More riding tonight…
From about 7 PM to 8 PM.
I’ve found a traffic light that I love. I’ve used it to get across the ‘main drag’ I live near. It’s basically two 3-way intersections together. And it has no turn on red from the side-streets. So I can sit there, wait for the green, and make my right then my left without fearing over the main drag traffic. Or listening to the honk of cagers behind me when I chicken out on right turns.
I went over to the hospital a few blocks away and had some fun in their parking lot. Just for fun, I had to blast through the gaps in the concrete barricades they set up to divide the two back parking lots. I like being narrow.
Practiced stopping and shifting from a dead stop, and turning and shifting from a dead stop. I was impressed with how the braking practice went, but I don’t have any cones like I did at the MSF class to tell for sure.
Went around to the neighborhoods around the hospital for more riding. Very hilly area. I went down a steep hill with a hard right at the bottom. Second gear + that turn = awesome. Then I just kept it in second to make another left to go back up the same hill I went down, on a different street. No complaints from the bike, but it was fun to twist the throttle more than usual.
Hit a little patch of sand/gravel on a left turn on a sidestreet, on my way to go uphill to another road. It kinda took me off guard, but I knew exactly what it was by feel and just let a tinch off the throttle and went along my merry old way.
Did some more riding, more parking lot fun, and decided to take ‘er home. Got up to an intersection and I did something annoying. I hit the front brakes too hard when I was about stopped, instantly knew it and backed off quick. I was going maybe 5 mph, had been coasting for a while, I don’t know how little slip-ups like that still happen.
I decided to try my hand on the ‘main drag’ for a block or so, but never made it anywhere near the 35 the road is marked. I think I was too worried about my right hand turn coming up to bother getting up to speed just to have to brake it away in a hundred feet.
Oh, and I figured out the center stand (finally.)