Waking her up from her long winter's nap is never easy. It takes a little work, and a lot of patience. I actually began the process on Thursday because I knew I wanted to ride yesterday. Normally I wouldn't have done that, but this year someone turned off the power to my battery tender....back in early November. I knew the weak battery would not be able to hold up if I tried to get her started right away.
I'm not gonna lie, I was a little shaky when I first got her on the road yesterday. It didn't last very long though. Just outside my neighborhood there is a private drive that is somewhat twisty. Most of the buildings there are associated with the auto industry, so you really don't have to worry about traffic right now. I always warm up for a ride by taking that "shortcut"
to the main road. She handled the twists better than I did, but then again she is a crazy bitch. I swear she can only say one thing, and that's "I wanna go fast".On one of the turns I dove in pretty deep, since I was doing twice the posted speed limit of 35 mph, and felt my laptop shift in my backpack. After the turn I immediately backed off the throttle, then started laughing at myself. I am fine risking the damage to my bike if I lay down in a turn at that speed. I have no qualms putting my flesh and bone on the line in a turn like that. But heaven forbid I do anything that might hurt my precious laptop, the cheapest and easiest of the things mentioned to fix and/or replace.
It was good that I went through the twists to warm up a bit on the way to school, because less than 1/2 a mile later....emergency stop. An oncoming vehicle turned left in front of me, not seeing me until I was almost touching her fender. Thankfully I take it a little slower than normal around traffic on an early season riding day like yesterday. I know that no one expects to see bikes this early cause they are still kind of in winter riding mode. Even though I was pretty much ready for anything, she turned so late and my stop had to be so quick, that I locked up my rear which then fishtailed a bit on me. Thankfully that area of the road was dry.
Once stopped I yelled and made some gestures with my throttle hand as I downshifted back to first, and she just shrugged her shoulders at me. I guess getting to the Olive Garden was just that important to her. I wonder what her waitress was wearing. Probably basic white and cotton, but maybe it was silk, maybe something really cool that I don't even know about....
The rest of the night was really uneventful. At school we had an in-class essay, which I believe I rocked, and spent way too much time going over what will be on our quiz when we come back from spring break. I made sure to take the long way home and took Black Betty up through the twists twice more, at a slower speed this time because it was dark, because I know it'll be at least another week or two before I have her back on the road again.
Today, a thunderstorm as the cold weather moves back in. But the early taste of spring has me giddy anticipating the coming change of seasons. Tonight we lose an hour for daylight saving time, so there's no turning back now. Right?
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