Facebook Status 5/8/13: "Phase 2 of Become a Hairy starts tomorrow - if I can remember how to ride the 125 from last Wednesday, they are putting me on a 500. Eeeeek!"
Phase 2 is proper beard-sprouting stuff. Get on a big bike. So five days after doing the CBT, Baggy headed off for a two hour lesson on a Honda 500cc bike. A different Instructor greeted Baggy. More nerves. In the end, Baggy actually started the lesson off on a 125 again, because the Honda needed a bit of a brake repair (someone had dropped it). So Baggy got her feel for the roads again for half an hour on the little bike before going back and having a cup of tea and swapping to the mended Honda. Trembling.
But Baggy fits the big bike so much better. The Instructor spent a while making sure that the brake and clutch were adjusted for Baggy's hand size. Then he let her get the feel of the clutch and accelerator. Wise decision! Wheelies nearly occurred in the car park. Clever bird agrees that it's better to risk accidentally doing a wheelie in the car park rather than on a road. Clever Instructor. By the time Baggy was told that we were heading out on the road she could manage a nice slow controlled crawl forward. Pity the exit from the car park was up a quite steep slope, then a weird little turn up a hill. Major wobbling, but Baggy made it.
Truth be told once Baggy was a few hundred yards up the road, she realised that it was a much easier bike to ride than the 125. This was for two reasons, firstly she wasn't miles too big for it and secondly because it was so much more powerful, it was possible to be a lot more subtle with the accelerator.
The Instructor did have to tell Baggy not to feel the need to grip the handles, particularly the accelerator quite as though she was trying to snap them in half, but that was easier said than done. He had a point. Over-revving the engine every time she changed gear became the order of the day. As did accidentally kicking it into neutral when intending to put it into second gear. Really not clever, Clever Bird. Especially when going round a roundabout. This happened rather a lot. The biggest realisation about this was that Baggy needed to be a bit less subtle with the gears (which for non-bikers) are worked with the left toes. It is not possible for the gears to shift two at a time. So a hard "kick" is required to get it from first (which is pushed down) to second which is "pulled" up. If it's only pulled a little way it goes in to neutral. But it can't accidentally go beyond second without a repeat performance, so Baggy needed to be firmer. Less hand action, more foot action needed!
Baggy still kept getting it wrong though. Neutral equals no power! Neutral on a roundabout equals scary! Thank goodness for the Instructor constantly chatting in Baggy's ear to help her out. Before she knew what was happening Baggy was riding in heavy traffic in central Ipswich. Beep beep. Having pretty much sorted out the "neutral" thingy, Baggy then needed to contend with right turns. They are even more scary. It's so easy to look at the opposite kerb and think that you are going to ride straight into it. Guess what, you probably will. Next major piece of advice, look where you are going. Your head is the heaviest bit of a person and Baggy Body has a very large head. She should have remembered from when Grotty Groom rides her horse Wesley, that just looking in a different direction, will shift Baggy's weight and with a horse as responsive as Wesley that can be enough to get him to go in a different direction. Same on a bike. It has a bad habit (if you're looking the wrong way) of going where you're looking. So, look up the road to where you want to end up Baggy. It works. Clever Bird just needs to remember it.
Beard hairs seemed to be sprouting and retreating in equal measure. After another hour or so the lesson came to an end. Baggy was exhilarated but exhausted. She was also a little disappointed that she still hadn't mastered the bike, until the Instructor and Clever Bird reminded her that this was only her first lesson. Good point.
So confidence tweaked up she booked her next one on a 650cc Kawasaki. Beep beep. When booking it she was told that you are not even permitted to book your tests until you had passed the Motorbike Theory Test and that there was a three week waiting period to take that. Because Baggy is ancient, in her day there was no Theory Test. The Examiner just flicked the Highway Code book open at the end of the test and asked you a couple of random questions. So she hadn't experienced the joys of the new Theory Test: fifty multiple choice questions on the Highway Code and a Hazard Awareness Test undertaken by responding to video clips. Baggy hadn't even looked at the Highway Code since her driving test thirty years ago. So when she got home she booked her Motorbike Theory Test and ordered all the revision books. She could practically feel the hairs hovering just under the skin on her chin, just quivering waiting to pop out when she could master a 650cc bike.
Facebook Status 7/8/13: "Oh yay, oh yay. This becoming a hairy thing is REALLY FUN. Have ridden a 500cc bike today around the streets of Ipswich!!! Booked my theory test for the end of the month. Ordered all the practise books. Booked my next lesson for next Monday on a 650cc bike!!!! Oh yes! LOVING IT :) "
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