Gearing Up and Learning to Ride! Part One

OK, so I decided I wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle. Good.  First step accomplished i.e.; yup,

I'm going to do it.  Now what?  Several choices confront me. Do I buy a bike and learn to ride on my own using trial and error?   Not being a daring sort, that choice seemed to involve one too many lessons in picking up both the bike and myself. Nope, ixnay that one; don't need a lesson in frustration.   Do I ask my husband to teach me?  Hmm.  That one might be doable but having heard enough tales of husbands teaching their wives to drive cars and how well that goes (not!), I decided against that one, too.  Also, doesn't solve the problem of what bike to learn on, since I don't have one and both of my husband's bikes are too big for comfort.  

Luckily, I knew about the Canada Safety Council motorcycle training course called, Gearing Up! It is offered at a nearby community college every weekend from spring to fall and it has a great reputation.   So, I signed myself up to take the course on Labour Day weekend and I didn't regret it.  This is how the weekend unfolded:

The Thursday evening before the weekend was a classroom session with general instruction on accident cause factors (nice way to start, hmm?), defensive riding, lane positioning, protective clothing, checking out the bike before a ride and videos to demonstrate the topics being discussed.  The instructor also went over the plan for the weekend riding training and some of what to expect.  I have to admit that by the end of the 3 or so hours, I wasn't sure how well I would do when it actually came to riding.  I kept hearing how people would be sent home if they weren't "getting it" and was beginning to wonder if I was cut out for this riding-my-own-motorcycle stuff, especially since I was a greener-than-green novice.  I didn't even know how to turn the thing on! Do you use a key? Push a button?  Kickstart?  Pushstart? Enlist a friend?  Pray?  What?   

Saturday morning started out warm and sunny with a promise to get quite hot through the day.  Dressed in my full gear, including armour (wasn't taking any chances with pealing skin off my body WHEN I went down -- actually how fast I thought I would be going didn't cross my mind), I arrived just as we were being instructed to label our helmets.  Nice touch, actually; allowed the instructors to use our names instead of "Hey, You!" when correcting our maneuvers.  

The first lessons were non-motorized, so to speak with lots of pushing and running; one rider, one pusher.  The bikes were turned off and, paired up, we pushed each other around just to get a feel for balance and braking.  Thank God that didn't last long.  I was running of breath AND my riding  pants kept falling down and remember I said the day promised to be hot?  Well, it was. By noon, it reach 42 C (107 F) on the parking lot pavement and I was sweating buckets.  My suit is hand-made and better suited to cooler temperatures.  If it wasn't for the MiraCool (tm) vest I was wearing, I would have died.  I, unlike my husband, am not a heat-seeker and the MiraCool vest works by evaporative cooling.  It was wonderful!  

FINEC - that's the acronym for fuel, ignition, neutral, emergency, choke and THAT's how you start a motorcycle.   See, I did learn something!   I also add K to the end of that to remind myself about the kickstand.  Not good to take off with it down :(

The better part of the morning lessons centered on finding the "friction point"; letting out just enough clutch with just enough throttle to get the bike moving forward.  Remember Thursday night's class about going home if we weren't "getting it"?  Well, this was the main reason.  Every other lesson was based on having clutch control and not continuously stalling the bike.   No one went home.  We all got it even though I had a bit of a rocky start figuring out I needed to put on more throttle before letting out the clutch and learning that it was OK to "ride the clutch" a bit for a smoother transition (no, not like a "stick" in a car).  Once I "got it", I had it down pretty well.  

There was lots of starting, stopping, starting stopping, turning, curves, walking-speed riding with clutch control and foot braking to control the speed.  Shifting out of first gear into second and accelerating out of turns and curves and down into first again started after lunch and led up to a the final exercise of the day with all 30 students (until now we were in groups of 10) riding a makeshift course with stop signs, left and right turns and curves to  mimic city streets.  It was a bit nerve-wracking with all thirty of us going in all directions, trying to remember to signal properly, not stall the bike, use "eye lead" (translation: WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING), shift up and down properly.  It was an exercise in putting it all together and yes, we all managed to avoid each other.  

The day ended with more class time to go through the skills test the next day and I found myself doubting my choice, again.   Will I have learned enough to pass the test and move on to the next stage of the graduated license?  I had to trust that I would, based on how far I had come, today.  

Next blog: Day 2