From Cycling to Motorcycling

You may recall that Rianman got me a scooter for my birthday just before the Ironman. It's great! We've been riding it around town and I've even let Rianman ride it with me on the back...scary considering we weren't licensed yet.

Well that's all changed! This past weekend Rianman and I spent 20 hours at a Basic Rider Class at Kansas City Community College that included classroom and on-the-bike training and is based on the Motorcycle Safety Foundation class. It was a fun class. We had about 20 people and four instructors: Ben, Rich, Liz and Karen. The class was divided into two groups for the entire on-bike portion of class. Rianman and I were in the same group.

It really was neat how they progressively taught us skills. Saturday was the basic skills: stopping, shifting, stopping, turning. On Sunday we put our skills together for real world type experiences, stopping at higher speeds, stopping quickly through a curve, weaving, making tight u-turns, etc. I had my biggest scare while practicing stopping during a turn. You are NOT supposed to brake while in a turn, you should upright the bike then stop quickly. This was Very difficult for me as I nearly dropped the bike. The rest wasn't so bad. I'm pretty good at stopping quickly!

There were about four scooter riders in class and by the end all but me wanted to ride motorcycles! I'm a scooter girl through and through! I don't need to deal with shifting and the clutch. Just give me two brakes and a throttle.

 

Rianman passed the road test part with 0 points deducted meaning he got a 100. I think he has the benefit of having put a lot of miles cycling. I got an 88. You could lose 20 points and pass....21 and you didn't pass. Our entire class passed...that doesn't always happen apparently. And if you drop your bike during one of the four sections of the road test, you fail automatically! I never dropped my bike in the test or in practice but I was close twice.

 

All in all a great class, very worthwhile. Excellent instructors and now I know I still need to practice!

 

Rianman now wants a motorcycle! He has two tri bikes, a brand new road bike (more on that later), a hybrid and now he wants a motorcycle. Maybe he should just learn to ride his bike faster and he won't miss not having a motorcycle ;-)