Wow, what a weekend!

Wow, time flies when you're having fun and boy, oh boy, have I been having fun.... and it's only just begun.  It seems I just wrap up one weekend on the "the range" and there's another one right around the corner. For you lady riders, my first intern and last class (4/28 - 4/29) consisted of 8 women and only 3 guys. Way to go ladies!

Me, my mentor Ben and eager students

Being an intern means that I get to teach on my own without a mentor on my shoulder but across the range. Ben was my mentor and we got synced perfectly even though we have never worked together before, as if we'd been teaching together for years....well okay, make that hours. Even with Irondad spying from the range next to us all weekend, I had fun and I met standard.

All by myself...

This weekend (5/12 - 5/13) was a whirlwind. First, I completed my second teaching assignment as an intern. All that hard work is paying off. I am required to 'meet standard' two consecutive times before being signed off as a full instructor, otherwise it is a one step forward two steps back scenario. Team Oregon is such a supportive program, all the instructors and mentors are positive, respectful and helpful so I wasn't worried in the least.  My mentor this weekend just happens to be my neighbor. He is a high energy guy and a lot of fun, we get along great and I was really looking forward to working with him. He came over to the house Sunday evening to deliver the news and congratulate me personally. Not only am I an instructor, but all twelve students passed both the skills evaluation and the knowledge test!!! Congratulations class, you were awesome!!!

It was a crazy busy weekend, I taught Basic Rider Training Saturday morning then Saturday afternoon I jumped from instructor to being a student in the Rider Skills Practice. Team Oregon graciously offered remaining spots available in the class to instructors so I jumped at the opportunity. I not only got to play with motorcycles all day, I got to ride!

First attempt of the circuit ride, cone 2

Initiating a lean

"What happened when you looked down at the cones?"

Swerving (full fork compression)

Second attempt of the circuit ride, cone 2

The RSP a great step up from the BRT, a course I encourage everyone to take every spring to refresh your skills after a long winter. I learned a lot and felt that I improved considerably by the end of the day. Three of us stayed after class and ran the circuit a couple more times and improved even more without the anxiety of being timed by the instructors.

Here is my second run.

To round off the weekend it was back to teaching Sunday morning then today I took the day off work to attend an instructor braking clinic. Learning to stop quickly from 70 mph (113km) on a closed course will certainly wake you up more than any quad shot of espresso coffee will.

This is what it does to your front tire.

I understand there are more photos floating around and hope they become available soon to share.


On Bobskoot's advice, we bought a GoPro Hero2 camera for our summer adventures and I've been playing around with settings, camera angles, tank mounts, helmet mounts and such but I don't really have anything worth sharing yet other than the unedited video above.

I'm learning that it takes hours of video to put together a decent two minute video and I can only imagine how much time and effort Mike dedicates to not only videoing his mountain bike adventures but the countless hours he spends editing. The results are fantastic and I can only hope to produce something as blog worthy. If not, I swear I can time lapse photograph my lawn growing.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, THIS is what May should feel like and I pray it stays this nice through October. It has been close to 90° all weekend, wasn't it just a couple posts ago I wrote about snow and how cold, wet and miserable my students were? Now that the weather has arrived what say we slow down just a bit to enjoy it. However, May is Motorcycle Awareness Month so my dance card is full with events, rides and classes. I'll certainly try to keep up on the blog, but in the meantime... get out and ride.


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