Back in the Saddle!

The weather has turned toward gorgeous, the scooter now has valid inspection and registration stickers, and I am back to riding!

Last Friday evening, I took off by myself for an hour-long ride around my area. It's been a while since I was on the bike, and I knew I needed to practice some skills again. I figured out the first skill to go is my turning skills. Had some trouble trusting the scooter and leaning into the turns and making them smoothly. It got better as I rode, though, so that's good.

It was fabulous to be out again. I rode from my house up through the area called Bon Air, which is full of Victorian-era houses. Before the turn of the 20th century, Bon Air was a place where Richmond city-dwellers went to get away from the city for a while and get some fresh air. There used to be a train station, and people would go out to their country houses by train to relax. It seems odd now, given that the outer limits of the city of Richmond is only a mile from the center of Bon Air -- it's not like people were going that far -- but I guess when your transportation is horse and carriage and train, even a few miles is far. Now, the center of Bon Air has a huge water tower:

I was riding too fast to take any pictures of the gorgeous Victorian houses, though, and there's no place to really stop along the road.

After getting through Bon Air, I crossed one of my most favorite bridges in Richmond. The Huguenot Bridge spans the James River at one of the best points for swimming and flatwater canoeing. The city is currently rebuilding the bridge, so there's lots more traffic and construction than I normally like.

I rode down to the park that runs along the river and took a few pictures. I love this place. The river is *right there* along the road. It floods sometimes, and the houses that are in this area are all built WAY up on a hill across the little road, but it is beautiful.

After that, I rode up near the entrance of the University of Richmond, where my husband will be starting school this summer.

And then I made my way home in the near-dark. This is the current price of gas in my area. Yikes! I'm glad I have the scooter for when I can go places by myself. There are a lot more scooters in the area these days, too. The price of gas is awful.

Look for my next post, hopefully later this evening, about the really fun morning my husband and I had riding around the city!

Mileage

It's been five months to the day I brought home my beloved Buddy (Pumpkin Queen) scooter. Since then, I've gotten my M class endorsement on my license (OMG, I can ride a motorcycle! ME!), taken the excellent motorcycle class, and put on this many miles:

I've gotten over my fear of being blown backwards off the bike, obtained REAL riding gear so I am good and safe, and learned to navigate some of the Richmond traffic, especially in the suburbs.

I was reflecting the other day just how much less scary this riding thing is....it used to really terrify me to commute to my office, because of a couple of divided highways that ended up being faster than the posted speed limit. Over the past five months, though, I have learned to handle more speed, and now I feel pretty confident about my bike at 55 and 60mph. Of course, I don't ride that fast all the time, nor do I want to, at this point. But, I know I can handle it, and I feel good about keeping up with traffic.

I am not over-confident, however.

A couple of near-misses have definitely encouraged my healthy respect for traffic and other vehicles, and have definitely solidified my view that pretty much everyone else might be trying to kill me. It's amazing how distracted people can be when they are all hunkered down in their great big SUV's, chatting away on the phone.

So, yay for me. :)

And in further proof that this house is full of scooter fanatics, I give you this evidence:

Scooter/scooter


Little scooters

Have a terrific day! And if it's nice out, go for a scooter ride!

JOY = SCOOTERS

Joy truly is riding across the Huguenot Bridge on a gloriously sunny day and feeling like I'm riding my own personal rollercoaster....

....and being able to smell the roses and the honeysuckle and the freshly-cut grass as I roll on by...

...and feeling the wind through my riding jacket vents......

....and finding a parking space under a tree RIGHT in front of the shop you want to go into....

....and realizing your armored riding jacket folds up well enough to fit in your topcase...

...and realizing you are not as afraid as you anticipated you would be...

....and knowing that this kind of FUN -- the scootering FUN -- is so much more than you thought it would be.

Almost...

Had my first near miss today on the way to work. Ack.

I was going up the divided highway, riding in the right lane, doing the speed limit (45mph), and here comes some guy from the other side of the highway. He was crossing through the median, turning left across the road to go in the direction I was going, and instead of turning and staying in the left lane and then moving over to the right, he turned directly into the right lane. Guess where I was? Yep. Right lane. I was trying like hell to stay out of his blind spot, but apparently either I was already there, or he just plain didn’t see me. Either way, next thing I know I am in the sand and crud on the shoulder, trying to steer, stay upright and honk the horn at him. He was close enough to me that I could have reached out and kicked his rear quarter panel at one point, before he finally saw me and moved over. Then, of course, he took off.

I was strangely (for me) not even shaken up, or upset, except that I was PISSED. It was all I could do not to chase him down and ask him exactly what the hell he was doing. There’s a four-way stop a little farther up the road, and I was hoping I could catch up to him. I didn’t. He was pretty good at staying well ahead of me, which was fine. I certainly didn’t need to be getting into anything with any drivers, but I sure thought about it.

The good news is that now I know my bike does 60, and I can ride it when it does.

Getting There IS Half the Fun!

I have successfully put a little more than 125 miles on my scooter now.

This past Thursday, I rode it twice! Early in the morning, when it was still really cold, I rode over to the middle school to drop off a notebook my daughter had forgotten. It was cool to zoom up to the school and park (right next to the Resource Officer's police car!), and bop into the school, helmet in hand, to drop off the notebook. I briefly thought that my daughter would be royally embarrassed by her mom scootering to school, but as it turns out, she wasn't on that side of the building, AND she later told me it would have been totally COOL to see me ride up.

I wasn't able to get a ride in during the warmest part of the day, but towards late afternoon, I had to go into work for a bit, and also run to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. Since I previously had ridden the home-to-work route, I felt a bit more comfortable at the kind of speeds I needed to be at to negotiate the road. It was an excellent run to work, and then to the store, and by the time I was leaving the store, it was dark out. Yikes! Okay, now we learn to ride in the dark. Surprisingly, I wasn't as freaked out about it as I thought I would be. I have the flaming orange reflective Vest of Doom, which helps me stay more visible, and the streetlights and my headlight helped. I found that being near or in front of a car with its headlights on really helped.

The whole experience was a major confidence-booster, and I am already staring to feel SO much better about riding.

Today, though...today was just FANTASTIC! It was fairly warm (50's) and not too windy, and once the little kids were napping, I was itching to take off. It's supposed to be cold and rainy and crappy tomorrow, so I knew this would be my only chance to ride for a couple of days.

So.....I took my scooter to Barnes and Noble at the mall...


And I rode on the six-lane divided highway near my house that is the main artery to everywhere....


And then I went to Kroger for some veggies and sour cream for dinner....


And then I dropped some stuff off at a friend's house!


By the time I rode back to my house (the long way!), it was getting dark. I figured my husband wanted to go for a spin (he did) so I got back to the house and let him ride for a little while.

I've noticed a few interesting things about the progression of my riding skills and confidence:

1. I definitely grip the handlebars and clench my jaw when I ride, and I found myself doing a little less of both when riding these last few days.

2. I am much more comfortable getting up to road speed than I was initially.

3. I can now pay good attention to the road and the traffic and my riding skills without the constant running thought of "OMG I am going to die, OMG I am going to die".

And I have noticed that riding offers a few things that driving a car definitely does not. Of course, there is the fun of riding -- going fast, feeling the wind, being closer to everything while traveling. But there's also the things you notice -- the road surface, the smell of the trees, the sound of the cars and other vehicles -- that makes riding interesting. It was warm the other day, and one of the roads I was on had a series of hills and valleys and turns. As I rode, I realized I could feel the 'cold spots', areas where the temperature was changing, like near creeks and culverts. Almost never feel that while in the car. Very cool.

I am looking forward to expanding my riding horizons as the weather gets warmer...trips to the farmer's market and downtown, across town and across the river, and also some group riding with the local club and maybe with friends. I can't wait til my husband gets his license and a working motorcycle so we can ride together!

Scooter Commute!

I usually go into my office on Wednesday mornings for a couple of hours, and since I have a brand-spanking-new scooter and a brand-spanking-new M class endorsement, I figured that today would be a GREAT day to ride into work on my Buddy! It was cold, sure, but it's winter! It's always cold! Plus, it was actually much warmer and less windy than it has been...all the better to ride in, right?

After I dropped the little kids off at preschool, I drove back to my house, got into my riding boots and parka, gathered up my purse (and camera!) and got the scoot out of the garage. Here we go....





The route to Workplace is along roads that max out at 45mph speed limits. One of the roads is a multiple lane, divided highway (with a 45mph speed limit). The whole trip is about 7.5 miles, and usually takes me about 10 minutes in my car. I was really excited about doing this, even though it was really cold. Once I got my Buddy out of the garage and started it up, I started getting nervous.

Getting out of my neighborhood was no problem. I felt fairly confident taking off into very light traffic on the main roads, and I kept up with traffic. Once I got to the multiple-lane road, though, I was starting to worry about whether I was going fast enough. My speedometer registered 50mph and I stayed in the right lane the whole way, but man! It was a bit unnerving going that fast, in traffic, with only the handlebars to hold on to! Plus, the wind made it really difficult, and every time I went over an imperfection in the pavement, I got nervous about crashing. In fact, all I could think about, besides riding the scooter, was crashing. How bad would it be to hit the ground at 45mph? I'm wearing my helmet...how bad could it be?

My mind was going a zillion miles a minute, too.

Man, this trip is taking a lot longer than it does in my car....I had no idea seven and a half miles was so SO far...it is really windy out...and cold...I better remember to call Travis when I get to work so he doesn't worry...

But I made it to work in one piece, not frozen solid, and without mishap or other negative incident. Hooray!

There was even a parking space right in front of the building, just waiting for my cute scooter!



I showed it off to a friend who has her desk right next to this window, and then I showed my boss and a couple of other people I work with. They all thought it was terribly cute, and totally me, and also I was a bit nuts for riding in this cold. :)

I worked for a little while, then rode home. The trip home was a bit warmer, and I felt pretty decent about the riding, although I think I am getting really tense because my wrists and hands were killing me by the time I got home.

Having gotten this out of my system, I don't think I will ride the scooter to work again until it gets a little bit warmer. For now, I think I will practice ride around the neighborhood and take short trips to the store and for coffee and stuff.

The bottom line, though, is I DID IT! And it was awesome!

Oh. My. GOD. It was ccccccold.

So, this being one of the very few free weekends I had available, I opted to take my MSF course and get my M class endorsement this weekend. It's January, and while I do not live waaay north, my area is subject to some pretty cold temps now and again. Like now. And again.

Saturday morning, Day 1 of the class, dawned frigid and WINDY. I think the actual temp was about 31F, but 20mph+ sustained winds put the windchill around 19F or less. Holy icicles, Batman! I was wearing what I thought were enough clothes, but my late afternoon on the driving range, my toes and fingers were numb and I was approaching miserable. Couple that with my inexperience with manual transmission vehicles, and the quirkiness of a motorcycle's controls (both brakes on one side, the shift lever having to be moved up to change gears, etc.), and I was having a rough go of it. I was discouraged, and although my instructors were awesome and encouraging (and I was definitely not the worst in the group), I was still feeling like I'd never get this. By the end of the day, though, we had moved on to an exercise involving riding around the range in a big oval, shifting gears according to the number of cones placed around the oval, and I was having a good time and feeling FINE about it all.

Except for the frozen extremities.

By the time the class was over for the day, my feet hurt terribly. I managed to get home and into the hottest shower I could stand. I think it took me like three hours, the shower, a creme brulee latte and an episode of Doctor Who before I felt like I was warm. I was exhausted, intended to study my course book, but collapsed into bed instead. Day 2 was on the horizon, with temps at least as low as Day 1.

This time, though, I had a strategy.

More later....

Fall Riding on the POS

So, after several days of crappy weather, Travis and I finally got a chance to take the little 50 out for a neighborhood spin. Pretty much that ALL we can do with that, but still, at least it's something.

The leaves are all just past their peak around here, but I am still in love with the colors of this maple on the next street over.


Watching out for piles of dry leaves (and the wet and slick ones) makes for interesting riding, even at a top speed of 30mph. I am always surprised at how much my confidence has grown since I have been riding the Little 50. My neighborhood is awash in speed mountains and I can easily and confidently negotiate them now, even adjusting my position on the bike as I ride. I don't have a death grip on the handlebars. I can use the turn signals and adjust the choke while I am moving. Turns are much smoother, and I feel less like I am going to fall over, or not make a tight enough turn. I can turn that little bike around in my driveway without touching the grass on either side now!

I hope this means I am ready for my M endorsement class.

It sure does make me happy, though, riding this thing around the neighborhood. My oldest daughter even said, as I pulled up in the driveway, "Mom, I can tell you're smiling!" even with my full-face helmet on.



Nice.