Monday, July 6, 2009

The Wind Blowing Through Your Helmet...

I'm a sucker for speed and the wind blowing on my face--roller coasters, boats, motorcycles, convertibles...yes please. Having only been a passenger on motorcycles, I've always been a bit curious about the process. Your clutch is in your hand?

I heard a rumor that if you can drive a stick shift, you can ride a bike. Well this girl has only driven an automatic for 3 years out of all of her driving years. I can't explain my love affair with driving sticks--it's not a popular stance I know. In fact, when I purchased my last car, I merely walked into the dealership and said "It just needs to be a stick shift--I don't care about the other options." See, I'm easy like Sunday morning. That unpopular request of mine resulted in Honda saying "Umm, we only have two of those on the entire lot. Are you sure?" I chose one of them.

So being a lover of the clutch obviously translates well to the bike.

Or not.

Here's the thing. While the "clutch up, accelerator down" isn't so hard to get on a bike, the concept of a hand brake that stops the front of the bike is awfully hard to remember. Grab that hand brake and the bike stops, while you on the other hand, keep going. Two different brakes? That's just all kinds of confusing.



While I made it around the field a couple of times,I didn't quite master it over the weekend. But I am told that I can do a pretty graceful dive off of a moving(or suddenly stopping) dirt bike. Perhaps I should have been a stunt woman.

5 comments:

Liz said...

You are so brave. I have never liked 2 wheeled bikes. I will surely stick to the 4 wheeled type.

Leslie said...

a stunt woman huh? How many times did you fall off? you look good on the motorcycle

Brown Family Blog said...

LOL you make me laugh. You are brave!

Mary said...

Oh Leslie, I fell of at least once for each time I got on. :)

Ashley said...

You did really good on the bike...but I wish Crystal would have captured your 'dive' off the bike, that would surely secure you a place on a motorbike film in Hollywood