Lesson 1: 2 December 2000

Gearing up to get on the bike for the first time

The very first thing we did with the bike was take it in the back yard, where there's grass, but not a nice lawn, and Chad laid the bike down on its side carefully, then taught me to pick it up. That's easier said than done with a piece of machinery that weighs more than twice what I do. Of course I am given to understand I'll probably get more chances to practice this skill.

Saturday was a nice day. After the obligatory car-washing (geeze, my poor Trans Am was covered in mud from someplace they were working on the roads) and bike-cleaning, Chad rode the VLX over to the nearby school parking lot, and I followed him with Edward in the T/A. Chad documented everything with the digital camera.

Gear to start with: Steel-toed boots w. Vibram sole; leather jacket; HJC full-face helmet; leather gloves

Turns out my sunglasses won't fit under my helmet, so later this same day, we got a tinted faceshield for the helmet. With three feet of hair, and up to eleven earrings at any time, the whole helmet thing is not easy. First of all, my hair has to be braided -- a ponytail won't cut it because it would make a lump the helmet wouldn't fit over, plus the loose hair would whip around and become a horrific tangle. And getting the helmet on without loosening any earrings is tough -- never mind getting it off! Ah well. I tried on lots of different kinds of helmets before I settled on this one. I had envisioned myself liking a three-quarter helmet, but when I tried them on, I actually didn't, and they felt terribly awkward. Half helmets just seemed way too exposed for me. I wonder if I will change my mind over time?

My gloves have a velcro wrist closure, which makes them easier to get on and off.

Incidentally, I've always been a leather jacket person, but haven't had one for the past couple of years. I got this one a month or two ago at Just Leather on Stevens Creek in San Jose. I wholeheartedly recommend that store! They're wonderful there. I went back and got gloves and a toolbag for the VLX and whenever I can think up more leather items I need, that's where I'll be going. They are a mom'n'pop kind of store, and when you walk in they greet you nicely, offer you coffee or a soda, and are just terribly helpful. Their prices are fair, their selection is excellent, and so's the quality of stuff I've gotten there, so I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Chad says, "Adjust the mirrors so you can see your shoulders in them when you're just sitting normally."

And here I am, all geared up and sitting on the bike for the first time, getting ready to start it for the first time and put it in gear for the first time! Woohoo! The first real step on my way to becoming gen-yoo-wine biker scum!

As you can see, I hope, the arm reach on this bike is really comfortable for me. I'm 5'6" tall (about 1.7m for the metric types), a fairly average height woman. A big problem for me in thinking about a comfortable bike was seat height (which you can't tell all that much about in this picture). With a 30" inseam, there were a lot of bikes I just couldn't sit on comfortably with my feet on the ground. But the VLX, with a seat height of 25 inches, is terribly comfortable -- and yet it does not feel like too small and lightweight a bike to really get comfortable with and keep for a good while.

My ass in motion for the first time

Amazingly, I let out the clutch and did not immediately stall the bike. In fact, I daringly moved about 10-15 feet at a speed so blinding the speedometer needle didn't budge from its resting position! A real accomplishment!

Chad says I went more like 30 feet. Sure, I'll buy that, he was watching, and I was all preoccupied with working the clutch and moving and stuff like that.

Chad says I still really need to work on my slouch. I'm sitting up far too straight to look like a real badass biker wench.

That accomplished, Chad said it was time to get up to blazing speeds of perhaps as much as 5mph, and put my feet on the pegs by the time I had the clutch fully released. A lot to think about all at once, but success! And here is the picture of the very first time I had the bike really going, with my feet up on the pegs, and everything, almost like a real biker.

Every time I'd go a ways, and then stop, Edward (who was being a wonderfully supportive spectator) would clap his hands and holler, "Yay, mommy!" It really made me grin to see him be so excited for me.

See? Check me out, I almost look like I could really ride this thing. You know... eventually.

After the successful first lesson, Chad and Edward and I went out for a burger. I was feeling pretty jazzed. I had managed to get to the point of riding in circles turning left with reasonable comfort, and awkwardly doing the same turning right. "Is there some reason it's harder to turn right than left?" I asked Chad. He chuckled. "In your case," he said, "it's that you spent hours last night polishing your airbox cover." I dunno, though, there's more to it than that, but I don't know what it is.

We spent a while over burgers talking about the lesson. There were three times when I had thought I was going to drop the bike, but didn't. Two of the times were making right-hand turns, and the third was when I saw a car coming into the parking lot and stopped a little short, unsure where the car was going to go.

We'd determined that the bike was really just about ready for a new chain. So after eating, we went to the nearby motorcycle stuff store to see if they had a chain that would fit my bike, and maybe the shop manual or that type of book for my bike. No book, but they did have two chains. Given a choice between the $20 generic one, or the $50 heavier-duty one, I opted for the $50 chain, Chad picked out the tools we'd need, and we planned to replace the chain.

Our little would-be biker boy

Edward is a huge motorcycle fan. He was running all over the store pointing at stuff and saying, "Motorcycle! Motorcycle hat! Ooooh! Balloon! Motorcycle! Motorcycle!" The folks at the store took his two-year-old energy level with good humor. One guy there had a daughter about the same age, and laughingly showed me a catalog containing jammies that looked like racing leathers, which he was planning to get her for Christmas. Heh.

That evening, while I fought off a headache, Chad did all the work to swap out the chain, bless him. I was pretty tired, and thus grateful to him for doing all the work, though disappointed in myself for not taking an active role in the process.

Lesson 2: 3 December 2000

Yup, needs more chrome.

Sunday was also a pretty nice day, so after we were done puttering around the house and listening to Car Talk, we put Edward in the Trans Am, and Chad rode my bike over to the school parking lot where Edward and I met him again.

I was initially more confident. All geared up, I got on the bike and put it in gear and then, getting ready to ride it over to the area where I'd been going in circles the previous day, I immediately stalled it. Unfazed, I started the bike back up, and promptly stalled it again. But the third time, I did manage to start it, get it going, and turn left to ride into the circle-riding area.

Shrugging off the stalls was no big deal. That much wasn't any different from learning to drive a car, which admittedly I did a while back. But I've also taught people to drive stick, so hey. Stalls happen when you're getting the feel of a clutch, any given clutch that you don't already know comfortably. Learning to do the same stuff with my hands instead of my feet is a little funny, but it's the same concept so it's not that bad, and emotionally, it wasn't a confidence shaker for me or anything.

I took a few laps making left turns to sort of get the feel of things again. That felt fine. So far, stalls notwithstanding, I was definitely feeling positive about things. Chad was pushing me to keep learning stuff, though, and so I got going on the right-hand turning circles. I still found these much harder. Thinking about it while I was doing it, I realized that I was having a harder time looking where I wanted to go when turning right, and so it felt like my right turns were always wider and much less controlled. To add to the difficulty, I would start thinking about stuff more and more as I'd get closer to the kerb and still not have completed the right-hand u-turn, and then I'd look at the kerb hoping I wasn't going to run into it, and have that much harder a time actually executing the turn. Deep breaths, concerted effort to look where I wanted to go, and using the stick-shift driving tactic of pulling in the clutch and riding it around corners carried me through for the most part, though.

However, pulling in the clutch and riding it around corners meant that I slowed down and lost some momentum, at the same time as I was having trouble just feeling my way through stuff and executing it smoothly. I would start in the long leg of the oval I was riding, and then make the turn, then stop and take a hot second before doing it again. About the fifth time or so, the flaw in my tactics finally bit me in the ass, and halfway through the u-turn, things slowed down a lot and I knew the bike was going over.

In the moment when I knew it was going over (maybe I was going 3mph), I just accepted it, and let the bike go down, just figuring on getting out of the way. Dammit.

But, I did recover. The upshot of it all was basically a couple of new scratches on the bike, which was already not pristine so what the heck, that's the point of a learner bike, at least in part... so I won't feel too bad about it. I rode a few more circles after that, and then we called it a day and went to go take Chad's Aero to the shop for recalibrations in the fuel delivery system.

Edward was totally, totally upset when we left the daddy motorcycle at the dealership. When all three of us got into my car and left, the poor boy was just a wreck. "Oh, no, daddy motorcyden!" he kept crying. Chad told him the daddy motorcycle was just going to be at the motorcycle doctor for a little while, and we weren't going to be abandoning it, but the poor kid had a hard time coping all the same.

Geeze, reading back over this I realized I forgot to mention I scraped my knee falling off the bike. Nothing major, I mean the dry skin on my knee was more impressive. But all the same, Chad said we should both get chaps and wear them all the time.

The other thing I meant to say about the experience of dropping the bike was this: even though I've spent a fair amount of time in my life learning how to fall down without getting hurt, I realized I have never learned how to fall off something that's moving, that is also falling over. What hit the ground first? My knee and the heel of my hand. Not a smart fall. Hah.

Oh yeah, and the last thing I realized... the three times on the first day that I thought I was close to dropping the bike, I really wasn't anywhere near as close as I thought I was.

Lesson 3: 9 December 2000

Gear now includes chaps

It was a cloudy morning and rain was predicted, but it hadn't started yet. During the week, we had gone back to Just Leather and gotten fitted for chaps, which they tailored for both of us while we waited. Again, they're terribly hospitable there. They offered us coffee or soda, they've got toys for kids to play with (which Edward thought was terrific), and also, I just really like that they're a family operation -- mom and dad, the kids, and one time even the grandkids were there.

The dad, who was fitting us, said right off the bat that fitting guys is usually a real straightforward thing, but it can be a tougher thing to fit women with chaps they already have, and sometimes they'll have to be made and that takes a few days. But the first pair he found for me fit right in the leg, and he marked them up and took them to the back to be recut and resewn in the waist and the length. He did the same for Chad, and said they'd both be done in about a half hour.

Definitely the most thick black leather I've ever worn at one time.

He made sure to show us both the right way to get 'em on, and with a chuckle, told Chad, "You'll probably find you'll be out riding soonest if you help the lady put them on, it can take a while to be sure they're on right and stuff." I thought for a second about copping an attitude, but sure enough, where the zippers fell was damned hard for me to reach. The son laughed, and said it tended to take him a while with his too because his shoulders don't stretch enough. Truth to tell, if I were skinnier and much flatter of chest, I could probably reach the zipper with ease. But I doubt I'll be getting skinnier anytime soon and as I've often complained, well, I've got a real motherly physique now. Ahem.

I've never had chaps before and I think they'll take getting used to. I had leather pants once, but they were made of thin leather. These chaps are thick leather. So you can feel the weight of them on your legs, but they're comfortable about the hips and there's no feeling of restricted mobility in that area, which there was with even the thin leather pants. The weird thing is, your butt feels totally exposed. With Chad's help I put the chaps on before we went to go have my lesson today, and let me tell you, it sure was funny sitting in my car wearing the chaps. It was all leather on leather everywhere, my jacket and my legs squeaking against the seat, and it felt really funny. Getting out of the car and walking over to the bike, I was afraid for a hot second that I'd sat in something wet, because my butt was cold compared to my legs. Very funny.

Ready to get going

Well, I geared up with confidence, nary an earring mishap with the helmet even, and strode to the VLX without even feeling like that much of a poser. I swung a leg over and settled onto the seat, took the handlebars in hand and pulled the bike upright, kicked up the stand, started it right up. It felt very comfortable.

I was a little surprised, however, when I was clumsy with the clutch. I had expected to be able to start moving with the same kind of ease I had been by the end of my second lesson last Sunday. I rode a leg of the same oval, turned left and came back up, and for some reason, it just all felt awkward and funny to me. I was less smooth with the start, wider and more nervous through the turn. Where on Sunday I'd started to feel something, not exactly a sense of being in tune with the whole thing but something like maybe I might eventually be, it was not clicking the same way.

Hey, going straight ain't so bad

Stalling the bike, and even dropping it, hadn't made me feel quite so awkward as the "not-clicking" feeling was making me. Talking to Chad about it, he thinks I psyched myself out a bit, and am thinking about things too much, and that could very well be true.

Chad had brought some empty beer cans to lay out in the parking lot for markers. He demonstrated what he wanted me to try: simulating being stopped at a stop sign, and turning left at an intersection, basically a 90-degree left on a two-lane street worth of space. But before I tried that, we decided I'd ride a few circles and get into the groove.

Well, I stopped it more or less where I wanted to

I just could not get into the groove. Every time I turned I kept thinking, "Shit, I'm not quite making this turn." I tried to not think that. Where last week I'd been successful just taking a deep breath, looking where I wanted to go, and going there, I couldn't get that feeling this time. One time, realizing I wasn't going to complete the turn before I ran out of space and there was a kerb, stopped short, and damn near dropped the bike on the left side. I wondered afterwards if I should have just dropped it. I'm strong enough that I kept it upright but it wanted to go over after I stopped.

Walking it through a turn

In the end, we never did get to trying the left-turn from a stop sign exercise. I wound up going back to the first lesson's exercises, basically: ride the straight legs, stop, put the bike in neutral, walk it around the corner, ride the leg of the oval again. Doing that, I worked on being smoother with the clutch, actually giving it a bit of gas, and stopping with both brakes instead of focusing on the front (hand) brake and not worrying about the rear (foot) brake.

At one point in the lesson, I handed the bike over to Chad, and held Edward on my hip while Chad rode in small circles around us, talking about what he was doing. I really appreciated that, and admired the way he made it look easy to ride in these tight, slow circles. Someday, I knew, I would be able to do that too.

I can control the bike great when I'm stopped!

Chad's big lesson point for the day: keep my knees in. "Knees to tank," he said. Or, well, in the case of my right knee, knee to airbox lid. Heh.

It's probably true that I'm thinking about stuff more than I really need to be. And I think I psyched myself out to a degree by starting the lesson expecting to feel like I did a week ago, but then, as Chad pointed out, I've had a week of not riding.

As an aside, later today I was out and about in my Trans Am, and stopped at the red light on Central Expressway at Rengstorff. Someone on a big, shiny new BMW came up beside me in the right turn lane (I was going straight) and I watched him stop, then start out and make the hard right and go over the train tracks right there. I thought the rider seemed to have been a little nervous. He didn't put his feet on the pegs till he was well through the turn and over the train tracks. There was a car turning not far behind him, too. I remember thinking both, "I'm going to be able to do that someday," and "Holy shit, I have a hell of a lot to learn, my God, slow right turn from a stop, over train tracks, with car behind you, eek!" And then the light turned green and I realized, right turn on the red light to boot.

Edward looks so tough. Check him out in his leather jacket by the chain-link schoolyard fence, tape measure in hand, cool and casual.

I'm hoping for good weather tomorrow. I wish it weren't getting dark so early and there was time to get in evening practice through the week, or something. I look forward to getting rudiments down enough that I can eventually be riding cautiously on the side streets of our neighborhood. I wish there was a great big huge empty parking lot somewhere in Silicon Valley where I could go in a straight line for a long way, or make unbelievably wide turns with tons of margin for error. And I know that someday the parking lot I've been practicing in is going to seem like such a space to me.

I don't expect it to happen overnight, or heck, even in a week. Or a month. A year? Yeah, I do expect that given a year, I should be able to take a leisurely weekend jaunt on the bike, on the same streets with people in cars, and pedestrians, with stop signs and traffic lights and all that stuff.

But, I think the big thing I'd forgotten to expect about learning something new is this: you can have a couple of good days and feel like you're making great progress, and then you can have an off day. And the off day doesn't mean you aren't making progress. You can even learn a lot from an off day. As someone who's studied martial arts I should for damn sure have that lesson deeply ingrained in me. But I think I don't.

That's my little man, allright!

Here's the thing, though: I think I appreciate that about learning to ride a motorcycle. In the past few years I've done all kinds of challenging things, but I haven't done anything that was really pushing myself in this kind of way probably since giving birth to Edward. So actually despite the nervous and awkward feeling, I have a really good feeling, because of trying to do something that's hard and a kind of scary.

When I told Chad that I felt nervous and awkward today, he said, "Well, if you didn't feel nervous and awkward, I wouldn't want you to be trying to learn to ride. You should be a little nervous." Heh. Good man.

Lesson 4: 17 December 2000

First of all, my new Arai helmet is way better than the HJC. Lighter, more comfortable, better peripheral vision, and I can hear pretty well.

Second of all, with the new light bar, to which I have relocated the front turn signals, the handlebars have a greater range of motion!

Third, the new Cobra footpegs are a big improvement. Unlike the stock footpegs, these are perfectly round. What that means is, I put my feet on the pegs so that my bootheel is resting behind the peg, and I can just rotate my foot around it. Makes using the rear brake easier, and shifting easier, by a long shot. So there's something I thought was only an appearance modification that actually has practical value!

As before, Chad rode the bike to the school parking lot and Edward and I followed in the Trans Am. Once there, I started riding with just repeating the stuff from the first lesson: straight lines, stopping and walking the bike through the u-turn at the end of the oval, riding a straight line again. Starts felt smoother, it was easier for me to have faith that the bike was really going to go and stay up and for me to get my feet on the pegs sooner, and it was easier to use both brakes together and stop right where I wanted to.

When I got to trying turns again, though, I couldn't pull 'em off. The first half? Fine. But then finishing the u-turn, kept ending up heading straight for the kerb. I stopped the bike and Chad and I talked about it. I was fixating on the kerb.

Instead of the u-turns, I started doing a sort of slalom around the parking lot speed bumps. These wider turns, without the looming kerb, were not hard. So I did a fair amount of that.

That morning, our neighbor from across the street had stopped by to let Chad know about a motorcycle swap meet up at the Cow Palace, and we were figuring we'd go check that out after my lesson. So after agreeing that we needed to eventually find me a larger parking lot or something, without the immediately looming kerbs, Chad talked me into riding the VLX the couple of blocks back to the house.

It was kind of scary, but terribly exciting! A couple of times I tried shifting to second and ended up in neutral, then put it back in first... so... it was, ermmmm, jerky. And one time I gave the bike some actual throttle. Hoo boy. Fast acceleration. I mean, whoah! I hadn't meant to be giving it throttle, I don't really know what happened, but Chad said I probably got almost to 20 mph, from under 10, real fast.

I learned a few things from the ride home. First, you really can't see what's right behind you when you're on a bike. There were times I coudln't see Chad in my car behind me.

Second, somehow it is less daunting to think about specifics of riding when you're not looking at it as an exercise in a parking lot, but you have a goal in mind instead. It's also easier to overcome not doing things perfectly, because you do just have to let go and move on. There's more you need to do, right away.

I may not have actually made it out of first gear, but I did make it home safely, even when a car passed Chad and Edward in the Trans Am, and then me. I successfully started moving and made immediate turns, having stopped at a stop sign before making turns. I used my turn signals successfully, and even remembered to turn them off before too long. And I pulled into our driveway just fine too.

I don't think that I can call to mind anything I've ever done that was more thrilling. I'm not sure I can really verbalize it readily. Even if I could, I'm sure there are folks who've verbalized it better. God, it was great.

After we came back from the swap meet, there was still daylight left. I geared up fully, including chaps, and went to try riding on the side streets back behind our house.

It felt like I was out doing that for at least an hour, but Chad said it was only about fifteen minutes. Heh. My God, it was thrilling. Truly exhilarating. By the end, I was successfully and comfortably shifting into second.

At one point, I stopped at an intersection and was trying to decide what to do next: either make a left across potential oncoming traffic that I couldn't see really well, try to start moving and make a tight u-turn and go back the other way, or walk the bike through a u-turn. There were three kids, probably about eight or so, playing on the corner. "Hey," one of them said, "Will you give me a ride?"

"Sorry," I said, "I'm just learning to ride this thing myself, I don't really know how, wouldn't be safe."

At one set of intersections, there was new road surface, and a depression in the road where the intersecting street stopped... drainage, basically. Nothing serious, just a dip in the road, right where I needed to turn. I handled it fine and all, but it felt funny. Took some getting used to. I went back to try it coming from the other way, making a left turn across it, and for a hot second I almost fixated on the parked truck to the outside of my turn. I managed to not fixate, though, and didn't even have to stop short.

You can also hear ambient noises more on a motorcycle. A plane going overhead, for instance. Dogs barking, kids playing. At the time I first successfully shifted into second, someone started using a saw in their garage. It really surprised me at first, but then I realized what it was.

This was absolutely the best lesson yet, and was so much fun, like I say, I can't put it into words. Maybe it wasn't so much a lesson as me practicing. I know that there is so much I still have to learn, but to actually be out on the side streets and riding was just so great! I even dealt with some minimal traffic. God, it was awesome. I am so glad I got out riding today.

20 December 2000

A neat thing happened for me this evening. Chad got new mirrors for his Aero, and gave me his old ones, which are the same as the ones on my VLX already, just newer and without the scratches and suchlike. After he got his new ones on, and we'd wrestled mine into something that seemed like place, he asked if I wanted to sit on his Aero and see how his fancy new aftermarket mirrors looked.

I've sat on Chad's bike a few times before. He's held it up and let me just kinda check it out. So like we've done before, he stood over the rear wheel and I swung a leg over the bike where it sat on the kickstand. As I straightened the wheel out, Chad said, "Hey, you just picked the bike up yourself."

I really thought he had picked it up off the side stand, and was holding it up. But no -- without really thinking about it, I had picked it up. I couldn't believe it at first. Three weeks ago, his bike seemed like it weighed a zillion pounds and was just far too heavy and there was no way I could ever imagine riding something like that. I knew for certain I could never pick it up.

"A whole lot about riding a motorcycle is just confidence," Chad said with a chuckle. I repeated my feat several more times, and sat there holding the Aero up comfortably. I couldn't believe it. I could still tell it is heavier than the VLX, but it wasn't intimidating or impossible -- it was no longer this 600+ pound piece of machinery I couldn't imagine controlling in any way.

I still can't quite imagine riding it. Quite. Well, that's not true. I can imagine it. Not see it as a reality, but imagine it.

I actually think this is a milestone in a way... for the past few days I have been able to actually imagine going somewhere on my own motorcycle, picture it happening, see it as a real potential thing, not just a total fantasy.

Chad says as soon as I feel confident with the idea, he'll let me take the Aero for a ride around the block. "It'll be along time before I wanna take your bike for a ride," I told him. "No it won't," he said, grinning. Riiiiiiiiight.

27 December 2000

A week or so ago, Jim came for a ride. I had the day off work, Jim took a bit of time, and we went and got him a good helmet, leather jacket, and gloves. Then we headed home and met up with Chad and Edward. The fellas all piled into the van, and I said "So should I ride to the parking lot?"

"How do you think the bike is gonna get there?" Chad retorted. I geared up and got ready to set off. It's a week or so back now, but I do remember that I stalled the bike before I even left the driveway. It was like I thought I'd just take my hand off the clutch completely and go, or something. Duh. Obviously I didn't think that, it's just what I did. So I restarted the bike and walked it into the bike lane when no cars were coming, then started off. I made it to second gear before the left turn, which was unimpeded by any other traffic. Yay, turning! The street meanders a bit, and then I was at the 4-way stop, signaling for a left and making sure the bike was in first.

That worked out fine too. From there, a straight line three blocks to the school parking lot, with some cul-de-sacs and residences. Left into the parking lot, park the bike in the area we've been using for practice.

Under Chad's scrutiny and with his prompting, I showed Jim the parts and controls, and explained their functions and how they are used. Jim asked questions and sometimes I had to defer to Chad, no surprise.

Jim made the bike go right away, then immediately moved to actually putting his feet on the pegs, and readily made turns -- right-hand turns, the thing I have trouble with when we're talking circles and u-turns.

It was really neat watching Jim have a first riding lesson, and he totally kicked butt.

But, like I say, that was a week ago. Today's ride story is this: Chad came home and kicked me out the door to ride my bike. "I want you to not come back until you've gone 22 miles," he told me. Damn, that's an hour, hour and a half. Not to mention that all told, that's about as much as I've ridden on the street before, total.

So I did. Chad warned me that there was construction going on over on the frontage road for 101 -- one side of that road is bigass retaining wall, and it has some curvy parts. And then it comes out at a red light on Fair Oaks, right where the exit is from 101.

I rode a few laps around the couple blocks behind our house, practicing turning from a stop, right and left. However, when I think back about the ride I turned right for the most part. I need practice turning left from a stop.

After a few laps, I boldly headed for the red light at Maude, and made a right turn. I watched carefully for cars in the left lane, and cars pulling out of the seemingly endless parking lots and driveways. I had to yield to u-turning traffic at the intersection with Mathilda, and three cars lined up behind me while I waited there for traffic to clear.

Riding on Mathilda was my biggest traffic riding yet. Mathilda is a bit of a main vein bleeding traffic off at the intersection of 237 and 101. I rode one block, reaching 30 mph. I turned at the first light, onto the street that curves back around to the 101 frontage road by the retaining wall.

Arriving at that corner I found the road construction that Chad had mentioned. I had thought he meant the part of that road closest to the 101 exit, and I'd planned on avoiding that regardless. In any case, I stopped, made sure the bike was in gear, nodded at the roadworkers waving me on, and turned right and rode past them.

There was oncoming traffic ahead, one of them signaling for a left turn up ahead. By my estimations, he would turn well before I was there. He did, and so did the driver immediately behind him. They were well clear of the intersection before I was on it. I rode on, retaining wall on one side, parallel parked cars at my right on the shoulder, parking lots and feeder streets that I know are coming up, and the road does an s-curve posted for 15mph.

Waiting to turn onto the street at a feeder intersection sat a woman in a gold-coloured Volvo station wagon. She looked right at me and stayed stopped, so I kept going my 15 mph past the three-way intersection she was stopped at. She pulled out behind me and I could see her in my mirrors, even the times I checked (twice) while going through the first part of the curve. Please don't let her follow me too close or too fast, I was thinking. Making the second part of the curve, and veering to the right where a right-turn lane split off before the traffic light, I checked my mirrors and she was gone. But she had been signaling for a left so I bet on her heading for the left turn lane. And that's where she was, when I came to a stop at the white line.

The light turned green, and I started off to the right on Fair Oaks. The next light up ahead was red and there were stopped cars, and cars slowing down. I slowed too, and then the light turned green and nobody was slowing anymore, or stopped. I shifted, wound up in neutral, shit, clutch in, going 10 mph, shift up, ease out the clutch, whew.

The next two lights were green and I was moving along with traffic at 30 mph. At Maude, the lane widens some and it's commonly used as a lane and a turn lane, though it is not marked as such. One car was at the red. I decided I would use the unmarked turn lane, and if need be, make the right on red since I could see there was nothing coming from that way, but not to plan on that and wait for the green light. I did not want to try to turn from the center part of the going-straight half of the wide lane, for fear I would not be able to see a car turning too, or worse, not be seen by a car. This worked out well for me. There did end up being a car behind me waiting to turn right. If I hadn't been taking up that space, I would have bet the car driver wouldn't have seen me signaling a turn, and I'd have been cut off with no way to go but straight, and thrown off my "Okay, this is what I'm going to do now," plan.

The turn onto Maude was fine. The car behind me did not move until I was well through the turn. And the turn itself came off fine, me nicely in the middle of the lane the whole time. I came out of it, shifted easily into second and then third, rode up Maude with my hand on the horn watching cars turning out of parking lots and side streets, and oncoming cars turning left. So much shit is happening on the road at any time, even when it's not crowded, and I swear even if you're an attentive car driver you don't see it in nearly the detail.

I stopped behind another car at the red light, got moving again easily and in good time with other vehicles, comfortably made the right turn onto our street and headed back to the near-deserted side streets and cul-de-sacs.

Interchanging between side streets (whew, this is a relief, I know this better) and the four and six lane artery streets, I widened my circuit around the house. On side streets, I practiced turning from a stop, both left and right, and feeling comfortable going around turns. On the straight side streets, I tried out "push left-go left, push right-go right" and it worked! I wiggled around in my lane, grinning.

One more lap along Mathilda, the frontage road, Fair Oaks, further, to the right turn that doubles as an onramp for Central Expressway, if you go that route. I had taken that turn and not gotten on Central twice, and this time, I decided, I was going to go straight, over Central on the flat 2-lane bridge, and on to the next light.

I turned right at that light too, and rode past the on/off for Central on that side. It was mercifully uneventful, and I continued on up to Mathilda and moved into the right turn lane at the red light there.

I waited for the green, but there were cars all over the place! Dozens of them! Well, *a* dozen. And they were all going faster than me by a good clip. So I sped up. 35. Shifted to fourth, (first time in fourth gear! top gear for the bike!) gave it some gas, and I was going 45. Just like that. The bike felt smoother for sure. Gee, I shoulda maybe hit fourth before this...

Passing the supermarket parking lot, the light ahead was green and I was definitely going to be facing my planned right turn onto Maude without getting to stop first. Okay, this is totally fine, I've done tighter turns than this on the side streets, the only difference is the scenery and the traffic, but I've got the skills. It worked. I leaned through it and everything and rounded that turn at almost 30. Whooooo!

I looked at my odometer. 15 miles. I had gone 15 of the 22 miles. I went home for a minute to cool down for a bit after hitting 4 new things inside of 2 blocks and maybe... 45 seconds? Four new things: top speed to date, top gear on the bike, farthest from home, fastest turn.

Chad sent me back out. "Let's see this odometer," he said. "Huh. You still have a bunch of miles to ride today. In 45 minutes, it's going to start getting cold, and then dark, and you can't ride after dark. So, get going!"

Cheered and emboldened, my confidence building from my to-date success, I hit the road again and this time, went straight on Maude, all the way up to where it ends past the onramp for 237. Turning right, the road featured a railroad crossing notice in white, but there was no railroad. Instead, there was a nice big circle by the ISPChannel parking lot, so I availed myself of it, riding once around it at about 10 mph. I came close to the red-painted curb at the outside of the circle, but sheer brute force of will and concentration kept me from looking at it more than once and I negotiated the circle.

I rode back down Maude. The intersection where Maude goes under 237 was the longest intersection I had faced and the whole thing of going under the intersection and not being able to see laterally for a bit made me nervous. I was afraid I'd be too slow through the intersection, someone would be turning on red and not see me, and when the light turned green I rode through in first, thumb on the horn, thinking, "Probably shoulda shifted sooner, I'm revving high," and then I was through and clear, shifted into second, and discovered the road was really bumpy and torn up.

Okay, new challenge. Bumpy road. Knees to tank, weight on the footpegs and raised slightly off the seat, stay straight and smooth, don't shift, don't brake, don't give it gas fast, and there I was. Okay. So it was bumpy. But it wasn't that bad. I stayed straight and didn''t shift, but it was never actually that scary. Weight slightly off the seat seemed like a good idea when I felt the seat jounce though.

I did that circuit twice. On the second time through, I had to stop at the 237 underpass red light, behind a big truck. No choice: other options were getting on 237. I didn't like it one bit. I was sure that driver couldn't see me and anyone in oncoming traffic couldn't see me and I was well more than a car length back and the truck was BIG, and I'm there with my feet flat on the ground, my ass on a few hundred pounds of machinery, cars on all sides, and that's it.

I wonder if it's wrong that even though it was scary and sobering, well, dammit THERE I WAS, and it all made me grin a little bit. Just me and a some 600 pounds of vehicle. Well, and the couple dozen pounds of leather. I couldn't see the light at the center of the lane, but there was one on the side and I watched for the truck to be moving out, and then I followed it straight through the intersection. It was fine. The truck turned right and buggered off, and I went and rode in circles around that turnaround a few times. That time there were people watching me. Heh. I still didn't blow it.

I also, on that second leg up, passed a guy in a Camry who was going slow. I was riding in the left of two lanes, he was in the right, and I just passed him so that I wasn't riding in his blind spot.

On my way home, coming up to the light at Maude, a guy on a mid-sized cruiser went by going the other way. And he waved at me! I raised my left hand some inches off the grip and did my game best to return it. Wow. My first wave.

I also learned that either many car drivers simply do not have a clear picture of the size of their vehicle and where it is on the road, or they don't give a shit. Now me, in my car, I'm none too keen on the notion of stupidly scraping up my doors or quarterpanels, if nothing else, ya know? I was the third vehicle at a red light in the going straight lane, and people were squeezing by on the right to get to the turn lane, and they were coming within two feet of me. They weren't in arm's reach but I coulda taken off a baseball cap and whacked them with it. Okay, I said to myself, I don't like where they are in their lane and I wouldn't like it in a car, but on the bike I can just not be that close to that lane, so perhaps that would be a good idea.

God, it was a great ride. I know there is stuff I'm forgetting. It seemed like every inch of road I traversed brought new things, intensely clear, challenging, increasingly familiar, sometimes scary, but most of all, FUN.

28 December 2000

Chad worked at home today in order to free me up to ride into work. After yesterday's ride he had no doubts I could do it. I believed him in principle, but would remain skeptical until I had proof. Of course, the only way that proof could be acquired was by me riding to work.

So, sometime after 10 AM, what with Chad having pulled my bike out of the garage and all but flung my gear at me, I asked him one more time about my route, and geared up. My bike was in the driveway next to my car, facing the street. I had gotten myself into my chaps and they were even on pretty straight. Cool. I loaded all my usual pocket stuff -- Leatherman, Swiss Army knife, keys, a lighter, a few elastics and a hair tie. I dug the key to the bike out of my pocket, put it in the ignition, turned it to ON. Pulling the choke out all the way since I knew the bike was cold, I turned the kill switch to RUN and started the bike. I'm not used to doing that barehanded, but I wanted the bike to run and warm up a bit while I completed my gear check and all. I zipped my jacket up all the way, donned my helmet, buckled the chinstrap, buckled my jacket's belt tightly, checked my chaps. I made sure the OIL light (which is always on when you turn on the ignition, it seems -- yep, I just triple-checked with Chad and that's normal) had gone off. I pulled in the clutch to make sure it felt normal, and the front brake. I revved the bike a bit there in neutral, and pushed the choke in halfway. The idle dropped, I twisted the throttle a bit and let it sit there idling while I donned my gloves and zipped my sleeves tight.

Okay, sitting on the bike, I went over the game plan in my head again. First things first: Oh right, Chad said "Go to the Shell station and check your tire pressure." I got off the bike, fished my car keys out of the tank bib pocket where I'd put all that stuff, and got the digital tire pressure gauge out of the Trans Am's glove compartment. I bonked my helmet on the t-top frame ever so slightly. Hey! My head's bigger! Locking the car back up, I stowed my keys back in the bike pocket with the air gauge.

Okay, this time for sure. Out onto the street, over to Maude, up to Mathilda and right, down to the light before the 101 onramp, handling one of those de facto right turn lane scenarios again, and into the Shell station. I pulled in and stopped out of "car pulling in" length (if I'd do it in my car so some dumb fuck doesn't tag me, I'm for damn sure doing it on my bike!) and then put the bike in first, and rode sooooo slow, like 3 mph, the speedo needle all but starts at 5 and it didn't budge, wide around the pumps and over to where the air dispenser is. There was a FedEx truck parked in front of it. Oh geeze, I also thought, you know, maybe I should get gas. I've heard this bike has about a hundred mile range, it's a two-gallon and change tank, maybe I need gas.

I took off my helmet, unabashedly dug out my cell phone, and called Chad. "You can put gas in it if you like," he said. "Might as well if you're there."

"I just thought maybe I could avoid running out of gas and having to switch to the reserve, for this trip, so be on the safe side," I said.

Chad concurred, and I said, "Okay, so um... just to fill up the tank, do I need to do anything with the reserve fuel switch? Will the gas pump cut off automatically like it does filling up a car?" He said nope, just put gas in, but it doesn't cut off reliably by itself, so you have to watch how much you're putting in.

During the phone call, two more FedEx trucks arrived and several drivers were standing around chatting. I realized they were not using the air dispenser. It was actually right in front of the truck. Thinking about it for a minute, I walked over and asked if they'd mind if I used the air pump. One guy offered to move the truck, but I said no need, I could get at it, just wanted to be sure he wasn't about to take off and that he knew I was there and all.

"Yeah, no kidding," said one of the other FedEx drivers, "Don't run her over, man!" I had to call Chad to ask him to look up the correct tire pressure. It wasn't on the tires and I didn't have my manual. Damn. Turned out I actually needed to let air out. After doing so while the FedEx drivers looked idly on, and I overheard one talking about a friend's motorcycle, I laughed off not having actually needed the air pump and slowly took the bike over to the gas pumps, half walking it and letting the clutch out just the tiniest bit so it wasn't 600-pound deadweight.

A gallon and change, and two bucks and change, later, I had dealt with the durn newfangled gas pump with a sleeve containing a cutoff switch, and not spilled any gas. It took some wrangling to get the gas cap back on with the tank bib, but it went. And then so did I.

I rode down the 101 frontage road, through the s-curve at that end -- retaining wall on the left, seems like no shoulder, parked cars around the curve on the right, I've seen people not staying in their lanes around that corner. But it was fine. Someone passed me on the straight stretch after that, which I thought was kinda jerky since I was going the residential area speed limit, but it was a dotted yellow line in the road, so I guess it was legit enough, barring him speeding.

I rode back past the house, took a left at Maude and the immediate right onto Sunnyvale. I felt pretty comfortable. Undercurrents of fear and nervousness, yes, but not uncontrollably so, and not in-your-face kinda scared. And I was planning where I was gonna go, and going there, and that was cool.

The next few blocks still were charted territory for me. What I knew was coming up that was new was railroad tracks. I had one stoplight to think about it, and the light before the tracks was green. I went through it and over the tracks at about 20 mph, focusing on keeping the throttle smooth when it was bumpy, fingertips hovering over clutch and front brake levers, don't brake till I'm over and then, over, I pulled in the clutch, and using both brakes, coasted to a stop a bike length back of the car in front of me. Whoooooo! No worse than the bumpy road yesterday.

I rode smoothly through downtown Sunnyvale, past the mall, on towards El Camino Real. When I say smoothly, I mean my pace was fine, I was fine relative to speed of other cars, there weren't all that many and I was able to track them, and my starts were fine, though eventually I'd like to be able to shift to second sooner. I'm sure that like driving stick, that facility will come.

When I got to El Camino, the light was red. I moved into the turning lane. At the white line I could not see what was coming too far back in the intersection. Like I would do driving a car at that intersection, I edged forward a bit. Watch me get pulled over for being partly in the crosswalk, I thought cynically, then banished all such and waited for the light to change. My light turned green. I rode out into the right hand lane on El Camino.

After the first intersection I thought about things a bit. I decided I wasn't all that keen on the right lane. First, it's where people turn blindly out of parking lots into. Second, it's where the trucks full of cars stop in the street to drop off cars at all the dealerships, of which there are several. Those trucks are a routine cause of people stopping suddenly in the right lane on El Camino, and I know that from driving it. With light traffic -- cars a hundred feet apart -- I decided the middle lane was also not a great option because it's where everyone swerves to avoid sudden brakers behind car trucks, and I would have legitimate traffic on all sides and just be, you know, there in the middle. So the left lane, even though I knew it was bumpy, won out. There, my primary issue would be people moving into left turn lanes, and what's more, I would have a good view of the largest part of intersections.

What's more, I congratulated myself for lane selection, when I go over that bridge over 85, I won't be faced with merging traffic coming off the freeway. Yeah.

Riding through huge, expansive intersections with eight lanes of traffic in each street is really intense. It's scarier than just keeping up with traffic. But the flow of traffic in my lane was definitely easier to deal with than the far right lane.

As it turns out, that bridge over 85 was no sweat. Why? Because just before it I rode over a steel plate. I was just thinking, okay, slippery thing, no turning, no sudden moves, stay consistent. I went over another such plate and then, stopped at the next red light, thinking again about the upcoming bridge, I realized I'd gone over it without even thinking about it. Cool.

A little further up, I coasted towards a stop in a line of traffic at a red light, when the light turned green and it started moving, and I blew my downshift out of 4th (which I'd been in at the start of my coast) and stalled the bike. I yanked in the clutch, stomped the shifter about a jillion times as if to say, "Dammit, I've gotten that thing forty times, I *have* to be in first and can start moving now," hit the start button and revved it with the clutch in, okay, it's started, off the throttle, ease out the clutch, some gas, feet on the pegs, okay. Whew.

You know, after that it wasn't bad. Yeah, I had some high-revving starts and a whole lot of times where I kept thinking, "Shit, I'm slow off the line," but then, in point of fact, I was not that slow relative to the cars. The bike just goes.

I need to get a good sense of the gearing. You know, like a feel for it on that bike. And shifting needs to just happen, and I have to learn the bike's sounds and stuff better.

Some of El Camino curved gently, with traffic in all lanes though fairly light, and stoplights in the gentle curves. It was in this stretch that I stepped in something slippery, looked down, and my bootsole was holding steady in some gunky oily stuff. Yay boots, yay Vibram sole!

My main remaining trepidation (other than randomly screwing up, some thing coming up I couldn't react to properly, or some large, heavy thing driven by someone else causing me trouble) was the left turn from El Camino onto Page Mill. I thought about that as I came up to it. Driving, I had never noticed a turn lane in the middle of that block. When I saw it start, I thought it was the turn lane for Page Mill, but I was mistaken. Coming up to it I decided I would do it in the right of two turn lanes, which worst case should leave me room to be scared and go wider than I hoped. I did not want to be prone to go wide with a turning car right next to me on the wide side.

As luck would have it though, the turn was also not that big a deal. I did go pretty much where I wanted to, and fast enough. And then just a few lights, up a gentle slope and into the parking lot. At the last light, knowing people turn from the bike lane, I switched to the bike lane with my signal on. There the turn was, I went over the short curby spot and up the little rise and stopped the bike. I backed it into a spot, and it was there more or less even. Okay. Good enough.

I MADE IT!

I got off the bike, and took off my gloves so I could remove my helmet. I could feel sweat in my hair as I walked up the steps and into the office, me with helmet in hand, covered head to toe in leather.

On IRC, I told the assembled biker scum I'd made it. They congratulated me, and kindly indulged me in babbling, and they even gave me advice and answered questions. I'm a lucky newbie.

I was hopelessly jazzed. This had been a tremendous rush. Something so seemingly ordinary, but wow. I took off at 3 to avoid traffic and make sure light was good of course too.

I had my moments of worry as I geared up and started the bike, thinkign about pulling out onto Page Mill. Right turn on slightly uneven surface, uphill. But thanks to some patient waiting I got a good clear spot in traffic and just took off giving it a decent bit of throttle. It went fine. Aaahhhhh. I straightened up, and as I did so, realized I'd gone around the whole turn, pretty much from the outset, leaning over some. I felt fairly pleased with myself as I shifted up and continued up the hill. I stopped at the light and made a right turn. That street was deserted, totally deserted, and posted for like 20 mph going onto campus, and it went downhill while curving gently in places. WHOOOO!

The road ended into some street that cuts across campus and dumps out onto El Camino. It was probably a mile of blocks with stop signs and traffic lights. By the time I was through with that I didn't feel like I was hitting big traffic cold.

Really for El Camino midafternoon it was light traffic, but still, heavy for me to be sure. If I can track every moving object on the road, and a constant check on the sidelines along with what's ahead, that's cool, but so far, for me, that's the side streets with a couple of cars and maybe kids on a lawn.

Anyway, I turned right onto El Camino, after waiting for the light to turn green. A guy in a BMW behind me was impatient, but waited to switch lanes and pass me till we were in the straight part of the block, so can't complain much about that.

Through the next few lights, downtown Palo Alto so to speak, I decided that if a good opportunity presented itself, I was going to go with my same far left lane plan. Just before Page Mill, the whole block was clear of traffic and I made the left lane easily.

When I'd told the bikers on IRC about my ride in, I'd talked about the stall and asked if there wasn't something I could do to prevent that situation from happening. Catness schooled me for a bit, saying, "You're something else as a novice rider, because you want to think about everything and analyze it and that's not what you're supposed to be doing." But then she relented a bit and said "Downshift," with which Chad agreed, and she said, as I'm slowing down coasting, downshift all the way through it, so whatever speed I'm moving if I left off the clutch I'm in the gear I should be for the speed I'm going.

I practiced that, and by God, it helped. A lot. I hit hardly any red lights the whole way back on El Camino, which meant there was a lot of slowing down and speeding up and keeping pace with traffic, without actually stopping. One loose hair worked its way into the corner of my mouth inside my helmet, and I coudln't make it go away, so I ignored it.

I had two minor heart attacks on the ride back. First, there was an SUV behind me as I came up to the bridge over 85, and he was closer than I liked and I was going 45. I sped up to 50 and he stayed the same distance behind me, dammit. I sped up a little more and checked my mirrors again as the bridge started, and he was gone from my mirrors. That split second there was a huge-ass shadow all the hell over my right shoulder and down across the ground, and as my heart stopped for sure, he was past me on the right.

Things were great and uneventful from there. I waved at someone else on two wheels who didn't wave back. I don't care. I had a wave in me. Was it a man or a woman, what kinda bike was it? Beats me. Two wheels. It was going the other way. Heh.

When I came up to the left turn on to Sunnyvale, the turn light was already green, and someone was behind me. I had no choice but to go through the turn without a calming stop first, to do the turning from a stop I've practiced so much. I had to actually make the turn. I was on the inside this time, and right after this intersection another lane merges in too, and then a lane goes away so there's merging, so I had to just go, and stay cool, and do it. "I am NOT going wide!" I vowed, and just turned. I went wider than I was trying to, but I picked the least wide thing I thought I could do and so I had room for error and it was okay. And there were only three cars so the merging thing was no hassle.

In fact, it turned out to be harder to ride slow through the mall parking lot, when I stopped to pick up a CD for Chad. I backed the bike into a parking space, secured everything, locked the forks, and carried my helmet with me through Macy's. Let me tell you, I had never before in my entire life envisioned myself walking through the cosmetics section of Macy's clad in chunky steel-toed boots and covered in thick black leather from head to toe, my hair mussed and sweaty, helmet in hand. I never imagined it, but I should have, it would have been a blast of a daydream and it was a lot of fun to actually do.

I retrieved a ZZ Top CD for Chad, and a DVD, and headed back out of the mall. I managed to stash the CD and DVD inside my jacket,though they didn't fit in any pockets. I remember thinking, "A cassette tape woulda fit in my tool bag."

The last mile and a half home were uneventful, and I turned into our driveway and Chad met me. I made it back, too!

31 December 2000

Diana came over to give Edward a babysitting, and Chad and I went for our first ride together. We went to El Camino, and up to campus by where work used to be, to see if the coffee place there was open.

When I'd gotten up that morning, I swung my legs off the bed, stood up, and had to grab for the wall because the very tops of my calves, like INTO my knee in the back I swear, just would not straighten out for a second. Chad teased me about my having said I didn't think my calves were in too bad of a shape. After I got dressed and got my boots on it was a little better, but they stayed stiff even though I kept stretching them. I was leaning in the doorway doing that old running stretch for calves, and Edward was leaning against the doorjamb mimicking me and laughing.

I was a little worried we wouldn't actually get to take the ride. Chad made us brunch, and it was still grey and foggy, and the roads were still wet from frost that hadn't burned off yet. I was afraid the sun wouldn't come out and it would just stay wet. But it ended up being beautiful.

We set off, with initial gameplan being basically a straight shot over to El Camino with me in front and Chad behind. I started off first and I definitely felt not warmed-up and awkward. The turn through the two lights at the corner, which I've done a bunch of times now, came off clunky and jerky of all things, because I started out jerky and never got to shift to second. Nnnngh. Practice practice. I was most of the way warmed up by the railroad tracks, which I made it over in second and then stopped at the red light. Chad pulled up next to me on the left. The whole time he has been entirely visible in my mirrors, plus I could hear his pipes. With him right next to me, I couldn't hear my pipes anymore though, or couldn't tell it from his effectively.

The rest of the way to El Camino was basically fine, though I did fumble a shift and end up in neutral once, and had to shake that off for the turn. So far so good, the turn came off without me going horribly wide, I got in the lane I wanted to be in and Chad joined me. I was in position 1 of lane 1 of 3, and Chad was in position 3 in lane 1, per the "lane position" diagram crap in that CA handbook.

Not far over the bridge across 85, I stopped from about 35 in what I'm certain was a perfectly sane stopping distance, but which felt like it was happening really fast. The stop was fine. But it was the fastest stop from that speed that I had done. I need to practice stops. I went through two yellow lights afraid I wasn't going to be able to stop in time. Chad says I should always stop for even faroff yellows when riding with other people. I will be certain to do that from now on.

In downtown Palo Alto, Chad disappeared from my mirrors (which he'd done earlier when coming up next to me at a stop), and his pipes got louder on my right shoulder. He was beside me then and there was a blue car going by. From there, I followed him onto campus via Serra. We rode through campus up to the motorcycle parking near the libraries, and stopped.

The coffee place was closed, and after a few minutes off the bike and some talking, we geared up again and headed out. Chad said we were going home via Central Expressway, and he'd lead. Getting onto Alma where we were going to, he said, would be a little hairy but it'd be fine.

Also, he said, leaving every red light we should be moving out together. I worked at that, but I'm still lacking skill to always get moving smoothly and flawlessly and fast. Practice! Must practice!

After going under a bridge, and around an upward-sloping exit ramp curve, we were at a stop sign intersecting Alma. Only thing is... it was a sign and not a light, and you could not see that far into the oncoming traffic on the left. Neither direction had a stop. Pull out to the left into 30mph traffic, 2 lanes each way with a mediany thing! Oooof. I told Chad I didn't think I could do it. "Okay," he said, "I'll cover you on the right." I watched the traffic coming from the left and he rode out to the middle of the intersection, by the median. It was clear left, he signalled me clear, I went, but it was on a slight slope and I just came off the clutch first, and didn't start to move till I gave it some gas. Ooooof. A car came past on the right and then not too far past me turned into the same lane I had just turned into. Chad was following behind me in my mirrors. He moved up past me on the right, signalled right, and changed lanes. I followed.

On Central, I could not get off the line as fast as Chad could. After a couple of lights, he said for me to get moving first. Then he would pass me and take the lead, and I followed. Our plan was to go to Castro Street and get a coffee there.

After Mary, I wondered how far we'd go on Central. We passed the first exit for Mathilda, and then Chad, not far before the second, signalled right. Oh no! Curve that goes to 90 degrees uphill, posted for 15 mph! I do it all the time in my car faster than that though. Everybody does. But this was not something I would have picked for me to do anytime soon on my bike. "You asshole!" I said to Chad in my helmet, signalling and following. I know that he has told me he isn't going to do anything I can't do just fine. I know this particular offramp. The lanes are wide. It's a no-traffic space even in rush hour.

It gave me some definite pause. "If Chad knows I can do this, then I can," I told myself. I'm going about 35, down from maybe 45, when I've got a breath before turning. I've already downshifted from 4th because I know I can't do this turn in 4th. Not yet. Maybe someday. No braking in a turn, I remind myself, thinking of Chad's recommendation to act like I'm driving stick on new snow. I lean. I push on the right bar and work to keep the throttle right where it is. Since it's uphill too I slow a bit right about halfway through the turn. I can see up the straight uphill, and I look there, whoops I mean I look at the yellow lines so fucking close to my wheel, my wheels gonna go over, I'm almost straight, I looked up the hill and gave it some gas to catch up to Chad who's already up on the stop. Going up the hill, I swore to God I was going to tell Chad he was an asshole when I pulled up next to him.

I think I called him a sonofabitch, but I was grinning and he knew it. We went to downtown Sunnyvale and had a coffee. I need lessons in backing my bike into a parking space.

Chad told me that when we were on Central, a woman in a car behind us would start moving as soon as either bike started moving, whether both bikes were underway or not. That was why, he said, he had started to have me go first. One time, he said, she was inches from my rear tire. I knew that a car had been close on those occasions... but not THAT close. *shudder*

On the way back, we went up the ramp that joins into Mathilda in the middle of a biggish bridge. In other words, I more or less merged with traffic. Wooo! And from the bottom of that bridge back to home, all territory I'd covered before.

Partway down Central, I looked down and saw my trip-o-meter was at 60.4 miles. With the 44 miles on the street before I reset it the day I rode to work, I had passed my hundred-mile mark. Probably not a bad record for a first month of learning to ride. When we got home, the trip-o-meter read 66 miles, for a total then of 110 for "Abby's miles ridden in 2000."

Chad says that for now, unless we're riding together, I should stick to streets like Fair Oaks and El Camino is allright too, but skip Central for now. I'm fine with that. I'm still going to confirm detailed route plans with him and stuff, before I set off anywhere.

My calves, and my thigh muscles from concentrating on things like "knees to tank" and braking smoothly and evenly, are sore as all hell. C'mon, am I an old lady already? Sheesh.

I find it scary, but oddly somehow, it's like I don't find it as scary as I think I should in my mommy-brain. Learning to ride a motorcycle is letting me take momentary breaks from the mommy-brain. Those breaks are tremendously valuable to me. It isn't that I don't absolutely adore Edward, it's just I'd thought the mommy brain was permanent with no breaks. But riding my bike that all goes away. I can't think about anything else but that I am riding my bike, and the things that pertain to that. It almost feels hard to have a destination in mind now, or a limited time frame. But even if I can't just take off for wherever, or whatever, just a few miles of going somewhere on the bike provides a fantastic break from all the stresses and worries and things like that. I seem to remember Chad saying it's like therapy, and I think he'd be right about that.

I've been for three rides in the new year so far. New Year's Day, I rode over to the DMV while Chad and Edward drove over in the van. The DMV was closed, and the plan was, I'd ride around the course they have there to try out the DMV skills test exercises.

The ride there was not too bad. The scariest part was the intersection of El Camino and Lawrence, with the long intersection and feeder ramps to and from Lawrence, and the right turn just after that. It creeps me out a little to ride under an overpass where my view of what's coming is totally obstructed, all the more that particular intersection because I've seen at least a half-dozen accidents there in the past 4 years.

At the DMV lot, Chad asked if I wanted him to demonstrate the skills test elements, which I did. After some trying, and fiddling with the idle, Chad concluded the skills test exercises couldn't be done on my bike, because you couldn't go slow enough to ride in a tiny circle at less than 5mph. I sure didn't think I could. Chad would have stalled the bike if he'd gone any slower. So we shrugged, and headed home, stopping for gas on the way back, and returning via Wolfe.

Wolfe starts with 2 lanes of traffic in each direction and goes a few lights, and then, at a sloped bridge with some curve to it, turns to three lanes in each direction with a concrete median. It curves again, goes under Central, and then it winds its way through a couple more lights before it merges in with Fair Oaks. Right before that, you can turn left to get onto Maude. There's a left turn lane, and no stop sign in either direction. In a car, everyone usually makes it without stopping, because there's never any traffic and you can see that pretty clearly.

I told Chad, who planned to follow me, that I intended to stop at that left and then make the turn, and he said, "If that's what you want to do, that's fine." We headed off. I had been nervous about the bridge, but it was cool. It felt, and sounded, windier at the top of the bridge. Coming down the slope I thought again about Chad's advice about riding kinda like I was driving on new snow, and just let off the throttle, then downshifted, kept slowing, pulled in the clutch, braked and stopped. From there I hit only green lights through the curves, and went through those comfortably in my lane, leaning the bike to turn and it going right where I was wanting it to. Not big leans, not fast, but working out well and feeling good. I moved smoothly into the left turn lane, and then realized I could see a lot further than in my car, and it's as clear as it could ever possibly be, so I just made the left turn and didn't stop after all.

At the light at Fair Oaks, entering home territory that I've covered a lot before, relatively speaking, I discovered the street there was slanted. My left foot on the pavement was a little bit higher than my right. "Huh," I said to myself, shifting the bike's weight from side to side a little and feeling it out. I reminded myself to watch for that in advance in the future, so it didn't catch me off guard ever.

Last Saturday, Chad went out for a ride first, and on his return, let me know he'd gone by the bike stuff store on El Camino and they could order me new pipes for my birthday. So after some discussion, I took a ride over there. Planning my route, I decided I didn't want to make a u-turn on El Camino to get to the store, which I'd have to by the most direct route, so I planned to go a roundabout way on quieter streets, and turn onto El Camino coming from the other direction, avoiding the u-turn.

I rode out Sunnyvale and turned down California, and took that to Wolfe, and then over that bridge, and a left turn onto Evelyn, which has some curvy stuff that winds its way over to just this side of Lawrence Expressway. I didn't want to ride on busy Lawrence, so I took a side street and rode 20 or so through a neighborhood until I found a way through onto El Camino, 2 blocks south of the bike store. My plan had worked!

I felt like a big dumbass trying to figure out how to park my bike. And then it seemed like it took me forever to get my gloves off, then my helmet, and all. I walked in and told the guy at the counter that my squeeze had been in earlier and told me they could order Cobra slashcuts for my Honda Shadow.

The guy remembered Chad being in, and which pipes. While he was putting in the order, he asked what Chad had ridden up on. "It's a shadow too, the 1100cc Aero," I told him. "What kinda pipes did he have on that?" he asked me. "They were loud."

"Bubs," I said, and he replied, "Bubs, eh? Well, there's no missing those." It's true, Chad's pipes are definitely anything but quiet. And they have sweet lines. They come down straight from the exhaust ports on the engine, and then run long, straight and gleaming with chrome out to the billet tips, almost all the way to the back of the rear tire.

When I was leaving, another patron walked out to his van, parked at the sidewalk, and perhaps bemusedly watched me wrestle my bike into motion at the rise leaving the parking area. I came home on Wolfe, over that bridge again, through the gentle curves, stopped at the red where the street's got a slope, comfortably on home.

The next ride was the day before my birthday. Chad and I both took the day off and my parents, done with their conference in Berkeley, took Edward for the day. They already had Quilla with them, and they went to the zoo. So Chad and I rode our bikes to go see a movie.