Day Eighty-nine: Out of shape and out of practice

I went for a motorcycle ride today, 97 miles to my daughters house and 125 miles back. Aside from the fun, I learned (and relearned) a few things. First the reason for this entry's title: I don't envy women who have to hold their legs together for skirt wearing. Hugging a motorcycle at California speed limits uses the same muscles. I don't have them, or certainly not strong ones. I hate stop signs with lines. All during my ride I was trying to make my shifting smooth without racing, or lugging, my engine. When I got to Napa on the return trip, there was this one stop sign and cars were just creeping through it. In one of my own creeps I didn't give enough gas while releasing the clutch and stopped my engine. I moved it to the side, letting several vehicles behind me move on through while I shifted it to neutral and restarted it. Then I moved back in to traffic and missed my turn.

Lesson one: Know my route a little better, particularly the transitions. I should have remembered that 121 joins 29 for a short time. It wasn't a long detour.

In between Winters and Napa, I had my side of the road to myself. This meant that I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted to without slowing someone up or tailgating. The road was nice and curvy, which is almost always fun. The only possible time it isn't is when I'm riding into the sunset. It did make for a little more excitement going around literally "blinding" curves. Other drivers must have known that as everyone was going the other way. For a few miles after I first turned on to 121 from 128 I was riding in shade. It was glorious.

Lesson two: Time my ride or direction a little better. Better yet, don't ride when I have to stare into the sun to ride. At least I had my sunglasses on.

After that ill-fated stop in Napa, I didn't get to stop again until the hills of San Francisco and even though they weren't steep on Geary, they weren't the kind of stops that allowed me to do anything else. This meant that I didn't get my "winter" gloves on after the temperature turned positively chilly near Sausalito and was even colder in the fog of Daly City. I was able to take my sunglasses off without needing to stop.

I did have two other stops on the way home, one to get gas and the other to get the yellow jacket out of my helmet. What with the vibrations of the motorcycle and bees flying around in my helmet, my Life after Layoff is really buzzing.

I still am "buzzed" about a much longer ride but it is good that I only get 135 miles to 150 miles on a tank of gas. That puts an upper limit between breaks.