to Crestwood. It was a a very nice ride. Twisty enough that I was pleased to have the turn work and not busy enough to feel bad about possibly holding up traffic in a hurry to get somewhere.

I find that I need some sort of destination to get out and ride. Having some idea of where I want to go is good incentive for me to get there. I still need to take the Motorcycle Safety Class, and I wouldn’t mind taking a scooter safety class either, if I could find one relatively close by.

Rode my scooter to work. Again.

This past Tuesday. For the second time.

I’m slowly building my skill and confidence on the scooter. I’ve been riding around the neighborhood and seeing how the scooter handles as I make my way on turns and hills. I’m getting better as I spend more time on it. There are times when I’m still not comfortable doing things and in traffic, but its getting more familiar.

I’ve already driven the scooter to work one day before. So Monday night I checked the weather forecast for the week and it looked like Tuesday was going to be the best day to ride to work. I’ve been very fortunate, DH is willing to follow me to work and back in a car, since I end up traveling on a major thoroughfare. I’m really glad he does have experience riding motorcycles. He’s been a big help to me as I learn to ride this scooter. I am treating it as a major opportunity to ramp up my situational awareness. DH’s philosophy on motorcycles is to treat them as if all other drivers are out to run you over. As I explore some other motorcycle web sites, I find that they all echo that over and over again.

So I got up and drove out to work, having left my house at 7 AM and then arriving at work at 7:30. I avoided the majority of rush hour here. I wore a backpack with my lunch and a change of shoes. That was cool. Driving out worked out well. I was fairly comfortable with the trip out. So that was good and I had a good day at work.

DH came out in the afternoon to follow me home. It was still clear when he got in to my workplace, but he had said that there was a big cloud building up near the house. The prevailing weather patterns take most weather east and south as they pass our house, so I thought that it might do the same again. Since I work north and west of my house, that should have been ok. I finished up and took my stuff out to the scooter to get ready to ride home. DH told me that he would back up whatever I wanted with the ride home. So I put my purse under the seat, got my jacket on, put on the gloves and the helmet, and wheeled my scooter on the way. As I was starting the ride, I saw that there were some nasty clouds off to the south. I drove back down Carson Road and noticed that the wind was creating more resistance than I was used to, and I got beaned with more small debris that had been picked up off the side of the road. I saw lightning off in the distance toward my destination. I was not a happy camper. But I kept on riding home. Five Mile Road was not busy, so I was going the fastest speed I was safe on it. As I was coming up to First Avenue North, I keep seeing lightning flashes in the clouds. And it was the ground to cloud lightning. It was pretty spectacular. It looked like I might hit a break in the rain showers, so I kept on riding down the road.

I had resolved to get as far down the road as I felt I could go safely. I’m a newbie rider, with just over 100 miles ridden at all. I know there’s an awful lot I have no clue how to handle. I was nervous, but I figured that without going on, I wouldn’t have the experience to deal with the situation in the future. I got past East Lake Park and Oporto Madrid Blvd, and it actually started raining. So I pulled to the side of the road, DH stopped, and we traded places. This was actually already set up. DH had said that he would ride the scooter if it started to rain. I was having trouble opening the seat to get my purse, but I finally got the seat up and my purse out. I kept the jacket and backpack on, but took off the gloves and helmet. We caught a break in traffic, DH pulled out onto the road, and I followed. As he was pulling out into the road, the rain really started falling, and a bolt of lightning struck the power lines on the other side of the road. The wind really started driving the rain down in sheets. I was staying behind DH as he drove the scooter down the main road. It was nerve wracking for me in the car. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for DH on the scooter. I would have been a mess on the scooter. When we got to 64th street, DH turned left to go over to 1st Avenue South. He continued home on 1st Ave. South. There’s a place on 1st Ave. South that has a small substation. As DH approached it, it was struck by lightning. I saw the ball of plasma that the lightning strike creaked as it blew. Then DH turned left on 56th Street to get over to our neighborhood. He crossed over the big railroad tracks and I lost sight of him. As I followed, I saw some large tree branches at the side of the road. That was in addition to all the little branches that were out there all over the place. There were major branches down up 56th. As I crossed Crestwood Blvd, I heard the hail start. It hailed the rest of the way home. AS I pulled up to the house, it started hailing heavily, and the lights were out. I parked the car, and stayed in it. In a few minutes, DH called me. He had gotten the scooter in the garage with the automatic garage door opener, and gotten the door closed, then the power failed. He was soaked to the skin.

In another 5 or 10 minutes, the rain and hail slacked off and I ran into the house with my helmet and gloves. DH informed me that I really owed him for that. The power didn’t come back on until 2:30 in the morning. And our phone line is trashed. So the DSL we have at the house is useless. But hopefully we’ll have the phone lines replaced by the end of the week.

We found out later that there were wind gusts reported at the airport of 70 miles per hour. That’s almost hurricane force winds! No wonder DH was being knocked around on the scooter as he drove it.

Now, for when I have no backup driving along behind me, I do have a plan. I would find someplace with some overhead cover and stop until the rain passes. I probably should have stopped a couple of miles earlier, but that falls into the area of not knowing any better. Doh!

New vehicle

Well, I got a new vehicle for getting around in town. I got a scooter. It’s a Genuine Buddy International 150 cc. I got it at Magic City Motor Scooters. Thanks to Matt and Will for all their help with my purchase! It came in on July 3rd. I paid the balance on it and brought it home that evening. DH followed me in his car as I drove it home like a granny.

I drove it Friday morning before we headed to Huntsville, then Sunday afternoon to kickball. What, you have a problem with adults who play kickball? Go on with ya then. No one ever said I was really good at it, but I made several good catches last Sunday. I also fell on my ass and hit my head, but I didn’t drop the ball I caught. Unfortunately it was so busy last week that I didn’t have the opportunity to drive at all after work. DH had the time to play some on the scooter last week, and did. He has much more experience on 2 wheel motorized vehicles than I do, so I do take his suggestions on my riding to heart.

Then yesterday DH followed me as I tried the route to my office. I will take First Ave North to Roebuck, go on Five Mile Road to Carson Road. When we got into parking at my work, DH was not pleased with how I drove, especially on First Avenue North. I was much slower than the posted speed limit. When I was reading reviews of the scooter, the reviewer was going 10% slower than the speedometer read. So DH was telling me I was actually going about 10 mph slower than I thought I was going. That is not going to be safe on the roads! After walking around for a little bit, we headed back to the house. With a stop for gas for DH’s car. Now that I knew the speedometer was reading faster than I was traveling, I could mentally make the adjustment for it. And the trip back went much better in DH’s mind. There were some folks along First Avenue North who were out grilling in front of a store who thought the scooter was cool and wanted me to stop, but DH needed a pit stop, so since he was being so helpful to me I didn’t want to cause him additional discomfort with an unintended stop. So I thanked them for their interest, but told them I needed to head on. We got home and DH was much happier with how I drove back. I did stay up at very close to the posted speed limit, or with the flow of the existing traffic on the large roads. Actually knowing how far off the speedometer reads helped my driving back immensely. DH was not ready to say I was ready to drive to work on the way out, but after the trip back, he was willing to concede that with a little more practice I would be ok.

Today I went out after church on my scooter with DH following me on his bike. I drove around the block, then headed over to Forest Park on Clairmont. I did ok heading out, and we turned around Triangle Park and came back on Clairmont. Unfortunately, coming back up Clairmont my engine died. I tried to restart it, but it wouldn’t go. So DH went ahead on home to get gas, and I pushed the scooter up the road to a little more safe spot on the road out of the way. While I was there, I checked the gas level in the tank, since I was at about a third of a tank on my fuel gauge. After a few minutes, the scooter started up again, so I started back on my way home. I was really wanting to get home, because the weather was threatening. Rain was moving in and thunder was rumbling in the distance. But about halfway back to the house while on Clairmont the scooter engine died again. So I called DH to let him know what happened and where I was. He came back with his car and a gascan. Even though I wasn’t out, he added about a half a gallon to the tank and the scooter started again. I got it to our block and the engine died a third time. But I was close enough to push the scooter to the house. So I now have a call to Matt to see what I need to have done.