The controls...

My new related hobby is reading motorcycle autobiographies, especially about female riders.  In the most recent two books, both of which are fabulous, the authors dedicate some amount of time to the controls of the motorcycle.  So, I suppose I should too.  I remember the first time my sweetheart put me on his YZ250.  I'm 5'2" and hadn't ridden a bicycle in years.  There was something about easing out the clutch and rolling on the throttle.  Given my later challenges with those activities, I don't know how I actually got going, but I did, on a gravel road, in a straight line, but I had no idea how to stop and no way to reach the ground if I did, so when I felt ready, I'd just hit the breaks until I was rolling slow, and jump off.  Turns out, one of the things that does come naturally to me is tucking and rolling, which is good, because my best dirtbiking "skill" has turned out to be crashing.  More on that another time.

But the controls.  The concept of slowly letting the clutch out, rolling on the throttle, and easing off the brake, and moving was nearly impossible to grasp, and learning it involved many instances of killing and having to kick my little CRF 80.  I'd be exhausted after about 20 feet, because I had killed and kicked that bike so many times.  It's funny.  Most of the motorcycle biographies discuss the first gear down, second through fifth up shifting process.  I had trouble going fast enough to get out of first gear for a long time, so that wasn't too much of a problem for me.

One of the great things about that experience has been after two seasons of dirt bike riding, I don't have trouble with killing my street bike.  I read about my book characters sitting at stop lights having to restart their bikes, and feel relieved, because I  have mastered one small part of motorcycle riding.  While countersteering and counterleaning are still in my list of skills to learn, I can gently go. 

Now to go faster...