New MSF advocate.

[Porkchop]

So my bike ran into some problems a couple weeks back. Just a little surging during low speed open throttle. Nothing that a good once over on the carbs could fix. So my neighbor is a BWM/Honda man. Has like 4 BMWs, a bonneville, and a some other single cylinder bike from the early 1900s. So I rolled it over and asked if he could look it over. I never asked him to fix it. So about 3 weeks back he tells my mom that he was going ahead and fixing my bike, and that he was doing it for free. The catch.... I had to take my MSF course before he would give it back to me....... Fuck. Of course its almost the end of the riding season here, and some counties classes are over, and the ones that have classes are full.

So my last chance to walking into a class that is reasonably close was this weekend. Good part, got the weekend off. The bad part, the center is 56 minutes away. The worse part, through friday night traffic, it was an 85 minute drive. I run all over this tech school to find the classroom, and walk in with seconds to spare. YES, 1 walk in spot available! Of course, riding on and off for the last 2.5 years, the first night is monotinous and boring. Read through the whole book/videos and dont think I learned a single new thing. Today was a different story....

Showed up at 7:30 this morning... which meant I had to be up at 5:45 . Our course had 3 Honda Nighthawk 250's, 3 Honda Rebel 250's, 2 Kawasaki Eliminator 125's, 1 Suzuki GZ250, 2 Yamaha TW200's, and 1 Suzuki DR200. They placed the smallest girls on the Kawasaki's, and the tallest guy on the Zuk DR. They let the rest of us run and pick a bike, and of course the only option in my mind was the Yamaha TW200. Now I see why you guys love dual sports so much. That little bike was KICK ASS. I whiped that thing around the course so much easier than I would have with the cruiser based options.

Opinion of the course so far. I am already a better rider. I dont ride in the city much, but some of the clutch application techniques will give me more confidence when I want to ride downtown to class. Some of the emergency braking was a good refresher to what I had been taught. I know day 3 adds more technical stuff, which I really signed up for.

The only complaint I have about the drills is the disparity in skill level. About half of students have either rode before, or currently own a bike. About 3 had never even sat on a motorcycle before. Of the drills where you had to run a course or circle, half of them were split into groups of 6. I found that being one of the students who currently rides, I was constantly getting behind one of the girls (not being sexist) and holding me up. It was hard to learn and get in a rhythem when I was constantly slamming on my brakes when one of them blew a cone, ran off course, stalled, etc. I understand its a basic course, but when an instructor sees this, they should do 2 groups of 6 based on skill level. I'll see tomorrow, but I already know 1 of these people does not belong on a motorcycle.

More updates and pics tomorrow....