Sacrifices... not necessarily

There was so much going on this weekend, we normally attend our local Da Vinci Days festivities but with other events going on this same weekend such as the BMW MOA Rally in Salem and the 34th Annual Cascade Cycling Classic in Bend that available Team Oregon instructors were in short supply.

I knew months in advance and made sure to leave my calendar open so I would be available to teach this weekend. Even though it would've been neat to check out the rally, meet up with other riders and visit the numerous vendors in attendance, I don't own a BMW nor do I much care for large gatherings of people, let alone a bunch of BMW snobs ;)

The Cycling Classic needed volunteer marshals to ride motorcycles for the event and direct traffic, shuttle photographers and cameramen as well as other official duties. I don't much care for the desert of Central Oregon, especially in the middle of summer. I grew up in hot, dry, desert country of sagebrush, sand and pine trees so I suspect I didn't miss much there.

What I did do though was spend an awesome weekend with a fantastic group of new riders. I had so much fun, the students thoroughly enjoyed themselves and each one of them passed with flying colors! This was my first class where every student passed both the skill evaluation and the knowledge test, not a single retest was issued.

So it wasn't me that made the sacrifice at all, I feel bad for the other instructors that missed out on the opportunity to teach this particular class of students. What a great weekend!

I pulled the trigger

On the advice of several fellow motorcycle safety instructors, including peer pressure from a certain someone in Minnesota and a blog challenge from another, I ordered an Aerostich Roadcrafter Light one piece suit.

What's in the box?

I've been teaching and saving my pennies for some time now to fund such a purchase, but it was the extreme temperature differences in my commute that had me finally placing an order. I head off to work at the butt crack of dawn when temperatures hover around the 40ºF to 50ºF mark, then I head home in the late afternoon heat of 82ºF to 95ºF plus. This means that I am layering and wearing my winter gear to get to work and packing my mesh gear to ride home. Where to put all this gear? My saddlebags are busting at the hinges trying to hold all my jackets, liners, sweaters, gloves, glasses, visors and of course  my lunch. There has to be a better way.

Gore-tex

I took advantage of Aerostich's Fourth of July Sale where they offered the TF3 shoulder, elbow and knee pads for free with the purchase of a suit. It is rare to find such a deal so I jumped on it.

Suit, pads, gloves and t-shirt

Of course I had to add their Hot Weather Vegan Gloves and a T-shirt to the order. Karen at Aerostich said that the Vegan gloves were their most popular gloves but their supplier quit making them and they are trying to source another manufacturer. I wanted to order the winter gloves as well but they were out of my size. Who would have thought Vegan as being so popular...  we ride among you.

Happy boy

I managed to wear it for an 80 mile round trip ride to Eugene bike night and love it. The convenience of slipping it on and off is well worth the price of admission, although I am still new at it so the quick 10 seconds or less is more like a clumsy 20 seconds.

Struggling with the zipper

I'm still fine tuning the padding location, the collar is a bit stiff and I'll need to experiment with layering during next week's commute, but so far I am very happy. Off for a ride today to break it in, figure out the zipper and cut down my mount and dismount time.

Addendum: Rode out to the coast today and the suit was comfortable from the 95º heat of the valley to the low 70ºs of the coast and back to the valley heat. I like it!

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.  ~Aristotle 

A Student Asks...

While teaching the classroom portion of the BRT last night we discussed countersteering. Yes, the ever confusing, often discussed yet never fully understood countersteer!

Try to explain countersteer to someone and watch their eyes gloss over, explain it to 24 students in a classroom and you may as well be teaching physics.... wait, what?

PHYSICS!?! What does physics have to do with riding a motorcycle? 

Confused yet?

We use the terms "to turn right, press right" and "to turn left, press left".

This is where I confused the students, but this is counterintuitive.... close, you've got the "counter" part down, now let's work on the "steering" part. I mentioned that they've been doing it all their lives on a bicycle, they just didn't know it. Well, talk about adding to the confusion, now they're thinking back to the last time they rode a bicycle, which may be as early as last week but more than likely when they were twelve years old. 

One can explain countersteering until they're blue in the face, it is just something one has to experience on the bike in a controlled environment under the watchful eye of professional instructors to truly appreciate. 

SoundRider.com

After class, a student approached me for clarification and asked "do you press down on the bars or push forward, because you motioned to push but said to press?"

Respectfully, yet somewhat confused myself, I reiterated, "Press left, go left and press right to go right so press forward on the handgrip, not down".

This is where the male brain and female brain work differently and she provided a completely different perspective. 

She explained her definition of press and push while motioning "you press down on a table, so this is press" 

Press

 "This is push, so you want us to push on the bars?"

Push

A young male student shared his perspective and stated that he thinks of push as a pushup. Now we're all confused. 

Pushup vs. bench press 

Push a button vs. press a button

Push your luck vs. press your luck

push  

/po͝oSH/

Verb Exert force on (someone or something), typically with one's hand, in order to move them away from oneself or the origin of the force.

press  

/pres/

Verb Move or cause to move into a position of contact with something by exerting continuous physical force: "he pressed his face to the glass". Put (someone or something) to a specified use, esp. as a temporary or makeshift measure.

Either way:

Summer Solstice

It's the first day of summer, time for a new blog theme and background, I change it with every season. Brandy and I like to go for a ride to celebrate or observe the Solstices and Equinoxes but Friday I was called into work, that is if you call riding motorcycles for Team Oregon "work".

I've been helping out Pat Hahn lately; getting together a couple times this Spring to shoot video for several projects he has been putting together. Pat is a fantastic guy and easy to talk to, he is very patient yet maintains the same energy and enthusiasm for "take one" as he does for "take umpteenth".

However, he did fail to mention one small detail this time...

I have taken the ART class (Advanced Rider Training), the RSP (Rider Skills Practice), a corning clinic and a braking clinic all under the watchful eye of veteran instructors and the higher ups and all in a group setting with other riders and instructors.  Needless to say, to have the Director of Team Oregon follow you (extremely close) running cornering techniques, traffic scenarios and emergency maneuvers over and over on public roads while being on video you can understand how one may be somewhat apprehensive. Once I overcame my initial trepidation and discovered that it is much more difficult to be an error rider than it looks, I began to relax and enjoy myself.

Irondad was present, snapping "behind the scene" photos, hence my new header photo. I was goofing off and quickly gave Dan my best imitation of his police stance.

Smirking "IronBrad"

I didn't bring my camera as I was too busy modeling in front of many other cameras to use it, but I sense a blog post from the Intrepid Commuter is in the works. We had a lot of fun, some great and even unexpected footage and many miles covered. I hope to share more photos as they surface and come available.

Happy Summer Solstice to my friends in the Northern Hemisphere. My condolences, a Winter Solstice to friends in the Southern Hemisphere.


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A student asks...

A student asked me today "why is it easier to make a left turn than it is to make a right turn?"

I pondered this for a second as it is not the first time I've been asked and likewise I've come up with a couple of explanations.

I have my own theories such as the throttle is on the right so by turning the bars left opens up our right side making it easier to control the bike instead of forcing the throttle hand closer to the body on a right turn. As well, most riders are right handed so we tend to protect our left or weaker side and open up our much stronger right side instead.

Then there is on-coming traffic on our left so we tend to favor turning left just in case we run wide in a curve we have a buffer or shoulder.

We are conditioned to make U turns from the right to the left.

The last two got me thinking, how do riders in other parts of the world feel? Most of the world rides on the right or proper side of the road whereas riders in New Zealand, Australia and England ride on the left side of the road.

So my conclusion is that if riders who ride on the right are more comfortable turning left, then riders who ride on the left should be more comfortable turning right. This would make it geographical, however if we all feel more comfortable turning left then it would be a bike or throttle issue.

What's your preference and theory?


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