A cold front pushed into our area two days ago, so we knew we’d have a beautiful Saturday morning for our ride. I woke up a little later having been worn out by the first week back at school. But I have been counting on today’s ride to help me de-stress and decompress. Even with a later start, we had cool, comfortable low 70s for our ride.
A slight disappointment as Bill didn’t bring the R NineT out for practice, but I quickly got past that as I successfully got the bike rolling out of the up-camber position Bill had purposely set it in. I realize that I am beginning to feel more comfortable handling the throttle.
The morning’s practice was an off-set slalom which I rode through successfully in first gear. After a few runs in first, I wanted to try second, telling myself that I had successfully done second on the slalom last week. I didn’t make it through the slalom in second. I backed off and went back through in first a few more times, and then tried second again. Second failure. Back I went to first, working my way up to another attempt at second. When I failed at this third attempt, I pulled over to get some advice from Bill who had been sitting and watching my trials.
“This is an off-set slalom,” he reminded me.
“Right. But I could do second gear last week,” I responded.
“Last week was a straight slalom,” he pointed out to me. And of course he was right.
I chalked up my memory lapse to the lingering mental fatigue from returning to work, relaxed, and continued my off-set slalom practice in first gear. In a slalom the rider tries to move the bike without turning the front wheel excessively. The bike swerves through pressure applied to the corresponding side of the handlebars and body shifting. Since I was running through the slalom for thirty minutes, I felt the workout in my body.
So when we returned to my parents’ house to pick up the R NineT for our neighborhood cruise, and I successfully got the bike going up-camber again, I let out a squeal of delight as we accelerated up to our 25 mph because it felt so good to relax my body and set myself into cruise mode. Even as I squealed, I realized that when I wrote about my ride, it wouldn’t be at all impressive knowing my speeds are so low. But for those of you who do ride, I think you understand my “small” thrill; it is so exhilarating, so freeing, so much fun!
We cruised around the neighborhoods, noting many people out on bicycles, running, and walking, taking advantage of the gorgeous day. We hit both gravel parking lots, no slipping this week, but I appreciate the practice because we have off-road plans in our future and the gravel gives me a good introduction. I gleefully shifted into fifth gear on our 35 mph road, and found myself thinking on my brother’s advice. My younger brother Jerry got into motorcycles about 10 years ago, getting a police auction bike first before getting himself a Harley Fat Boy. He told me he would practice riding at higher speeds by going out on Virginia Beach Boulevard early Sunday mornings. Today I realized that I want the experience of riding on faster roads, not from any desire to speed, but because I want that exhilarating experience.
Maybe one day we can find a quiet country road with a 45 mph speed limit. On the R NineT, Bill won’t have any trouble taking off.
Flutterby Biker 