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There is something rather primal about having hundreds of pounds of rumbling metal under your seat and between your legs. This primal feeling was aided by the fogbanks rolling into our reservoir rainforest. It was another cold, gusty day with air thick enough to keep us in our place.

Our RiderInstructors for the day were Michael (again) and Ty, two very amenable characters. The first exercise of the day was the toughest for me. We rode into a smallish box, then turned most of a figure eight, zipped out of the box, then swerved to miss a “flaming catastrophe” (marked off by little orange cones). A RiderInstructor was behind the cones. At the last minute, he would indicate whether we were to swerve right, left, or stop. The zooming, swerving and stopping was much less of a problem than the tight figure eights. They called the box “U turns.” Another RiderInstructor later called those turns a “convenience” maneuvering exercise. I called it a continuing challenge. Much more practice will be required before I feel like I know this one.

Other exercises involved turning within a specified radius, stopping quickly, veering from side to side, and lots of sitting in line breathing the exhaust fumes from the bikes nearby. For all the blustery weather, the fumes hung around or were blown into our faces all day. What a headache.

Finally, we got to the “Celebration of Learning.” It was a set-up: this was the exam. We did the figure eight maneuvers, the swerving to miss certain death, a faster braking than we had practiced, and a faster set of corners than we had practiced. I certainly got up to speed on the fast breaking, but they didn’t think I was quite up to speed on the final cornering.

Now as a matter of perspective, I’d rather have come out of the course being good at stopping in an emergency than being able to race around corners. I don’t plan to race. I’m about touring, seeing the sights. There will be no hurrying on my first few tours. There will certainly be more practice, maybe in the reservoir, doing more cornering and braking before the tours begin.

The last activity of the day finally came. We gathered around the storage boxes and debriefed: evaluation forms for the course and for the police department. An individual evaluation of your performance during the “celebration.” Finally they told me: I passed the course!

Here’s Meredith

Meredith and Gabriel

Our RiderInstructor Michael

Now on to the DMV for the written test, then I am licensed to ride.

Life self-determination

Here’s a picture that’s something like the bike I was riding today. It’s a Kawasaki Elminator–a nice little cruiser. Mine was black instead of silver (as pictured), by choice. One of my classroom and riding pals, Meredith, chose a bike near the front, then smiled and pointed to the one next to her when I got ready to choose my ride. Her motorcycle was also black, as was her official biker leather jacket with appropriate patches, and her helmet (flat black–she was stylin’!).

Our RiderCoach instructors were Michael and Caroline. Both had impressively upright postures and remarkable control when demonstrating our tasks. I think we had nine exercises today.

Use of brakes, especially the hand control for the front brake, was among our first lessons: engage the hand control (on the right side of the handlebars) before we even begin to lift a leg over the seat. The front brake on the bike is where 70% of the stopping happens. There’s a second brake control for the rear brake, on the right side above the foot pedal. My brake pedal wasn’t intuitively placed. I felt like I had to move my toe in pretty far to find it. After some practice and fumbling, I began to get a sense of placement and tried to keep coordinated with braking.

Another early lesson was rocking back and forth, getting used to the clutch friction zone (the point where the clutch begins to engage the gears, moving the bike forward). The clutch moved us forward a bit, then a push from our legs moved us back. Repeat. Several times.

Coordination was a special challenge for most of us today. I am proud to say that no one dumped their bike or took a tumble, but most of us had our share of stalls, wiggles, missed cones, and wide corners. A few of us started out with ferocious zeal, a few with ongoing timidity, and the rest of us moved along like the inchworms we became.

We spent the afternoon zooming, cornering, slowing and creeping, weaving around cones, shifting gears, then catching up with and waiting for our peers. The weather was not kind during our practice. We were in the southern part of San Francisco, at City College, in a reservoir parking lot. Today was cloudy and cold (65 degrees, if that), and windy. Toward the end of the afternoon, the air was thick with drizzle. All of the guys were freezing, and my poor friend Meredith was shivering most of the day. It was hard to be coordinated when we were that cold. I had long underwear on, and extra wintery gloves (which interestingly, made my hands sweat, making them cold and clamy), and still froze my butt off.

So much for day one. I have a lot of processing to do in my dreams to get ready for tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll be a much puffier dressed lot tomorrow. We will be practicing the skills that are most likely to save us from THE most common cause of crashes and fatalities: cornering and braking.

Life self-determination

Last night I attended the classroom portion of my Motorcycle Training program with 23 others (5 of them women).

The class was taught by Wenona, a lively and engaging teacher, and an experienced rider. She pointed out that this motorcycle training class was designed for “adult learners,” a profound if obvious insight. Thus the learning methodology was designed to teach us what we needed to know.

We were sitting at four tables, and so naturally we fell into four groups. Each group was assigned a set of questions, which we answered back to the class on cue. In this way, we moved through the material quickly, with some prompted discussion.

We first learned about the risks of riding: awareness, acceptance, and managing risks by using a strategy with the acronym SEE: Search for factors that might lead to risk, Evaluate how those factors might interact to create risk, and Execute actions to maintain our safety. That latter part, maintaining our safety, is paramount.

Next: Preparing to ride. This lesson included safety and protective gear, inspecting your motorcycle before riding, basic maintenance (don’t overlook it, and RTFM), controls on the bikes, and safety and signaling rules for riding days.

Finally, we learned street strategies such as positioning ourselves on the road, being visible to others, the affect of various mental states (including DUI, which happens a LOT sooner on a bike than we knew, in fact it is 5x faster!), about braking and swerving, and a few special situations.

Overall, the night made my head spin with details, memories, overviews, and theory. It took me the night to process much of it. However, before we left, we took a 50 question multiple choice exam to test what we retained. I must have learned something over the course of the night–I passed the test!

Life self-determination