View Full Version : So I've had a bike for 4 days...
....and I'm somewhat hooked. While I've always been into bikes I've never actually had a bike of my own or done any solid riding... but in these few days I've already done 600kms, of which approximately 580kms where unnecessary :P
Thus far I've only had one truly sphincter-puckering moment. I was riding along the M1 last night/this morning at about 4:30am (heh, told you I was hooked) at a sedate 110km/h and saw a set of headlights approaching rather rapidly.
I was in the left-hand lane and he was in the middle lane. As he was coming up so quickly I moved to the left of my lane in advance, and just as he got to me the road was curving to the right. I curved right with the road... but he didn't!
Of course this happened just as he was beside me, and he missed the front tyre by all of about a metre at about 140-150km/h.... had I not moved over he would have solidly collected the front tyre (or my leg!) and sent me flying. He got about a metre into my lane and then suddenly had a burst of consciousness and swerved back into his lane.
Nothing like a near miss to remind you what the general population is like... :rolleyes:
Aside from that, it's been great fun so far and at this rate I'll have put 30,000kms on it by this time next year! Teh GPX can nevar loose!
Yeah dude...bikes are great...You get hooked on them..
The only thing is worrying about other drivers...
Chris Rogers
31-10-04, 10:59 AM
fun bike eh leigh. watch the heros at stop lights as well. M1 is a bad place to ride especially at that time of the morning. too many boy racer types on the way back.
what colour is it?
Uh... black :)
Hey re: that money... I need a CD player installed in a car, if you want to come out and do that in a couple of weeks time we'll call it even :)
Revhead
31-10-04, 09:03 PM
So when are we going for a ride? Chris, get your bike going ya slack bastard!!!
On a side note, dunno whether I mentioned it but Daniel stacked his R6. He highsided it, luckily he wasn't going too quick (probably 30 or 40, rear wheel was doing much more...) but he still managed to crack the RHS engine case and scratch the fairings etc, all up around $3k. Insurance is paying though. He's buzzing around on his gf's CBR250 until it's fixed :D
Yeah, M1 during that time is pretty dangerous although there's not much traffic... Anyway, had a near miss myself earlier on my way home, along Lonsdale corner Queen... was following this old chap with a full load of passengers in his falcon... Think my guardian is around as it seems that someone told me in my head to slow down and keep a safe distance, were going bout 60km/h at 3 car lengths away, the chap decided to jam his brakes, make a left turn from right lane and decided to stop there right in the middle of the road almost collecting me... I hit the brakes, gave him the long beep jus to make sure he didn't do anything more stupid than that and stopped right in front of the front passenger... with my headlights shining thru the window, I could actually see the wide eyes and mouth!! haha...
Its really a worry whenever there's some idiots around who thinks they own the bloody road...
Will be keen to catch up in a couple of weeks... I'm pretty confident now but still do things like run a bit wide on corners occasinally, so won't be going riding with anyone until I get a little better at that. Unfortunately still have the natural temptation to stand on the front brake rather than tip it in more and rear brake... at least I know what I'm doing wrong so that's the first part of the problem solved!
Racking up the kay's fairly quick so I'm building confidence well.. just a matter of not overdoing it I think. One bonus is that I'm learning at 25yo rather than 17yo... by now I have a sense of mortality, a sense of losing my license, and a sense of how crap all the cagers are so I'm one step ahead of a lot of learners! I know a guy who recently got his license at 23, but has never been on the road before at all... he's dropped his bike twice (three times?)... the first one was within a week.
Hope Daniel's ok and that he learned something from it... nothing worse than an acco where you don't know what you did wrong!
Oh I had a bit of a play on a GSXR600 the other day, they're not as big and hard to ride as I thought - I can do it! Only thing would be that I'll have to be very selective on where I park, only thing I struggle with is pulling the sod of a thing up off the side stand. Ok on a flat surface but I tried on an uneven surface later and it was a battle!!
Shifty 600's aint real big :)
It doesn't matter too much about your size you'll be fine with it with a bit of experience under your belt - but yeah keep the shitter for now until you're used to it
If you're anything like me you'll be alright 99% of the time then you'll have a moment of idiocy where you slightly lose your balance and on the bigger bike chances are it'll have dropped too far before you'll be able to catch it (especially on an uneven or unstable surface), the smaller bike is a much better option for now
Just work on the corners for now :)
Chris Rogers
01-11-04, 07:45 PM
leigh,
yep can do, say when.
marc,
need $$ to fix it.. ( ask me.)
"especially on an uneven or unstable surface"
Yeah I already had a moment doing a u-turn up a street with a 30 degree incline... just one of those brain fade moments. Having driven cars for years I didn't even think about it... just looked, thought "yep there's room to turn it around there" and didn't even consider that incline = fall over. After completing the u-turn I removed the seat lining from my lower intestine and then rode off. I won't put myself in that position again, talk about a bad feeling in the stomach!!! :rotflol:
As soon as I started doing it I thought "f_ck you're not in a car"... had me laughing about a km down the road though :D
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