Motorcycle Madness

Here's a bit of history

I took my motorcycle skills test Tuesday morning. My 'father-in-law' came by at 8am and I went for a 20 minute ride. He left me at the motor-vehicle department where I was to take my skills test, around 8:30. I was scheduled for 9:45 so I got to see people take the test before me.

Honestly, it wasn't a hard test. But I wasn't practiced. I hadn't done enough slow-speed maneuvers to really have control. And my balance sucked when coming to a stop. My break foot kept coming down and I kept relying on my hand break to keep me still. A mark off every time.

Then came the controlled quick stop. Accelerate to ~25 km/hour and slow down for a corner. Accelerate out of the corner and follow a white line. Watch the inspectors hand, break when it comes down. I think I did alright once. The other two times... nah. Not so good. Skid. Whatever, it was on a painted white line. Slippery.

She failed me and said come back in a week. So tonight I was practicing in the same parking lot with the same painted lines. I was doing alright, but I wasn't taking it seriously. And you know what, I still sucked. I stuck out my foot (my right foot) to catch myself when I was unbalanced. I did have better control over my quick stop. But that was because I did it enough times tonight. Many more times I sucked with the quick stop. I even had my rear tire locked up for 6 or 7 feet once. Not good on the official test.

And to bring the house down, my battery died. 20 minutes trying to hunt down the problem. Checking all the cables, making sure they are all good. Gas was at a half tank. The headlight would die when I tried the starter. Push-start, sure. Try that, no luck in second gear. Try third. Try fourth. Try fifth, oh my bike doesn't have that many gears. Finally, second ended up starting it. So I took off back to my place, leaving my supervisor back in the parking lot. He showed up shortly, behind me. He's got my battery now,

-Charging it up. 5 days to my retest.