New found motivation: Ice cream!

I practiced last Sunday and it's now Tuesday.  I guess I should practice again...but I'm (fill in excuse here)!!  My BF asked, "Do you want ice cream?"  I said, "Yeah sort of."  This is when he suggested something so wonderful...riding to the ice cream shop!  This sparked motivation in me and soon we were riding to the downtown area to our favorite gelato place.

Picture courtesy of Yelp.com

I get nervous and excited driving through the busy streets of the local downtown.  We got there and I approached a stop light.  I came to a full stop and went forward but my bike started to shake and make a weird struggling noise!  Oh no!  All these people turned around to look at me and my crazy sounding bike, I got flustered, and found myself driving further and further away from the main road.  I pulled into a parking lot and said a few angry words to myself in my head.  "What the f***was that???  You're better than this now!"  I told him that when those people were staring, that made things tons worse.  He told me that I can't worry about what other people think.  My safety comes first.  I totally agree, but easier said than done.  He checked to see which gear I was in:  it was in second.  I tried to go from 0 to 25 in second gear.  I've made this mistake before.  In an old post, I even said what I was going to do to prevent making that mistake again.  I was disappointed in myself, but I suppose that in life we do that sometimes...make the same mistake twice.  I'm still in the learning curve and I can't keep beating myself up over every wrong thing I do.  I gotta focus on things I've done right, which is a lot actually.  That'll move me forward.  So will end this post on a high note.

I will continue to make it a habit to make sure I'm in 1st gear before going.  I'll downshift just to be sure.

I practiced twice in one week (instead of the usual one or none), which I haven't done in a looooong time.  This will only bring me closer to my goal.  I had to do two sudden stops in the busy area because of pedestrians, and I did them super well!  I didn't lose my balance or jam on the breaks.

*exhale*  I think I'm good now =)