Motorpsycho: First Ride

You know, I could really get the hang of this.

I’m not itchin’ to go out and buy a bike, mind, but I have been eyeballing them a little harder on the web and on the streets since climbing aboard a Honda Nighthawk and tooling around the driving range in class on Wednesday night. I thought shifting would be a lot harder to get the hang of, but once I was on the bike and doing it, it got very easy

We started simple, rocking the bike forward and back on our heels. Then we straddle-walked the bikes with an assist in first gear, rounded some cones, and walked them back. Because we got the hang of that pretty quick, they started driving us around in second gear. Finally, they bumped us up to third. We probably didn’t get any faster than 20mph or so at any given time, but it felt a bit faster than that and was a lot of fun. The only times I started to stumble were when I was worried about what the person in front of me was going to do (she kept speeding up and slowing down).

While reading up on motorcycling before class, I ran into a phrase repeatedly: “you go where you look.” In other words, if you look at the ground while you’re turning, you’re going to dump the bike. They stressed over and over to look through the turns to our destinations, and to always keep our heads up and look straight ahead when riding straight.

Let me tell ya, they weren’t shittin’. The few times I felt a little unsteady — even if it was in first gear — I looked up and goosed the throttle and the bike seemed to just right itself. I glanced at one of our instructors, the Dude, during a turn and felt things go a little hinky. I looked over at my destination and ba-boom, the laws of physics resumed normal operation and life (or at least riding) was good. The other instructor, Stevie, had mentioned Monday that we’d feel this effect and the lightbulb would go off in our helmet, and that’s exactly what I felt. After that, I didn’t have any problems.

I did rule out the purchase of a Nighthawk, though. After a couple hours on the bike, my ass was starting to feel it. The Nighthawk has a long, narrow saddle, almost like a fat banana seat they used to put on bikes when I was a kid. It really started to dig into the backs of my legs right below the seat of my pants, and toward the end of the night I would stand up every time we stopped to get the pressure off that spot. Short rides wouldn’t be an issue, but if I were to ever ride back up north to visit friends or out east to visit family, it would get uncomfortable. I believe the Rebels have the more paddle-shaped seat like the Shadows, so I’m going to try to hijack one of those on Monday.

Next time around: countersteering and cornering.