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2nd Bike Lesson - Ren's Bike - Aug 2013
Blog Date - 06 August 2013
The chosen venue for a rainy Sunday evening is a deserted car park on a retail park.
I am still struggling to get away with a smooth start and to hold the throttle steady.
But I am up and riding and I practise some wide figures of 8's. My left turn is for some reason better than my right. I am constantly told by the bf to look where I am going. My eyes seem to be fixated on looking at the bike controls.
On making a right turn I made the fatal error of looking at what I hoped to avoid rather than looking where I wanted to go. So by looking at the building I headed towards it. I panicked and hit the brakes too hard. My feet went down but with only a toe to touch down with on a sudden stop this was not enough and down I went. I did the classic Elvis knee tremble and tried to hold the bike but its tilt was too far and I dropped it.
I felt terrible I had dropped Ren's bike. I jumped up apologizing profusely but Ren was nice as can be about it. Fortunately there was no obvious signs of added damage to the bike. Poor little bike has been used as a learner before and suffered some minor scrapes and scratches in the past before I got my mitts on it.
I climbed back onto the bike and tried to stay calm despite my drop. Just then a beautiful vivid rainbow came out across the sky. If you have read any stories from me in the past you know I associate rainbows with my departed mum. So I felt I had a pat on the back from her and with Ren's added encouragement I carried on.
I continued with some more figure's of 8's and some more stop, start practise. Then progressed to changing gear, going up to 2nd and 3rd and down again. Changing gear came more easily than I hoped.
Ren then described feathering the clutch to me. Which means basically using your clutch to control your speed in 1st gear to enable a much smoother ride and to have more control over the bike. This worked a treat and I felt much more in control and much smoother while in 1st gear. I could now ride at a slow pace without jerking all the time and now could comfortably ride along side Ren at walking pace.
I continued for around 2 hours through some pretty hard rain on occasion until my hands were sore from their death grips and too small gloves. Still not over confident on my stopping and starting but the height of the bike may not be helping. However despite this and the drop I was really pleased with the progress I made. Everyone in the bike club had told me I will drop the bike, nearly everyone does when learning. So rather than dispirited over my drop I decided to see it as a positive. I did it, I dropped the bike. 1st drop done and dusted. I am lucky to have a bf that does not want to kill me after dropping his bike because I suspect there will be more to come.
Reader's Comments
rick said :-
Well done sharon. Keep at it. A few drops wont be noticeable on rens bike
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Rick...I'm gonna get you boy!
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Patchy said :-
Thank you for taking me back to how I must have felt in 1978 when I was learning how to do the perfect 1st gear set off on my Fantic GT 50 in my back garden, the excitement, fear, and satisfaction of making a powered two wheeler responding to my input, all of which I have long forgotten about now that it has become second nature to me, Sharon you are in for a real treat as your skills develop and become honed, so well done you , you are doing what others wouldn't even dare to do.
Ps when can I see this need bike then.
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Latchy said :-
Oh and er I am sick of this I pad changing my name to patchy with its suggestive spelling
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Sharon said :-
Thanks Rick but I will try and stop dropping that poor bike of Ren's.
Latchy - Thanks and I am glad I brought back some memories for you. Photos of the bike will be on here soon and you should come along to the bike club again if you can get away from taxi duties. You never know I might even be there on my bike...one day !!
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Eh up "Patchy"!! I'm stickin with that from now on.
Hows the Trumpet doing?
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Pauline Springer said :-
Keep up the good work Sharon. All sounds pretty scary to me so think I will stick to my trusted fiesta!x
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
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