Great write ups, we are enjoying reading them.

Keep your head up! Both emotionally and literally.

 

Stro,

If you can , ice the ankle for the first day then alternate ice and heat. hang in there man, you'll be certified in no time at all. Great writing skills. I can empathize with your struggles, clockwise is harder for me too. I'll bet the female has a little less confidence doing counter clockwise. Ask her if that is true.

Bub

 

Stro,
Great write up, I really appreciate it. You can do it, hang in there.
We thank you for your service.
Jim

 

Day 5, Friday, April 30th

Day 5 started out wet. It was raining this morning at 8:00 but we were sent straight out to the pad to start warming up and practicing. The instructors assured us that the wet conditions wouldn’t matter at all for the slow speed stuff that we were doing on the pad, and to relax and ride as we normally would. Yeah, right.

I found myself refusing to push the limits, just couldn’t make myself do it. My peers were the same way. We were trying, but the wet pavement affected all of our confidence levels. As we became more comfortable we would try to get into the intersection, try the keyhole, but it just felt different. Luckily, the rain stopped and by about 9:00 it was starting to dry up. You could almost watch the change take place, the drier the pavement, the further the leans!

We warmed up until 9:30. Once it was dry enough that I had regained my confidence, I decided to try the keyhole again, clockwise. After my first crash I asked a nearby instructor to watch me closely and tell me what I was doing wrong. I went in, promptly crashed again, and he walked over and said “easy fix, no problem”. He told me to go deeper into the circle before turning and looking for the exit. In other words, I was hitting the “cue cone” perfectly, and then diving the bike sharply to the right. In doing so, I was cheating myself out of a lot of valuable real estate. Next time in I stayed deep in the cones until I hit the 12 o’clock cone, then dove the bike and looked for my exit. Clean escape! I then did it a few more times, some successful and some not, but I do believe we may be on to something here!

The intersection was a challenge going clockwise too, but after a crash and then reminding myself to LOOK where I wanted to go, I did it clean a few times. At 9:30, with the pavement now reasonably dry, we split into 2 groups, one worked the pad and one did emergency braking. I was in the braking group. I really don’t have a tough time with this; it doesn’t worry me at all, EXCEPT that twice today I locked the front tire again. Not cool. I recovered nicely and still made controlled stops so all was well.

After a few warm-up runs, new cones were laid out, and red lights were set up. The braking chute was moved to the center of the roadway and short “escape” lanes went off to the left and the right. This exercise, called the brake and escape (I think), consists of an emergency brake at 40 mph, followed by an escape, which means two sharp 90 degree turns, either left, then right, or right, then left. As you enter the braking area you trip a signal that will light up either the left or right escape lane with a red light. If you see the red light on the right, you go left, if you see it on the left, you go right. This is basically the culmination of all of the braking drills. We do an emergency stop, or near stop, then immediately evaluate a safe escape and do two slows speed 90 degree turns to get out. Enter the brake chute at the correct speed, manage your braking, no cones down, no feet down, you pass. The part that messed with our heads a little was the yellow police tape at the 60 foot mark in the brake chute. You stop in time to make the escape or you ride right through the tape. That visual “obstruction” directly in front of you makes you a little nervous, but not bad.

After the swap and working the pad for a while, we broke for lunch. After lunch, we were introduced to the 180 degree turn around. I can’t remember exactly what it’s called but basically it combines emergency braking, a swerve to the right and back to the left, then a 90 degree right turn, an immediate 90 degree left turn, then a very tight clockwise u-turn. It’s all pretty easy except for that last clockwise u-turn. I don’t know if it’s tighter than the intersection but it feels like it. I was able to practice it several times and finally made a couple of clean runs before I was called over for my daily evaluation.

The instructor told me he was very pleased with my progress and gave me good marks across the board. He said something like “you tried it your way for 4 days and did surprisingly well, today you finally tried it our way, you’re listening and it shows!” And so the week ends on a high note. I crashed 5 times today; almost all were early this morning on the wet pavement. I can’t really blame the water, I’m pretty sure they were right and it was mostly in our heads.

One thing I haven’t touched on too much is all of the group rides we do. We’ll take off playing “follow the leader” all over the place, through the various cone exercises, up grass hills, back down to the road, back through another exercise, etc… We always use hands signals to specify whether we’ll go single file, staggered, double formation, and we always line up perfectly at the end. If our engine guards are between 18” and 24” apart, we’re golden, if not, the whole group pulls out and off we go for another ride to try again. And yes, one of the instructors always comes down the line with a tape measure. What’s this, 17”? Pull out and go around again! It works; we’re getting pretty good at parking in a straight line and being evenly spaced!

Next week we will see the last new exercise, the 30 mph cone weave. We have to go to another location for that one due to the speeds involved. Wednesday will bring the first chance to test out. A minimum passing score is 75. I’m not exactly sure yet how it all breaks down but I know that certain exercises are worth a certain number of points. For instance, the keyhole is worth a total of 16 points. To get all 16 points, you have to negotiate the keyhole perfectly 4 times, one of which has to be in the opposite direction. So if I ace it 3 times going counter-clockwise, then take out a cone on my clockwise turn, I’ll get 12 points for that portion of the test. Thursday, I’m told, is for one time re-tests. Ouch.

I can’t wait for next week, I want to keep going! I’m afraid of taking the weekend off, just hoping I won’t forget what I’ve been doing all week! My legs are feeling pretty good; my back is hurting pretty badly. If nothing else, 2 days off should help in that regard!

 

Congrats on the progress! Instructors comment had to be a booster. Would not worry too much about losing focus over the weekend. My guess is fresh legs and a little rest will do more good then harm.

 

You'll be teaching the class before long. Great job and thank you for the nightly journal.
I have read it to my wife each night. Thanks again.

 

I have really enjoyed reading this each day. I look forward to it when i get off work. I like hearing of your experiences. Good luck with your course.

 

Me too +same here!!!!!!!

 

Come on Stro!!! We all pulling for ya!

 

I very rarely read a multipage post to the end......but I'll be following this one to the successful end of Stro gettin' his certification! Great post, love it!