Biker Chick

Today, was my third motorcycle lesson. It has been just over a week since my last lesson, and believe it or not, I have actually remembered most of the stuff Mark has taught me! I say, most, but in reality I have remembered pretty much everything, but Mark tends to change the way he asks his questions... and sometimes he changes his answers. I just can't win!

Mark was late again today but at least he is being consistent! He did seem less stressed when he saw me, so I guess that's a good sign... I mean he didn't sigh or groan or try to leave this time. Maybe it's because he knows this is the downhill run for us. I only have 2 hours left before I am set loose on the road, unaccompanied, unsupervised and unassisted. That seems to terrify me more than anyone! No, actually, it terrifies my parents more than me. They are convinced I will kill myself but they also have refused to buy me a bike helmet for my birthday. I have told them I NEED a helmet for when I fall off so I don't die, but that didn't go down too well... Some people have NO sense of humour! And I haven't even told them Mark's theory of "when your time's up, your time is up."

Today I was heaps better on the bike. I managed to ride for about an hour before stalling the bike. Again, I did it in a most graceful public manner. We had stopped at a set of lights, Mark reversed his bike up beside me to have a chat, as we do - he makes me tell him about my observations of the world, when I thought I would be really clever and point out the driver beside us reading a novel whilst driving. This would have been fine, if I didn't use my left hand... taking it off the clutch... Mark just looked down, shook his head and left me for dead. I honestly think he is proud of me. Why else would he leave me to sort it out myself?

We did heaps of on-road work today. Which is great, because I need the practise. Mark has said at the end of my next session (my LAST) that we will do some runs up and down the highway... I have said I NEED it, but it still scares me.... I mean it is a 250 that I have to ride! But, I guess it's better that I do it while I have Mark to pull me out from under a truck. At least I know he will abuse the truck driver. After today I realised how passionate Mark is about "wankers" that bully learner riders.

I had one of these drivers, male I might add, that decided to overtake both of us on a country road, in the middle of a blind curve. This was after he had been riding my back wheel for the previous 2km, even though I was already exceeding the speed limit. Mark previously told me if this happened to start with flicking my brake lights on and off to warn them to back off. If that didn't work, to drive through the gravelly debris on the road and flick it on the offending car all while moving around a lot on the bike so I was being unpredictable. I think I just pissed him off because he almost side swiped me on the way through, and then he had Mark to deal with. And what a show that was! Mark waited for the car to be beside him (in the wrong lane, on a blind corner) then he let loose! It was awesome! There was all sorts of hand gestures, starting with waving a middle finger and ending in a closed fist pumping back and forth from the front of his helmet area, effectively indicating Mark thought the guy in the car was a dickhead. He then matched the cars speed, stopping him from being able to merge back onto the left side of the road. I decided to back off at this point, figuring I would have to scrape Mark off the road in the next few minutes after this guy turned him into a blood sprinkler. Fortunately for me, (I'm not sure how I would cope with all that blood and muck), Mark let the guy go with a final fist shaking. All this before 9am... I'm not cut out for this kind of drama!

We then headed off to do some off-road work, which it turns out today the car park of choice was full. Which to me means we should go to one of the other car parks, but to Mark, it means I will have to be careful and not look at the cars or I will end up hitting one. We started with figure 8's and then moved to weaving, I thought we should have done it the other way around, and apparently he normally does but there was no room. In response to my protests of "Why would you do that to me? Throwing me in the deep-end? You know I get nervous!" Mark replied with, "Stop being a princess, you handled it! *wink*" It turns out I'm actually pretty good with the weaving and my figure 8's were a little shaky to start with, but came good after a few laps. Even with Mark yelling "look at the ground and see what happens!" and me yelling back "NO!! I will fall off!" I managed to survive and keep the bike upright the WHOLE time.

After leaving the car park, we did some more road time and I had the pleasant experience of encountering a garbage truck. Not only did I have issues with cars cutting me off to get around the truck, but I also had the joy of the glorious aromas of rotting garbage blowing straight into my face. The only positive I could get out of this situation was that Mark got cut off really badly and almost ran up the bum of a car. I found this amusing because he keeps hassling me about my following distance being too far... I managed to stop easily enough... I'm just saying!

Mark decided to give me some instruction before we continued on with our ride. He thought that I needed to be more aggressive and stand my ground more when riding. I tend to hang back and observe whats going on... if people want to merge, I let them in. I stop for red lights and I generally stick to the speed limit. These are all things Mark wants me to stop doing. So today, I tried... Unsuccessfully. I managed to stand my ground on two different cars that tried to cut me off and I hated every second of it! I just don't think it's very intelligent to take on a car or truck or pretty much anything while you are on a bike. Why would I stir them up? Why would I encourage them to dislike me? They can do a lot more damage to me than I can to them! Mark says they won't deliberately kill me while there are witnesses all around - NOT COMFORTING! So, I kept stopping at red lights, even if Mark didn't. I kept my distance, even with Mark telling me to hurry up and get closer and I kept letting cars merge into my lane. I think I will stand my ground on this one with Mark, I don't think he wanted me to be stubborn to him, but at least he can see me being stubborn, so it's not a complete failure!

My next session is meant to cover emergency braking and counter steering. I really want to know HOW Mark plans on doing this, because if it's not a surprise reaction, it's not an emergency. Which means it's not real. I have this image in my head of Mark throwing something at me to cause the emergency, which I'm sure he would LOVE, but I am likely to put the bike down if he does that... I guess we will see soon enough.


Jessie