Skip to main content

Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic rider course- Thursday, Saturday and Sunday

It all started Thursday night- 4:40 PM to 10 PM - the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic rider course classroom instruction. The instructor, Skip, kept the pace going and was a lot of fun too. Gave some very down to earth advice, and the evening flew by. It ended with a written test. Thanks to some studying before and some good teaching, I got 50/50.

Saturday was day one of the actual riding part of the course. Not the best day to sign up for, with temps over a 100F and the tarmac added another 15 degrees- put that together with a hot motorcycle and it was extremely hot. The instructors were very good about getting us in the shade as often as possible and reminding us to keep drinking water often. Skip was back with us, and Ian was the other instructor.

We did lots and lots of practice turning, stopping, weaving, changing gear and generally getting to know how to control the bike. The day went past pretty quickly but it was very hot and tiring and I made some silly mistakes towards the end, so I didn't finish the day overly confident.

Today however was a different matter. This time Phil joined Ian, and we went back over the exercises from the previous day and joined a few of them together. It was supposed to be as hot, but somehow, it didn't feel that way. Maybe because we were expecting it and had got a little used to it after the day before. After many many practices, we finally had to be marked in a test. We never found out the scores but were all given the card that said we had completed the course. We have to wait 10 days to receive the certificate in the mail. Then I still have to go to the DMV to take their written test. After that I will have my license!







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Morgan Hill Friday and Saturday

This past weekend was one of those amazingly busy Morgan Hill weekends. It all starts with the Friday night music series. Everyone sitting around with their chairs or blankets at the small outdoor amphitheater behind the Community and Cultural Center watching and/or dancing to the live band. Everything from country to R and B, Blues or Rock and Roll. I've now come to prefer this location to the old 3rd street location- it just makes so much more sense. Saturday morning I joined the Morgan Hill Photography Club for the 2nd annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk. 32,600 people took part in their own cities. We basically wandered through the downtown area taking lots of photos. It was very hot and I didn't find the perfect picture but it was fun all the same. My favorite pictures turned out to be the ones of people.. I still got to go to the market- my favorite Saturday morning "chore"... We then spent a couple of hours pulling my new motorbike apart and making absolut...

Corks

I started collecting wine corks a little while ago. For no particular reason. Then I decided I could make something out of them. Right now I have them in an over-sized margarita glass. They are fun to take photos of!

Travelling to Kauai

So this week, my blog entries will also be a diary of my holiday in Kauai, and a photo or two, although most of the photos will probably be on my Flickr page. We left home yesterday early from San Jose airport, which was not a pleasant experience- one word sums it up- queues! We only just made the plane and arrived at the airport over an hour and a half before the flight. The flight was on Hawaiian Air, and they too, are squeezing every penny they can, from having to pay to check any bags, to renting headsets and movie players on board. The flight was a long one; extra time for strong headwinds meant a 6 hour flight just to Honolulu. We did make the connection in time and the 30 minute flight to Kauai was so short it was laughable. It was also really windy in Kauai but it was warm and slightly humid with partly cloudy skies. Perfect. We arrived at the rental home a few hours before Joel and Stevie and found out very quickly why they love it so much here: and the view from the house was...