29 March 2011

Yep, that's me...

Between smacking my shoulder into the snow in December and then throwing my back out, I haven't been on a bike since November. Before that, my riding was sporadic; training for the 3 Day Walk took up most of the time I would normally have been riding, so my bike and scooter have been pretty much ignored over the last year.

The weather hasn't cooperated a whole lot, either. On the days when I felt like I could ride--when my shoulder wasn't hurting too much--it was raining. But today...today was nice and bright and sunny, and it was going to be over 60 degrees, so this afternoon we geared up and fired up the bikes, and headed out for a short, shake-the-rust-off ride.

Oh yeah, I have a lot of personal rust to shake off. My cornering was less than ideal, my shifting only so-so, the rear tire slipped a little coming around one corner, and in one brain fart of a moment I nearly locked the brakes up--at a railroad crossing with a train barreling down.

I locked up the brakes on my old SV650, at a fairly slow speed, and that was no fun at all. I launched off the bike and as I was in the air I clearly remember thinking "That was never supposed to happen!" Well, sunshine, it did, and it hurt. And I damn near repeated it today.

Except that I got my hand off the front brake before the launching occurred. I really wish this bike had anti-lock brakes. Canadians can get this bike with anti-lock brakes. USA? Phhhffft. Apparently Suzuki doesn't think we need them.

Last year...I usually wear gear, I swear

Still, it was a nice 45 minute tide that helped ease back into riding. I would have kept going, but the riding position was too much for my still-not-completely healed shoulder, so we went home and got the scooter, and I was much smoother on that one.

Physically, the scooter was a far more comfortable ride today; it's seating is upright, and the seat is wide enough to accommodate my asterisk. For fun, the Gladius is always more fun....other than that thing with the brakes. And the rear tire slipping on one turn. That was a WTF kind of moment, because it took my brain half a second to process what was going on, and by the time it had, I was already through it.

Rookie mistakes...I made a lot of rookie mistakes that I shouldn't have. Which tells me i clearly need to ride more.

You know, for my own safety.

Not for the fun factor.

Nope.