Bright sunshine greeted us this morning with temps in the 70s assuring us we had a beautiful day to ride. I was left alone to my practice, so I did a few U-turns on my street then took off to cruise the neighborhood. I did see a few cabbage white butterflies flittering about in the bright sunshine, enjoying one of these last summery days.
I made note of my mileage—276. I did this because my boyfriend mentioned that when I get about 600 miles on the G310, we can more seriously look at getting my second bike. Originally the BMW R NineT was supposed to be my second motorcycle, but as Bill has ridden it now for five months and gotten to know the bike, he doesn’t feel it’s a good fit for me. I, of course, see that as a challenge and really want to ride the bike as I’m now very curious about working the dry clutch and the feel of a throwback bike. We’ll see; I’m crossing my fingers. But in the meantime, we’ve been looking at the Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled as my potential next bike.
However, I’m only halfway through my mileage goal, so I worked on putting some miles on the bike as well as my rider awareness as I rode down the streets. I spent time leaning into my curves and enjoying the feel of the bike. I love my G310 GS, but it lacks much in the way of power (34 horsepower and 20 ft-lb. of torque). I also am just curious to ride other motorcycles, and I think I have a little anxiety with this curiosity. Why anxiety? I think it stems from my getting into riding later in life; I figure my riding window is limited and I want to make the most of it.
I discovered a tiny little strip of “dirt road” to ride on. In reality it is where the sidewalk ends (thanks Shel Silverstein) and meets the dirt and gravel driveway of the neighborhood pool parking lot. But it’s dirt and I can enter and exit the strip without riding on the sidewalk, so I’m counting it as a dirt road. I had fun on it, but it was also a little unnerving as I felt the bike bump along the uneven surface. In the back of my mind, whenever I ride on the gravel or, as of now, the dirt, I know I haven’t put the bike down and it’s only a matter of time. So far so good, though, and I stayed on my bike on this beautiful day.
I did stall the bike at one stop; there was no specific reason I could figure out, so it was just a reminder that it can happen at any time. I continued to practice my lane changing, this time changing both from right to left and left to right working on my full head turns. My ride was mostly smooth. I had one wakeup call as I was coming to a stop. I was looking to the right as I approached the stop and was startled as a large white Chevy Suburban approached from the left. I hope to have learned the obvious lesson which is don’t get comfortable in assuming I know the traffic flow of the neighborhood and always scan all directions as I approach the intersection.
Now it was time for our joint ride. I again stalled the bike on the up-camber of the road on takeoff. But I let Bill take off, calmly slid the bike back against the curb and tried again. Second time was the charm. We headed off onto our curvy road and the ride was underway. I was happy when we went back on a quiet, dead-end road that is bumpy and a little rough. As we turned around to come out of this dead-end, we had to stop on a slight incline in the road. So I got more practice accelerating on an incline.
We took advantage of the beautiful day and made up some for our missed ride last week by riding through a bonus neighborhood. We really might have kept riding had our stomachs not been growling. But as we returned the bikes to the garage, there was a thought we would ride again on Sunday which was forecast to be a high of 65.
We did ride on Sunday, but we took out our bicycles and did a fun neighborhood cruise, enjoying the Halloween decorations, and did some off-roading in the park and at the school. I did great on the off-roading, but I have some work to do to get myself in better bicycle shape.
Flutterby Biker 