Well, I had an earliest morning start and met up with Dover who kindly offered to show me a few pointers on the zen of motorcycling. I kitted up and made my way to Dover's Demesne (home to you oiks!).
He's a friendly chap and his missus too - his daughter is cute as a button, after some intros, a cuppa (the English propensity to consume asian leaf products never fails to amaze me!), we went over what I should be doing - he found out I was "short shifting" which left me nonplussed, until I found out what he meant!
Revvy engines need the revs before changing too soon! Typical noob mistake. Also clutch control at slow speeds is a must when I tried to do slow turns at the end of the cul-de-sac he lives on. Another noob mistake sez I!
Well, after that little intro we went in for another cuppa. It was a nice relaxing way to spend an Sunday ... little did I know what lay in store for me just down the road a little later on!
Anyhow, to cut to the chase (ha ha, watching Dover zoomy zoom off on his black beastie made me wonder if I was cut out for this riding lark ... for all of 1 second and I sped up as he disappeared around the corners) - I managed to navigate my way out onto the chosen route (follow Dover!) and was puttering along okay...until I hit a nice gentle S-bend (well hit is a bit too strong at this moment) ... I made the left bend and was doing an easy 50kph ... and promptly saw the next bend coming up rather quickly ... and here comes a real noob mistake!
I thought I was going a bit too close to the edge and instead of looking into the corner (as everyone keeps saying and saying!), I kinda kept looking at the bushes ahead and a power pole! Gleep!![]()
Needless to say by then, physics and a hearty "doh!" led me to effect an emergency stop which required me to aim for spot which would lead to less ouchie.
Result : 1 muddied bike, new track marks in someone's front lawn to show egress via non-conventional route, 1 stoopid noob contemplating how he made the right and wrong choices all at once (yeah, I hear you all already - I went with Dover!).
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Long story short : I practiced a non-planned binning stop!
Needless to say, I patted myself off, counted my limbs and righted my poor wee beastie. A cager in a station wagon stopped and asked if I was alright, to which I replied "I'm okay, but I'm more worried about my bike!"
A throaty roar later on saw Dover coming back to look for his errant charge. I could tell he was wondering what the farf happened! Heh - you can read his observations in the post to come!![]()
What I did wrong : I didn't look far ahead into my sight view and keep looking to where I wanted to go, as opposed to where I didn't want to go (and ended up there!).![]()
Enjoy the photos and I'll sheepishly answer and reply to all queries!
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But at least I got back on and kept riding on! Went around more twisties with Dover and handled them all and enjoyed the rest of the arvo at Dover's place!![]()
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