Soooo.... wtf? I thought this was my blog, not a dating service! Guess I'll have to hijack my blog back.
I've had my bike for almost a year now. I just got my insurance quote and it comes due on June 8th, so I'll have to make a point of getting that paid. To date I've put 10375km on my bike. And I had to park the bike from October to April beacuse of snow and all that.
Two things are more exciting to me then that. First the fact I've officially put over 3000km on my bike this year, and I have plans to do many more. The second is even better, I've managed to make a bunch of new riding friends, many of whom I've met either through the forum, or people I've met through the forum. So I gotta say, if you see someone in
the area then make a point of sending them a PM, meet up for a ride and a coffee or something, I have no regrets so far. Since I started posting here 5000 some odd posts ago I've met and ridden with BuzZz, Gadjet, Karatechick, Sparxxx, and Stark77. I'm waiting to meet up with Bubba, and I'm hoping to make it to Calgary soon to meet all the people who live there that I've known for years now. I have no regrets on any accounts.
Last night (May 30th) I managed to corral a couple of people into getting together for a ride. Sent out invites to a number of people including Karatechick, Bubbagump, and Stark. Unfortunately Bubba didn't have his bike yet, but Stark and KC were ready and willing to go. Plus KC had talked to one of her MSF instructors from last year who wanted to find people to ride with as well.
So plans are made and we're going to meet at the UofA between 5:30 and 5:45 to go for a ride together. So at 5:00 I skip dinner hop on my bike and head out to meet up. Down baseline, and I run outta gas, okay, I can make it to 50th street and fill up there. Ergh, it's already a quarter after 5... I'm going to be late damnit. But I get back on the road, and do a little car weaving. Didn't excede the speed limit.... by much. On the way I manage to hit every possible red light, plus get stuck in rush hour traffic, but I persevere and arrive at 5:43 yikes! Talk about cutting it close.
When I pull up there's a guy sitting on a red VFR talking to another guy. I make an assumption and call the guy on the VFR Brian and the other guy Bubba (he wasn't wearing his jacket, so I figured Bubba had shown up just to say hi). Nope I was wrong, it was Ed, but that's okay. We chat for about 30 seconds, and then Betty shows up. I wander over with Ed to look at his bike. He's got an '06 Ninja 636 in gun metal grey. What a sexy bike. I'd be jealous if I didn't love mine so much. At that point everyone sort of stood there around Ed's bike chit chatting and generally
avoiding about talking of where we're going to go or what we're planning to do... I think this was the first big group ride for most of us, it's rush hour and no one really knows where we're going to go.
Being the coward that I am, I try to get Brian to lead in that subtle manipulating way I have. Brian is an instructor from one of the local MSF courses, so I figured he'd know what he was doing. Well, it didn't work, I ended up being in charge, everyone was following me, and I had NO IDEA where I was going. So I pull out into the street with a car behind me, and do some quick manouvering at the light to make sure everyone can line up behind me. 4 bikes, this is the most I've ever le... that's not true. I've led with my friends before, but we've ridden together for a couple of years now, so who leads is arbitrary, we all know what's going on.
Anyways, like I was saying, I was in the lead, with 3 bikes behind me, and I'm pointed South on 114th street. Light turns green and we're off, purposely under accelerating. I'm spending a lot of time looking in my rearviews, and not a lot paying attention to what's going on in front of me. Four bikes good, four bikes good, four bikes good. We turn onto fox Drive which has a couple of nice turns in it... but now there's only 3 bikes and a car behind me. "poo poo", we've only been riding for 5 minutes and we're already down a bike. Okay, who is it... Betty. Double "poo poo"! Rude as it sounds Betty is our least experienced rider, so the one I'm most concerned about potentially losing (I made a point of following a route we'd done together a couple of times so she'd know what was going on). I do a quick stand up on the pegs and glance back, to just barely make out the
top of her helmet above the car behind us. Whew, it was just some jerk that cut between her and us. We can group back up at the lights that're coming back. Okay that didn't work, but as we spin around back onto the Whitemud I slow down enough that the car gets frustrated and passes us. KC pulls up and we're a group again. Brian drops back and takes up the drag position, keeping us together a little better and things are golden. We head East along the Whitemud up to Terwilliger. We take Terwilliger down to Anthony Henday, pushing up to 120 on the 90 road
. Everyone is going along pretty well, but a semi manages to push in between us making two groups. Ed and myself + Brian and Betty, I have enough faith in the people behind me to believe that they'll notice me turning off, so we bounce back onto the Whitemud... I was told that the semi behind us was dumping a lot of dirt and gravel and crap back onto B&B, but I was fine
.
Whitemud leads to 170th Street, and we scoot past West Edmonton Mall and kick it up to the Yellowhead. This was a rather unpleasant part of the ride, I ended up next to a semi pulling a back end digger (wide load) covered in dirt and other crap. At one point I actually managed to brush up against the treads of the digger. That was scary as all hell. Everyone stayed together really well though. From there we worked our way into the inner city at which point Brian pulls up beside us and asks if we want to head over to the safety council to work on our slow speed skills.
Damnit, I knew riding with an instructor was going to see me in a parking lot doing figure 8's lol. Okay, you lead then. So we scoot back onto the Yellowhead, took a little while to get back there from downtown... we made it though. We're clipping along to the East when all of a sudden Brian shoots off down an exit (really late) and we're headed North. Turns out Ed was a little short of gas. Everyone else is fine, so we pull into a station to fill up. While we're there, it starts to rain, KC and I both have mostly waterproof gear so we're fine, Brian dives into his tank bag and pulls out bright yellow waterproof pants (I'm jealous, they match my bike). We're all feeling sorry for Ed though, cause he doesn't even have a jacket. I offered him the liner from mine, but he refused, and just ducked behind his fairing. We headed back South onto the Yellowhead, with pretty heavy rain going off around us. Merged onto the Yellowhead and into a construction zone... where all the asphault had been ground down, leaving that god awful ridged crap, with rain coming down. Needless to say we were going pretty slow (though I'd have liked to go a little faster).
Along the way someone pointed up, and low n behold a huge rainbow, looked absolutely perfect too. Very very cool. Took our time getting out of construction, then turned onto 17th street to mess around in the parking lot. Turns out there was actually a course going off. So we stood in the rain and watched them for a bit. We talked to some of the other instructors, one of whom was thinking about buying a Honda 599, and wanted to know my opinion of it. I had almost nothing but good things to say (the seat STILL sucks!). I got her to hop on and she liked it regardless. So who knows there might be another 599 on the road soon
. Haha.
Hehe, the same lady thought that Betty was riding a 750 (she has the ninja zzr250). I keep telling Betty that her bike looks bigger then mine, unless you look at the wheels.
But she didn't believe me.
Once the rain had cleared up, we cleared out. Down 17th in search of the Whitemud I'm still not completely sure why we were headed to the Whitemud, but we were. Anyways, we get out onto the highway headed South and Brian TAKES OFF. BOOM, that VTR really goes, he later admitted he hit 170... well, he slowed down and the rest of us caught up... 10 seconds later a cop car goes screaming past. Brian hung his head in shame, but we didn't get pulled over so it was all good. I started cheering from my position in the back haha. We rolled right past the Whitemud, and at the next set of lights set ourselves up to turn around. The four of us whipped an illegal u-turn on what was essentially an empty road with one white car off in the distance........... a car that promptly lit up its police lights and took off. "poo poo" "poo poo" "poo poo", we all pull over, but the cop turned off somewhere else, thank you god!
We set back out, and miss the Whitemud AGAIN! It's not that tough to find an overpass. So I pull out in front and run us through Sherwood Park and quickly get us to the Whitemud, lol.
From there we headed over to 50th street and the other MSF sight where we actually practised figure eights, but it was actually a lot of fun, the track is about... 6 meters around for each circle and you just BOOT it through both passes, I think I was hitting 30 or 40, and Brian was going even faster. Betty who hasn't been riding for very long did really well too, getting her bike well past 45 degrees as she went around. Ed figured
he'd rather chat then ride, but he looked really clean on the passes he did make. All in all it was more fun then I was expecting.
And I've NEVER seen someone have that much fun riding in circles.
By that time it was pretty close to 9:30 and most of us hadn't eaten, so we headed over to Boston Pizza for food and conversation, bikes and life etc etc etc, most of which will remain confidential (this is a family site...). But I had an absolute blast, I cannot wait for the next ride.
At about 10:30 it was time to head out. Brian and Ed headed into the City, while I made sure Betty made it home safe (I know, I know who'd have thought I was a gentleman? LOL).
LoL, actually, I cam dangerously close to killing myself, from the highway to the road she lives on is this weird overpass that requires you enter from the left and go through a rising decreasing radius right hand 270 degree turn. Basically you enter then go up around to the right and pass over where you entered.
Well the road itself is rated for 25kmh, and yes, they actually mean that fast... I'm an idiot and I entered at 80... it's deceptive, because it has this nice long smooth section, then all of a sudden it tightens up and whips around to the right. I had maybe a second to process this, and the only things that went through my head were, if you straighten up and brake you'll go into the curb, if you ease up on the throttle you'll soften the suspension and maybe swing wide into the Curb. LEAN OVER."
So I drop my right shoulder, look around the turn, and shove out on the handlebar. It seriously felt like I myself was parallel to the ground leaning off the side of the bike, though I'm sure that was paritally my imagination. I came up and out of the corner going even faster then I entered it, not sure if I was alive or dead.... and not really caring.
What a rush, that was insane, I wanted to jump off my bike and do backflips.
Instead I slowed down and looked back. Now Betty and I have this unspoken agreement that if I go and do something "poo poo" stupid like that I'll slow down and wait for her to make her own way through at her own pace. It's just safer that way. Well imagine my surprise when watching my rearviews I suddenly see this blue ninja come flying around the turn heeled WAY over doing an easy 60 or 70. She stayed almost right on my "O Ring" right through that turn. She's a far better rider then I was when I had that many km on my bike. Very well done.
I dropped her off in her subdivision and safely/calmly made my way home, I had enough of a rush for one night. But I gotta say, I cannot wait for our next ride, I'm hoping to have it on Thursday.
