Time to get some real practice in.

I drove around looking for some good places to practice. Sure, my neighborhood has a road, but it also has a lot of kids. I need somewhere without any type of traffic or distractions so I can focus on my training. I'm looking for an empty parking lot. A school parking lot seems ideal. It's summer time and it's the weekend. My first choice - which was closer - was no good 'cause for some reason there was an event there. My second choice - which had an awesome parking lot - was too far, and too many stoplights away (I might stall. Not a good situation). Luckily, another area presented itself. A secluded section of a small plaza, where the business is closed on the weekends. So there, I've found my spot. Now I just have to make it over there. A tall order, seeing as I had so much trouble starting off from a dead stop. I really needed this practice session though, so I would have to accelerate my start and stop skills.

I donned my gear again, rolled out onto the roadway, and instead of just trying to get a lap in, I focused on starting off smoothly from a dead stop without stalling. It definitely wasn't easy at first, but after a few tries I began to realize it was less about increasing the throttle and it was more about engaging less clutch. The caution it seems more with big sport bikes is that there is very little low speed throttle area and a lot more medium and high speed throttle area. So if you are intent on moving very slow (especially from a dead stop) you have a very minute wrist movement to work with.

Well, soon I was able to stop and start reliably, without fear of a definite stall. I did a few more laps to solidify my newly gained skills, and then arranged for an escort to do tailgating duty on the way to the plaza parking lot. I made it there without incident. Yes, I had to cross a four way intersection, and yes, the cars and trucks there did want to turn left in front of me, however, this is not an unusual situation for me and I always assume that people turning at an intersection will not see me or jump out at the very last minute. I always dutifully slow down and cover the brake even when driving my two-and-a-half ton truck.

Yay! I made it to the parking lot.

The coolest thing about that "Riding Tips" booklet that came with the bike manual, is that in the last pages it had directions for setting up and riding a course in a parking lot. And, so to that effect, I had brought along ten bottles of water that I could use as markers/obstacles for laying out the practice course.

While riding the courses I certainly got a lot more skillful at starting off from a dead stop. This was great, since I'm going to have to get back onto the open road once I'm done practicing here.

Throughout riding the courses I noticed a couple things. My years of bicycle racing are helping out. The bike although heavy while motionless is very quick to flick from side to side while cornering at low speed. The bike is much stabler and harder to lean the faster you go, you really have to lean on the handlebars once you start going faster. Using the engine to brake is very effective at slowing the bike, I rarely even have to touch the brakes, but I press them anyway just to get the habit of the motion ingrained into my routine.

I practiced the courses over and over until I had a meager level of proficiency and comfort with all of them. I'm used to rigorous practice so, I pretty much know how to do it and what to look for. After three hours I was able to operate the throttle a little more smoothly, and comfortably, but nowhere near as perfect as I would like. However, this was my first practice session and it was a very productive one.

Some mistakes made were: I had a tendency to sometimes downshift in the beginning of a corner (the entrance - between the straightaway and the apex) this I could feel had a tendency to upset the rear suspension a little. This tendency to downshift primarily happened when coming down from 25mph. This over compensation was due a little to my wanting to experiment and see what it feels like to continue a hard deceleration inside the corner. My course was also set up so there was a real world ultimatum at the turns. The parking lot ends and has a 5 foot drop at the apex of the turn. This really gave me an incentive to complete the turn properly.

At the end of my practice session, I packed up my bottles of water, and rode home. On the way back I was amazed how much faster everything looked from the bike as now without my escort I tried to keep a decent pace with the traffic.

Anyway, another day. And now I am even starting to enjoy it a little.