We’ve been in a lingering pattern of rain and thunderstorms for the past week.  It’s rained so much; we were unable to take the two BMW motorcycles this week for their annual inspections.  Today’s ride was delayed as we waited for the roads to dry from Friday night’s storms.  Because of this delay, we wound up riding around 1:00 in the afternoon into the building heat and humidity of the day.

            I was wearing a new, moisture-wicking t-shirt, but I didn’t feel much relief.  Last week I wrote about all the safety gear I wear, and during today’s ride, it not only kept me safe, but it also kept me baked.  From the moment I sat on the R Nine T, with its black gas tank, I felt uncomfortably warm.  And there was enough movement in the clouds to keep the hot sun bearing down on us throughout the ride.

            There wasn’t much of a wind chill either.  In fact I only felt relief when we rode close to the river.  I rode with my helmet visor up and my gloves unzipped to encourage more air circulation and dreading our slow speed maneuvers.  I noted on the curvy road that I do better when the road curves to the right than when it curves to the left.  I pondered this difference in curves and decided that I am more comfortable with the road curving to the right because I enter that curve close to the center line and have the lane and the shoulder of the road to work with.  However, on the left curves, I enter the curve at the edge of the road near the shoulder and work toward the center near the lane of oncoming traffic.  Now at my speed and with the neighborhood roads, there isn’t much oncoming traffic to worry about, but I’m glad I am aware of the difference and can work on my left curves approach.

            As we cruised about I noticed that the brown-eyed Susans and purple cone flowers have joined the hydrangeas in bloom.  We went up a new court and I saw gorgeous orange and yellow sort of starburst flowers on a bush that I didn’t recognize.  Only cabbage white butterflies were visible flitting about with even the dragonflies in short supply.  Perhaps the heat of the day kept things quiet.  Even though the temperature was in the mid-80s, the humidity was up in the 90s.  It was so uncomfortable that we saw a small dog on his leash laying down in a shady spot on the sidewalk and refusing to budge even as his owner tried to encourage him to keep going.

            Our hospital lot slow-speed practice was cut short to get us home and give us the chance to start cooling down.  Bill took off his gear and sat down in front of the small fan in the garage.  I grabbed some cold water then found a fan inside to sit in front of.  I hope the rain will back off some to allow us an earlier in the day ride; the days are only going to get hotter from here.

Leather pants, t-shirt, long-sleeved armored shirt, jacket, thick safety vest, and thick boots—not the typical wardrobe for an 82-degree day in June, but my favorite outfit by far.  As we headed out for our ride, I thought of the irony of “bundling up” on a near summer’s day.  But later when I saw a young lady in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt ride by on her motorcycle, I shivered.  There is such a hubris in assuming one is in total control, especially on a motorcycle.  I prefer to get a little sweaty every ride and protect my skin should the unexpected happen and I come off the motorcycle.

            Today’s temperature and breeze worked together to make the riding pleasantly cool.  I realize different people have different comfort zones when it comes to body heat and temperature, but as I felt the wind chill at 30-mph, I wondered at the t-shirt and shorts wearing riders who are cruising at higher speeds.  Don’t they feel chilly?  I realized more so on today’s ride how the safety gear also keeps me comfortable on most of our rides.  Sure, we’ll get to 90+ degrees with 80% or higher humidity and the gear will feel like too much.  But on days like that, I think we just need to cruise more, especially on the 35-mph road to cool off.

            I was lucky to get the chance to ride at all.  Friday afternoon super sever thunderstorms moved through the area dumping a ton of rain and causing wind damage to one of my oak trees.  At one point there was zero visibility, just a grey sheet of rain in front of me.  I was worried the roads might still be wet and was expecting to at least dodge a lot of puddles.  But the bright sunshine on Saturday dried up all but the deepest puddles and gave us a perfect day for riding.

            My ride was far from perfect, however.  I had three missed shifts; twice, I went into neutral, and one shift I skipped over second and went to third gear.  At least I was fully aware of these missed shifts and was able to correct.  One correction I made was to pull in my clutch.  I did this automatically, and the benefit of pulling in the clutch is that it’s one way to help slow the motorcycle down.  It’s also helpful because with the clutch pulled in, I can correct the gears.

            Friday’s storms gave a softness to the green grass and leaves on the trees.  More day lilies have bloomed giving bursts of orange and yellow flowers throughout the ride.  I saw several cabbage white butterflies and many dragonflies gamboling about.  One dragonfly was flitting about on a collision course with my helmet when he adjusted super quickly mid-flight and zoomed to safety.  One more smile on a ride full of smiles.

Waiting at a long light as we headed home for our ride, I spotted a petite looking person on a motorcycle behind us.  The rider was wearing a head-helmet and had a kerchief covering nose and mouth.  To pass the time at the long light, Bill and I debated whether it was woman or small man on the motorcycle and whether it was a Harley-Davidson which we both bet it was.  When the light finally changed and we headed onto the interstate, we knew it wouldn’t take the rider long to zip by us.  As the rider rolled on full throttle, we had confirmation that it was a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy and that it was a small, skinny man astride it.  The “skinny man, fat boy” as Bill said.

            That rider was one of many we saw both as we rode over and rode home.  Getting on the interstate, we saw ahead of us a man on a Harley and a woman on a naked bike.  We had no chance of seeing what kind of motorcycles they were as they rolled on the throttle and shot out far ahead down the interstate.  They were good confirmation of what a glorious day for riding it was.

            We finally had a week where there was no rain predicted for Saturday.  The sun was shining, and the temperature was heading into the low 80s, so we had mid-70s for our ride.  Today’s ride was marred, however, but lots of weird traffic.  Riding down the curvy road, we had to loop around the mailman’s truck.  As we entered the cul de sac at the end of the curvy road, I spotted a car ready to come out of its driveway, so I pulled over instead of practicing my turns.  Coming out of the cul de sac, we again had to move slowly past the mail truck as the curvy road isn’t very wide.

            To avoid another mail truck, we rode back down the block toward my parents’ house.  It was along this route I spotted my first of five cabbage white butterflies.  When I wasn’t watching out for mail trucks or delivery vans, I enjoyed the gorgeous hydrangeas now in full bloom.  I spotted more day lilies and Kniphofia in bloom; the latter is a tall grass plant with bushy orange blooms that look a bit like those Swiffer dusters.  I even saw the first crepe myrtles in bloom which surprised me as we’ve had a good long spring with milder temperatures, and I’m used to the smell of the crepe myrtles in the summer heat.

            Interestingly, after last week’s post about dogs, Bill actually was chased by a little puffy dog.  We were waiting for an SUV to pass so we could turn right into a cul de sac to work on S-turns.  I noticed that the vehicle was moving rather slowly like maybe it was looking for a particular address.  I had also noticed two small dogs gamboling through yards.  When the SUV stopped and the driver got out without really parking the vehicle—it was close to the curb but not pulled into the curb—I realized that he was seeking his dogs who had gotten loose.  These two had a clear case of what Bill calls “spunkybuttitis,” and they were enjoying running around and being chased.  Well Bill didn’t realize what was happening because if he had, he would have turned left away from the dogs and the cul de sac.  As we turned right, I saw one of the dogs take off and give chase to the Rocket.  Unfortunately, because of where the dogs’ owner had stopped, I couldn’t turn around in the street and had to also enter the cul de sac.  I pulled around and stopped just as Bill came to a stop to watch the dog who ran off as his owner tried to corral him.

            During this excitement, I realized I was too fast in my turn, so I told myself to slow down.  A beat after I had that thought, I realized I had automatically pulled in my clutch to help me slough off speed.  This was a happy realization that I was gaining enough skills to automatically apply them to ride safely.  But I didn’t have time to get cocky.  Five minutes later, as we practiced our turns in the square lot behind the post office, I misread Bill’s direction and had to come to an awkward stop as I was not set up for a good turn.

            In addition to the silly dogs, I saw a white egret intensely hunting in the shallows of the river.  We also chased the now adolescent goslings out of the road, and we had two sudden stops to avoid crazy squirrels.  There was even a largish box turtle hanging out on the curb.  I did see another Tiger Swallowtail, but I didn’t see it until we were driving home.  As we drove home, Bill said he started to feel the heat.  We have been lucky so far with our extended spring, but the warmer temperatures are coming, so we’ll have to start shifting our rides to earlier in the morning.  No problem for me as long as I get to keep riding.

            One of the interesting aspects of motorcycle riding is watching how dogs react to the bike.  A few dogs ignore the motorcycles as they zoom by, but not many.  At the very least dogs attentively watch our passing, and several dogs will aggressively bark and give pseudo-chase.

            My mind went to dogs on this ride as my brother’s dog, Buddy, was out admiring our motorcycles pre-ride.  Really, Buddy was waiting for the word to cross the street and come get his doggy treat that my mom gives him on his visits, but I liked the image of Buddy from over the handlebars and the silly idea of him checking out the Rocket and R Nine T as the two bikes waited for our ride.

            I managed to gear up early enough before Bill did, so he suggested I head out for a little bit on my own.  I rode the R nine T around one block, and then headed up one of the main roads through the neighborhood.  As I came to where I wanted to turn left to get back on my mom’s street, a Jeep SUV zoomed up and had clearly planned to run the stop sign but saw me and came to an awkward stop splayed across the right side of the road I needed to turn on.  So I had to turn onto the left side while shaking my head at how crazy someone would drive in a neighborhood with lots of pedestrians.

            And there were lots of people out enjoying the gorgeous sunny, warm day.  We passed a woman walking her little whippet three different times, and each time the little dog stopped walking and watched our passage.  There was another gentleman walking his dog (I didn’t recognize the breed), and this dog was oblivious to us.  There are three houses we ride past that must have invisible fences where the dogs race to the edge of the yard, barking at us, and following us as far as they can.  I heard that dogs react to motorcycle riders like this because of the odd movement.  There’s a human shape up top, but the movement on the motorcycle does not look natural to the dogs.  I also have learned that if a dog gives actual chase while riding a motorcycle, the key is to change speed.  Stopping quickly will cause the dog to overrun the bike, and as the dog regroups, it is easy enough to speed up and away or change direction.

            Luckily so far in our rides, we’ve only been barked at.  And I do enjoy seeing the dogs out and about as I ride.  On this ride I also saw several of the cabbage white butterflies and had no sooner wondered what had happened to the young Tiger Swallowtails, when I spotted a large yellow flutter up among some tree branches.  There was a large surprise for us toward the end of our ride.  As we came around a curve, a huge turkey vulture swooped in front of us and looped around for another swoop before heading up and away from our motorcycles.  It clearly was enjoying its dead squirrel feast.

            As for my riding skills, I enjoyed the smoothness of my shifting gears.  I also worked some more on entering a curve.  I had a struggle with the on-street U-turn and had to ride onto the grass.  I believe I had too much speed going into the turn, so I couldn’t turn as tightly.  But even in making a slight mistake, I got to practice the change in surface from road to grass.  I enjoy my learning as much as I enjoy my riding.