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Adventures in practicing
Jul. 1st, 2008 01:40 pmAlso known as "wait, how many times did I cross Route 3?"
Last night I took the bike out for my first solo spin. The plan was to get over to the big parking lot and practice some of the safety course skills such as emergency stopping and swerving on my bike to get the feel of it. This involved riding on the public road, including the nasty little hill at the end of my road. Since I don't have the "starting on a hill" skill yet (which you must buy with mucho experience points, apparently), I was pretty nervous about even getting to the parking lot, let alone playing there by myself without any of the various "teachers" who have been helping me.
I made it over there just fine ... by not really stopping on the hill and instead just timing it so I could slow down and then gun it at the intersection. I then found a hill pretty close to it in the parking lot and proceeded to stall my bike a good dozen times.
After doing this and a bunch of swerving, stopping and pulling out of a tight intersection while staying in my lane type practice, I then decided to take the big loop around the tech center and go home the other way. Only problem is that I forgot the big loop is right turn only when it hits Concord Road. I also picked the wrong fork on the loop road and ended up crossing Rt. 3 into god knows where. At one point I realized that I couldn't even call for help since I didn't have any clue where I was.
Eventually after crossing Rt. 3 a number of times, I found a road I vaguely recognized and managed to find my way home just as the sun was setting. My little trip to the parking lot ended up being a 40 minute skills practice and a half an hour of "where am I?" road riding. At least all the road stuff was fine, minus the stop light that just would not acknowledge me. I had to wait for a car to come up to the pressure plate before it would let us go.
Last night I took the bike out for my first solo spin. The plan was to get over to the big parking lot and practice some of the safety course skills such as emergency stopping and swerving on my bike to get the feel of it. This involved riding on the public road, including the nasty little hill at the end of my road. Since I don't have the "starting on a hill" skill yet (which you must buy with mucho experience points, apparently), I was pretty nervous about even getting to the parking lot, let alone playing there by myself without any of the various "teachers" who have been helping me.
I made it over there just fine ... by not really stopping on the hill and instead just timing it so I could slow down and then gun it at the intersection. I then found a hill pretty close to it in the parking lot and proceeded to stall my bike a good dozen times.
After doing this and a bunch of swerving, stopping and pulling out of a tight intersection while staying in my lane type practice, I then decided to take the big loop around the tech center and go home the other way. Only problem is that I forgot the big loop is right turn only when it hits Concord Road. I also picked the wrong fork on the loop road and ended up crossing Rt. 3 into god knows where. At one point I realized that I couldn't even call for help since I didn't have any clue where I was.
Eventually after crossing Rt. 3 a number of times, I found a road I vaguely recognized and managed to find my way home just as the sun was setting. My little trip to the parking lot ended up being a 40 minute skills practice and a half an hour of "where am I?" road riding. At least all the road stuff was fine, minus the stop light that just would not acknowledge me. I had to wait for a car to come up to the pressure plate before it would let us go.
