6.6.99

I went to see my uncle to learn to ride a motorcycle. I wish I could say that I was captivated by the experience, moved profoundly by the exhilaration. I was not. I liked it well enough, had a good time... I'm just sort of puzzled by the shallowness of feeling. He has many bikes ranging from 125cc to 750cc. I started on the smallest, concentrating on the feel of it, the shifting and braking. I rode around and around the yard in circles, even practicing weaving in and out of buckets. There was an area of freshly bulldozed earth that was a good exercise in diverse terrain. After awhile I advanced to the 175cc. I liked its spunk better, felt comfortable pulling back on the throttle and feeling the machine pulling out from under me. I was tense. I think that is the reason for my ambiguous feelings. I was tense and it wore me out. No room for error after all, or so I perceive it that way. Of course I could have pushed the capacity of my skill and crashed the bikes. It wouldn't have hurt them and maybe not even me at the slow speeds I traveled. But I felt the pressure to do it perfectly, to shift up and down repeatedly until it feels second nature. I practiced braking hard and feeling the skid. Braking is the hardest for me to master. I find myself having to think about what I need to do to brake. My uncle told me that I should always use the back brake, which is controlled by what is usually my gas pedal foot. The front brake is the same as the back brake on my bicycle, but it is the same hand that controls the throttle. Must remember to pull in the clutch too. Braking is not an automatic response yet. At the end of the day my uncle took me out on his 750, a cruiser with a thickly padded sissy bar. I rode behind him in total comfort on the way to the nearby elementary school. At the school he said I should get a feel for the weight of a bigger bike, so I did. I could hardly hold it upright it was so heavy, and my feet were stretched to reach the ground. Nevertheless I released easy on the clutch, pulled on the throttle ever so slightly, and off it went. It rides very much like the smaller ones only more smoothly and with such low-rumbling confidence. I toured the parking lot a few times before I grew bored and told him I was ready to leave. He said I could drive it home, to which I responded with apprehension. He countered with statements of ease, and I complied. He said he would ride on the back, said the weight he would add to an already massive bike would be minimal. Alright. It went well, though the bike was driving me more than I was driving it. Starting on a hill of any kind, and/or making a turn from a start were too difficult under the circumstances. I had to roll the bike to a level or roll it to an angle in the direction I wanted it to go to decrease the likelihood of dumping it or running it off the road. But it was fun riding this big bike, with my hair whipping and jacket flapping (at a whopping 35 m.p.h.). Looking in the side mirrors, watching the road up ahead. Planning trajectories around curves. I told him I want to visit again to ride more.

future past index