There is a forum for supermotos that I am a member of. I have been a member of it for a while, but never had a supermoto to ride. Now that I have one, I am happy to say that I met a local group to go ride with today. Of course my ridding buddy Mike was more than willing to join in on some riding fun. Why put off until Sunday, what you can do today? It was my first time meeting these people. I did not know them from the forum, but it said “all level riders welcome”. I did not have to worry about being the slowest person out there. Some of those people ride the same roads so much that they are really fast. I don’t know the roads at all. It was Big Bear again, but different roads this time. This could be a problem for me when I try to keep up. Well, I won’t try, if I can’t I can’t and won’t push myself on a road I don’t know. Heck, I just got back to riding last weekend and don’t want to get hurt and be out again.
There were 6 of us (to start and 8 later on the ride). It was a nice bunch of people. I told them my bike tops out at about 80MPH and that I can only go about 90 miles on a tank of gas. They said it was no problem. So off we went. The guy leading was going a little slow so Mike just goes around him. That caused the leader to pick up the pace. We were moving right along. I was third out of the six riders the whole day. All but the end of the ride. I asked if I was holding anyone up that was behind me. One guys said I ride faster than most the guys he rides with. That made me laugh and blush. The other said I was intimidating and he pulled over for me to pass. Not sure how that could be but I did hold my own on some weird tight road.
We stopped for lunch where two other riders from the other side of the mountain range met us. They seemed nice until I saw them ride. The leader of the ride had bike problems so he went home. One of the two guys to join us late took over as ride leader. He was on a white bike. His friend was on a black bike. That black bike rider just about ran into me. I was very upset. To give you a clue to how he rides, he would dive the bike over just to move from one side of the lane to the other. He cut off cars to go around them doing that same dipping motion with the bike. Not a smooth motion as he moved over. Kind of hard to put into words how he was riding. He was a mess. I made sure to stay away from him. I tried to stay behind him so that I could keep an eye on him. Even with that it was a problem. He would let off the gas just before a turn and then gas it through the turn. Ok I guess, but we were all still going about 15-20 mph due to cars in a busy town area. I kept running up on him when he would do that. It made no sense so I was not expecting it. I felt I had to pass him for safety. Here is where it gets good. We were riding around the lake with a bunch of cars. He was in the back and I was in the middle. We were only going about 20 MPH. We were all riding stagger. He wants to tell his friend in the front something. He thinks it’s a good idea to split between the center of all of us on a winding road to get to his friend. Who does that? We were in a slow tight pack.
How did he almost hit me you ask? Just at the moment he wanted to gun it and split us all, there were debris in the road. I’m talking some giant chunk of something and other pieces of junk getting kicked all around. The best way for me to get by this chuck of stuff, that took up the whole lane, was to go from the outside of the lane to the inside by the yellow line. I did not know that guy was on it hard to split all of us. Everyone was swerving around all this stuff and he does not see it. He was inches from clipping my bar end at an accelerated rate of speed. He would go slow then hammer it. What a nut. I would have given him an ear full, but we never stopped after that. We just split up. The guy on the white bike made Mike uneasy also. He said felt that it was turning into a race down the mountain. So you can say we both don’t like riding with those two extra riders. The others were very nice.
Miles shocked me by buying me a GoPro camera. I have a helmet cam, but it’s not the best. He heard me talking about getting one and got it for me. That was very kind of him and a surprise to me. He hooked it up to the bike this morning for my ride. It seemed simple to operate. Push button to turn on, push other button to record. Repeated to stop recording and turn off camera. I can’t tell if it’s on or recording when I riding so I was just pushing things now and them. Seems I somehow missed recording a great road section. I also seemed to have recorded about 50 minutes of one section. I thought I turned the camera off when I was done with the downhill section, but I was wrong. I recorded my ride all the way home. You can even see me turn into my driveway, get off the bike and turn off the camera. I guess I need to work on my camera skills. Too bad the footage is so long I can’t get it on youtube. It only takes about 10 minutes worth of video at a time.
Here are two videos from the ride. One is riding, the other is me being a dork trying to work the camera.
I don’t know why, but I was really pooped when I got home. I know it was very hot most of the ride. Well over 100 degrees and I had a sinus headache, but I was really tired. Nothing a nice nap could not fix. Don’t you just love a good nap when you’re tired. Ride hard, and nap. Awwwwwww good stuff.
Ride Video Click Here.
Dork Video Click Here. Is this thing on????
I could go for some Mexican food right about now! Ummmmmm Tacos.......
RIDE NUMBER TWO THIS WEEKEND
Went on a sportbike ride today with the club. As soon as I sat on the bike, I felt funny. It's hard to go from the Supermoto to a sportbike. The other way is easy. It took me most of the day to feel ok on the bike. (Mushy brakes were not helping.) The roads we went on were really tight. Not so good for me just getting back on a sportbike. I felt so slow. I was doing ok, but just ok. I was also getting tired. After the ride yesterday of just about 200 Miles on the supermoto, I was tired. Then about 250 miles today, I was getting tired. I have been off riding to long. I am also dealing with what I thought was sinus, but now I don’t know. Yesterday my nose was stuffed up. Last night it was stuffed and runny. I had to take a hot steamy shower as soon as I got up to clear my head. It did not help. With me being tired, I thought maybe I’m sick. I’m not sneezing like allergies. I only get allergies once a year and that always seems to be Super Bowl weekend. I always have to bring tissue to watch the game. I am leaning towards sick. I have a lot of sick students right now. I think they could be the cause. I missed most of last school year and did not have a cold. It was so nice.
Time to blow my nose. Oh the joy. :-) (Sniff,Sniff)
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