It's all coming together...

[magicmonkey]

Get a gixxer.

If you lend me yours I'll think about it

[AxN]

Looks like a good session you had. Just practice often and take it for a spin during quiet traffic time would be the next step. Use your mirror at the lights, head check before you turn/change lane, just two things off top of my head

[magicmonkey]

Well, seeing as how you lot have all been so helpful and decent about me posting my newbie rants I thought I might start updating this thread in the hopes of a few more little nuggets from the KB crew Just so you're warned, if you bore easily you might want to move on from here

I went to my mates and picked up my bike this morning (he's in a residential area so I'd left it there) and had a little ride. I hadn't been on the thing for a couple of days due to the weather and my laziness so I just pootled up and down the road, bit or engine braking, U-turns etc., starting out gently. So, about 20 minutes into that, just as I'm thinking I should start playing around with emergency breaking, it starts raining a little. Not a big deal as my kit is waterproof (except the leather gloves but I'll be having a go at them with some nikwax once they're dry) so I did a couple of emergency stops. First time I forgot the clutch and stalled but stopped from 50K's a lot quicker than I thought I would. I found out that it wasn't the slowing down from that speed that was scary, it was that moment when you've finished stopping and the suspension bounces back up to normal height, it threw me off balance and there was a terrible moment when I thought it was going to drop the bike but I managed to save it, lesson learned! The second one was much better, clutch in, stopped in a shorter distance than I could in the car and I was ready for the unsettling suspension moment. So far all good; then the rain picked up and bit and I went to my car for a smoke to see what the weather was going to do. Sure enough, it starts hailing. I did my BHS in the hail so I'm not too worried about handling the bike in those condition, it was just miserable and I didn't get a bike to make myself miserable :P

Once the hail calmed down a bit I decided to take the bike home, down a steep hill with a really nasty hairpin and some sharp blind corners. Maybe that wasn't the best thing to do, in fact, it was probably a bad decision, but it made sense at the time. So, managed to get the bike down the hill without upset, was very thankful for the U-turn practice I'd put in earlier on the hairpin (2nd gear, little or no throttle, not sure if that's how it's meant to be done but it seems to be working for me at the moment). I walked back up, got the car, drove to town and got L plates, now the bike is properly legal!

Later on it cleared up so I went out for a couple of hours again, this time I worked on the emergency braking more, shifting down to first while braking and trying to take of reasonable quickly after the stop as well for those 'just in case' moments. Still needs a lot of work but it's coming along well so far. As I was heading up the hill there was an idiot over my side of the road on the hairpin so I had to stop and learn hill starts with 5 cars behind me, I figured it'd be a lot simpler if I just waved them past so I did that and took my sweet time. Considering how steep the hill is, I was quite surprised that I could stop the bike from rolling by having me feet down, without the need for brakes; it seems my freakish chicken legs now have a purpose after all! I had a little practice with hill starts using the front and back brakes as well (separately, obviously) as I figure I'll probably need it at some point although it doesn't seem quite so important after that experience.

The other thing I had a little play with was counter steering. Fuck me Does that bike want to dive into a corner when you counter steer!!! That gave me a bit of a surprise even though I'd moved the bars less than a centimetre to drop the bike over. It wasn't so much the angle of lean it was how suddenly it got there and how sharp the turning was, a massive improvement on just leaning; which is what I've been doing so far. As I was in a residential street with cars parked on the road I wasn't really that comfortable starting a corner with counter steering so I tried initiating corners with a lean and very, very gently counter steering to maintain the lean. I really want a wide open space to play with counter steering in though as I think that's something I should put a lot of effort into learning well.

So far so good, I've spent time on the things I wanted to spend time on, noticed things I wasn't aware of and generally enjoyed being on 2 wheels The residential area I was in has become something of a 'comfort zone' though, I noticed that as soon as I left the roads I had been practicing on I became much more apprehensive and rode a lot slower. I think I might have to take a trip down the ohiro road tomorrow as it's out of my comfort zone but pretty much just a straight line down to the beach. Means I'll be able to pay a lot more attention to traffic that if I was messing around at intersections trying to co-ordiante things which aren't second nature yet...

So, if anybody managed to read all of that drivel, well done Any recommendations on things I should do or be paying attention to are more than welcome!