Last night, I set my alarm to 6:55am for my Saturday morning ride. Dreamt about riding, didn't feel scary nor exciting. Woke up and looked at my clock. 6:30am. Say whaaattt?? After a night of drinking and playing at the internet cafe until midnight, I still woke up before my alarm went off. I guess I'm really anxious, in a good and nervous way, to ride today. Don't worry friends. I didn't drink enough to feel anything in the morning. This is about the 4th time I'm doing an early morning ride and I'm noticing a pattern. This is what it looks like:
1. Wake up and feel nervous. "You better freakin' get out of bed!" (my self-talk)
2. Put on comfy riding clothes. Go to the kitchen and drink a glass of water. I never drink water in the morning. Maybe I think it gives me special riding powers.
3. Debate whether or not I should eat breakfast. Food in the morning helps me focus, so I quickly eat cereal. Or am I just delaying the whole process so I can possibly back out??
4. "Hurry up!!! The longer you wait, the later it gets, and the more traffic there will be!!" I say this a few times in my head.
5. Put on my gear slowly. Why slowly? Again, I think I'm just delaying that uncomfortable feeling of riding that is inevitable in my current learning stage.
6. "Oh shit my all my gear is on. Now I can't back out."
7. Mouthing the acronym FINE-C, I start the bike.
8. Off I go on another learning adventure!
Okay sorry got distracted. Back to the red light. I'm practicing around downtown Mountain View and luckily there are barely any cars around. That is one less thing to worry about. Heading towards Evelyn Street so I can zoom down a straight road going 35mph, woot! I approached a red light to get to Evelyn. Waiting. One minute later, light still red. "Hmm. It normally doesn't take this long." Two minutes later, still red. "What the heck??" I walk the bike back and forth, then creep up past the white line. "Dude it's been 5 minutes!!" I remembered how my MSF instructor told us that sometimes stop lights can't sense motorcycles because the amount of metal to magnetize is a lot less than a car. "Ahh screw this!" I make a right turn instead, go around the block, and return back to the same stop light. "Maybe it'll be better this time!!" I'm laughing at myself as I blog about that thought I had. I don't know why I thought it'd be different the second time. So yeah I wait another 5 minutes (literally that long) with no change of that damn red light and take an alternate route. Any of you have ideas of what to do if a red light doesn't sense you? The thought of going an alternate route each time sounds ridiculous.
Another thing I learned today is about the importance of being in first gear when at a 4-way intersection. It was nearing 8am at this point in the day and more cars were in downtown. I limit my practice to under an hour to avoid physical and emotional fatigue, so I head back to park the bike. I approach a 4-way stop, downshift to 1st gear, and 3 other cars fill up the intersection. My usual reaction, "Holy crap other cars!!!" makes me immediately tense. My turn to go comes, so I let out the clutch slooowly like I've been practicing, and my bike stalls. NOOOOO!!!! It's okay, try again. Re-start the bike, let out the clutch even more slowly, bike stalls again for the second time. At this point, the other cars are waiting for me to go, drivers are motioning their hands to me to say, "Hey go! It's your turn!" I'm really panicking this time. Start the bike for a third time and it finally moves forward, but in a crazy and jerking way! OH SHIT WHAT'S HAPPENING?? I pull over to the side to recollect myself. I downshift and realize that I was trying to go from 0 to 15mph on 2nd gear. Although I heard you can do that, you need really good clutch control, which I don't have. So from now on, I will make sure make sure (yes I put that in there twice on purpose) that I am in 1st gear when I have to stop completely. I also debriefed with my BF about that jerking feeling and weird sound I heard with the bike and became at ease with the explanation.
A new thing I'd like to do with my blog is document more often about my practices and talk about what I learned so I don't forget. Here's to another learned lesson! Cheers!
Written on 3/13/10
You're blog is awesome because I relive the same moments in my life. For what it's worth, the red light thing usually only happens in off peak hours. I notice the problem late at night, but usually not during the day. In those situations, I tend to treat the light like a stop sign. If a car pulls up behind you, you can inch further forward, and hopefully the car will move up and trip the sensor. Also, starting in 2nd gear is weird because you start much slower, but, at least on my bike, you suddenly start accelerating faster. Not sure if that's useful for anything, but at least you can get used to it when it happens again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip Orion! Cars behind me still make me super nervous, but I'll try that tip next time I'm stuck at a light.
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