Several days of rain gave way to a gorgeous, sunny, warm but not hot Saturday morning. A glorious day for a ride. The sun was so bright in the sky, we put off washing the bikes until a partly cloudy day. This was my third week successfully backing the bike out of the garage and remembering to put the kickstand down.
We headed out into a quiet neighborhood, not much traffic and not too many people up and about yet. It is a holiday weekend, so people may have been enjoying the opportunity to sleep in. Even the dragonflies must’ve been sleeping in as I only saw a few early on in the ride. Right off the bat, though, a cabbage white butterfly sent us on our way.
We headed into the ritzy neighborhood and road straight down the long road just to feel the bikes under us and the cool breeze. A few turns in the court and we again did a different route through the neighborhood. One of the skills I was supposed to work on was trail braking which is where I gradually apply brakes while entering a curve then gradually releasing the brake as I come out of the curve. Now in the MSF course, I was told to brake before the curve but not be on the brake in the curve and accelerate out. The reason for this is due to newbie riders most likely applying too much brake into the curve and thus falling. But motorcycle racers trail brake to benefit from forcing more of the rubber from the front tire to maintain contact with the road. I tried at our slow 25 mph speed to trail brake, but I’m not sure if I was successful or not. I didn’t fail, but I don’t know that I increased the tire surface contact with the road.
I did have success with my stopping using the rear brake only and stepping out my left foot. I did so well I only used the front brake on one stop. That was for stops while out on the road. We added quick braking while riding at 15-20 mph. One braking skill we forgot was to brake while standing. Add that to next week’s ride.
Our route was so backwards, I thought we weren’t going to ride in the gravel lot because we turned right out of the church lot instead of left. But we looped around and hit the gravel. The recent rain may have churned up the gravel; I felt both my wheels slip sideways under me. It gives me a visceral thrill as I feel that slip and makes me look forward to more off-road riding in the future.
We extended the ride about half an hour longer and I noted that my hands are holding up better. My right hand didn’t get tired until we were nearing the end of the ride and doing our straighten-up-and-stop-out-of-curves practice. The dragonflies were more prevalent in the latter portion of our ride, and I saw 6 cabbage whites in all during the ride. And I actually managed to catch enough of a glimpse of an American Copper butterfly. They may enjoy the blooming hydrangeas or the day lilies that have begun to open.
The best part of our ride came as we were circling around to head home. As we approached the stop sign at my old practice road, two families of Canadian geese were traversing the road. When our bikes roared up to the stop sign, the goslings reared back and tried to head back in the direction from which they came. But the adults were determined to shepherd the families to a new food source and fussed at the babies to keep going. We cut off our motors to help calm the goslings down and enjoyed watching the parade. It was a lovely image with which to end our ride and kept us both smiling all the way home.
Flutterby Biker 