Well, that could have gone better

Skill riding was on the agenda today. Alice and I rode to a church parking lot so she could get some practice cornering. Good thing today was set for skill riding and not cruising. It was only 48 degrees when we left. Brrrr!

Before we got started Alice asked if she had to wear her helmet for this type of riding. I said yes, of course. Even though she would be at slow speeds, doing this kind of skill riding can result in dropping your bike, so a person still needs the helmet. I think the first picture shows what she thought of that. The second picture is a perfect snapshot of how good she did. I tried doing a video, but apparently I still have something to learn there.

I set up some cones for her to practice weaving in and out of at slow speeds. I started with the cones at almost twice the distance as they will be on the motorcycle license test. She aced that. So I set the cones closer, she aced that too. Then I put the cones at 8 feet like they will be for the test. She did great there too. She also made significant progress from the beginning by naturally going from riding as straight up as possible to actually getting into corners before I was even able to suggest that as the next step. I loved watching her go through the paces. So exciting! Every once in awhile she would knock a cone over, so I got my exercise walking the course and putting the cones back in place.

I decided I could use some skill practice myself, since I haven’t been riding much in the last few years. But, I should have started with the cones further apart like she did. Halfway through, I dropped my bike. Damn. As Alice came over to check on me, she did say that it was a very graceful fall. The only bad thing was that I had taken the bags off my bike to eliminate some weight and without the bags to stop the bike on it’s way down, the bike (800+ pounds) landed on my foot trapped under the bike. Ouch! Broken! I could tell. Then she got her next riding lesson, this time on my bike instead of hers. I taught her the right way to pick up a motorcycle. Because this bike is so heavy, she had to work at it a bit, but she did it! Good thing too, because we were on our own and I certainly wasn’t any help. She wondered about getting me home. I told her no problem, it was my left foot so I could still ride (thanks to a heel-toe shifter). I figured we might as well go to lunch as planned, then I would ride my bike home, get the truck and go to Urgent Care. I hadn’t eaten yet and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t feed me at Urgent Care. It was pretty painful to put my foot down at a stop, so I rolled as many stop signs as I could when it was safe to do so.

X-rays confirmed the break, so now I’m back home with a boot on my foot and crutches for 6 weeks. I guess I’m going to have to slow down for a week or so until my foot starts to heal and doesn’t hurt so bad. I guess I need a little time to get used to the crutches again, too. This isn’t my first rodeo and I am quite experienced at getting around with a boot and crutches. I don’t need to wait for 6 weeks to get back on the bike. Thanks to having a heel-toe shifter I can still ride with the boot on. I’ve done it before. For the first time in my life, I turned down the doctor’s offer of pain killers due to a previous bad experience. But, now it’s definitely time to smoke a little weed and take the edge of the pain. Tomorrow’s another day.