Our weekend is mix and match weather—partly sunny skies and 60 degrees followed by rain and highs in the mid-40s. Luckily, the sun was out enough to let us ride, and I had both my warm and cold weather riding gear. I had my Klim summer jacket and summer gloves on, but I wore my long sleeves and Klim wool jacket underneath. And I was perfectly comfortable throughout the ride.
The buzzards and crows were acting up with the weather, flitting and circling about. The day was warm enough that I wondered if it might confuse a butterfly into making an appearance. It didn’t, or course, but the nice day brought the kids out and the dog walkers. The impending storm, with snow forecasted, caused people to be out, and we encountered traffic everywhere.
My ride went really well. I was glad to have the light weight gloves on as they give me the best feel for the throttle, clutch, and front brake. I figured if my hands got chilly, I could turn on the heated grips. But with the sun shining down on us for most of the ride, my hands were fine. I made an interesting emergency stop. As Bill was leading us around on the on-street U-turns, he stalled the Rocket in front of me. I saw Bill dab his left foot and realized I would need to stop in the midst of my turn. So I straightened my wheel quickly and stopped with no wobble or need to dab. I was a little disappointed because my turns were set up really sharply, but then I realized that I had the opportunity to practice a rare skill.
I also had good U-turns on the gravel lot. I’m almost ready to go inside the wooden board two parking spot section and see if I can stay inside the wood. During the fast shift-down turn drills, I wanted more roadway to accelerate because I really enjoy that drill.
When we started the ride, I looked for clouds and saw some building in from the north. About halfway through our ride, the clouds quickly overtook the sun, so much so I wondered about rain. The forecast hadn’t shown any rain for today, but I thought maybe the storm might have arrived early. No rain came, but the temperature began to fall as we ended our ride. As we headed home, the temperature had already fallen 10 degrees, so I was glad I had my mix and match layers.
Of course, the big question in my mind was what would next week’s ride be like? Will winter return? Or will we be gifted another spring-like day to air out our motorcycles? I can’t wait to find out.
Flutterby Biker 