Motorcycling
- Pre-History
- Finding and Buying first Bike
- Learning to Ride
- Regular Rides in Madison, WI
- Safety Gear
- VFR800
- Track days
- Email lists
Pre-History
I started playing with the idea during spring semester 1997. Just before I left for the summer, my friend Krista bought a 1992 Honda Nighthawk 250.
That summer, I was working for HP - Cupertino, in the Bay Area. I did lots of mountain biking near Saratoga Springs. This where HWY 19 and Skyline Blvd meet. HWY 34 is also near here. These hills contain many miles of twisty roads.
Since I had lots of free time, I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Riding Skills and Safety course from a good instructor near Mountain View. At first I was tentative about riding, but after the course, I was confident with the skills I had learned. In fact, at the end of class, the instructor told me I had shown the most improvement.
Obtaining a motorcycle license is similar to getting a car
license: first you get a temporary permit, and then you take a skill
test and obtain the actual license. Normally, people who pass the
test at the end of the MSF:RSS course can use this instead of
having to take the driving test. Since I took the MSF:RSS course in
California, but I wanted to get a WI license when I got home, I had to
take the road test as well.
As I was driving home from CA, I stopped in some smallish
city in Wi and got my "temp permit" at the DMV.
I started searching for a cycle which matched the style I was
looking for, was comfortable, and I could afford. I was
looking for a used smallish sportbike. Originally, I was considering a
Kawasaki EX-500 or a
Suzuki GS500E,
but I couldn't find one which was
recent enough, clean enough, and cheap enough. I had previously
read about the
Honda CB-1 on
Patrick
and Lucy's pages. When I found one in a local bike shop, I knew
I wanted it - it had charisma, and more importantly, I could afford it.
The CB-1 is small - imagine a naked generic sportbike (say, an F3),
and shrink it to about 80% - this is the CB-1. It has neutral steering
(with good tires), and is very stable in corners. It doesn't mind terribly if you
are climbing all over the place mid-turn. It is fast in the twisties, but you
must have good enough planning to keep it between 10k and 12k RPM. Freeway riding is
not very comfortable because of the lack of fairing. If the air is dense, 70 mph can
be agony.
I had been riding a CB250 on the roads near my house in Madison for
about a week when I bought the CB-1. The guy I bought it from lived
about 20 or so miles from my house - on 55 mph highways - much different, and
longer, than what I was used to. I was going to pick it up on a Friday
evening, but he was gone for the night by the time I got there. I arranged
to get it the next morning. When I left in the morning, I saw a storm
cloud off in the distance. I was anxious to get home before I got
rained on. I remember the first time I took a spin on the CB-1, the
engine was smooth and powerful. It took me a few stop-signs, while still
in his subdivision, to get used to the clutch, but I made it home without
incident.
It rained the rest of that day, and the next morning, I took it out for a spin
which went fine. I was back in the road in front of my house, doing a
U-turn. The road is pretty narrow, and my front wheel just hit some grass
on the side of the road. Before I knew it, the bike had slid on the
grass and mud and fell over. %&$@#! I had jumped off, skinned
my knee, but my ego was demolished. I picked it up with temporary super-human
strength and then pulled it back on the street. I rolled it back into
the driveway and tended to my bleeding parts. Well, it took a few
days until I could coax it into running correctly again. I haven't
dropped it since then (knock on wood).
Finally, I wanted to schedule a driving test and get my license. I made the
appointment a few weeks in advance in a small town about 40 miles from
my house - my schedule didn't allow a test in Madison. The day came, and
rain was the forecast. I anxiously monitored the weather data on the net
until I actually left for the drive. It was about 75 degrees and very
humid. I was dressed in my leathers (at that time, I had no leather pants) with
my rubber raingear over the top. I knew the drive would take about an hour, so
I left about two and a half hours early, in case I had weather trouble.
I made it to the DMV site with no problems, though the drive was long. Once
there, I talked some guys who had or were about to take their test. After
hearing what the examiner was specifically interested in, I went out to
practice a few more U-turns. When I got back, I checked in and since the person before
me didn't show up, we left right away. I paused to put on my raingear, and
the examiner seemed impressed with my forethought, as rain seemed iminent. None
of the other drivers that day had taken a MSF:RSS course, and the only mistake
I made on my test was that I was going too fast before my panic stop. Once
we got back, I went in and got the new license, and then prepared for my
trip home.
I suited up in my rubber raingear, and started towards home. I had
just gotten out of town when the rain started. I stayed dry, but was
tentative about my tires' friction. To my delight, I discovered that
I could remove the water from my shield by just turning my head left
and right when I was going fast enough. When I was within about 5 miles from
home, the rain was coming down in buckets. I just made sure my speed was
slow enough that there was no hydroplaning, and I made it home OK.
When I had to drive to school, I had to park more than a mile away from
the Engineering Campus, which was pretty annoying. I could park my
cycle across the street from Engineering, so I drove my cycle to
school whenever possible. When the temperatures dipped below 30 F,
I decided it was time to put my cycle into storage, because without
a fairing, various limbs would become numb during even the short 17 minute
trips to campus.
I have taken numerous afternoon trips around the area South-West of
Madison, near Black Earth. Since my classes were usually over by 2 or 3pm,
I could take off and enjoy the good weather when we had it.
My last "current" run was to take 12N to 19W, turn left on KP South,
14E for 1/4 mile, and then right on KP West, through Black Earth, then
left on F/FF South. This leads to a little park which is a nice place to rest.
There is a
particular country rode I used to run (KP) which has a bunch of nice 90+ degree
turns in just a few miles: you turn off a highway, blast down a straight,
take a wide right sweeper, and then SLOW DOWN for the narrow part past
the farm on the left, then the sharp left and the medium right. The
first time I took this road, I was with a group of 3 or 4 other
bikers (including
Krista,
Curt Gran, and
Joel Moser), I was surprised
when the road all of a sudden narrowed and turned left - it looked as if the
road ended in the farm! Luckily I was paying attention and watched where the
leading bikes went.
One day, I was about halfway around the first
sweeper when I saw a stopped truck, cycle, and something else. As I got closer,
here's what I saw: a guy was lying on the ground, and two other people
were kneeling down near him. Close by was what appeared to be a Honda Pacific
Coast, but it might have been a ST* - it was hard to tell because it was
upside-down in the ditch. Entirely upside-down. The guys in the truck called
911 on their cellphone and the two other guys tried to keep the
crashed guy from moving. I went around the bend and flagged traffic until
the police and ambulance arrived. I waited and answered a few questions
until a policeman said I was no longer needed. I think what happened was
the guy was gassing out of the sweeper and when he saw the road "disappear", he
slammed on the brakes but couldn't stop, and his bike rode up the hill
on the side of the road and flipped him off. It was sobering.
I take safety seriously. The most important safety device is my
mind: planning ahead is mandatory. The "inner loop" is the
following: Scan environment, Predict future behavior, Decide what
to do, and finally Execute. Another strategy is keep "action
packets" tucked away in your head, so you already have planned what
to do in given situations. Instead of having to think of what
to do, you just do it.
There are 3 types of bikers: those who have gone down, those who are
going down, and those who will go down again. Beacuse even perfect
foresight isn't enough, I wear safety gear religiously. While I was
in California, I bought a Hein Gericke X-Pilot jacket, an Arai Quantum/e
helment, and some Held gloves. About two months after I got back
to Wisconsin, I bought the matching leather pants for my jacket.
I just bought an Aerostich
Roadcrafter 1-piece riding
suit. It is much handier than leathers for commuting: it only takes about 20 seconds to
put. Another important feature is that it's waterproof (Gore-Tex), and will dry in
a couple hours. Leathers can take days to dry when drenched. The suit has shell-and-pad
armor in knees, shoulders, elbows, hips, and back.
Recently (March 1999), I bought a used, 1998
Honda VFR-800FI Interceptor with 4300 miles. I plan on using this
bike for speed-touring around Colorado and the U.S.
I've gone on most of the Colorado HSTA's rides since I joined back in March.
Our trips are usually 1 or two day affairs, covering about 400 miles per day, on average.
Finding a Cycle
About the CB-1
Learning to Ride
Road Test
Regular Rides around Madison, WI
Scary Experience
Safety Gear
New Bike!
Although the CB-1 is a fantastic little bike for carving up the twisties,
it is not suited to long, high-speed trips. After a while my back, arms, and
wrists start to hurt. The CB-1 doesn't have a very large gas tank, and keeping up
with traffic on freeways requires more than 9000 RPM for decent acceleration.
Modifications
Longish Trips
Track Days
Someday I will put something here about track-days.
Email Lists
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Colorado Honda Sport-Touring Association |
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