I passed!!

Both days it rained. And it was cold. And the wind was blowing. And did I mention that it fuckin rained for both days almost non stop? But I passed my motorcycle safety course with flying colors. We, meaning the entire class, were all soaked to the bone and looking like hammered shit, but nobody dropped out and the entire class stuck together as a team. Understandably a wet, soaked to the balls, shaking from the wet & cold team. Is there a worse feeling in the world then walking around in dripping wet cold jeans? We even had the dubious distinction of being the first class where everyone in the class dropped their bikes at least once. Yours truly took a spectacular spill whilst doing some braking maneuvers and ended up doing his famous impression of a tilt-a-whirl. I hit the pavement hard as a muthafucker and smacked the back of my head as I went down. I at first tried to get up but my inner child started screaming at me to lay the fuck still. So I decided to spend that unused time doing a head to toe body check. Aside from a sore back and some road-rash on my arm and knee and some ripped raingear, I came through it very well. Plus the big saving factor was my helmet. If I ever had any doubts before about riding without a helmet, (which I didn’t) the harsh blow to the back of my head erased all that. If I hit the ground that hard just from a quick stop at slow speeds, imagine what shit would be like coming off that muthafucker at upteen plus miles an hour? As a matter of fact I just might go out and buy a bigger helmet just to be double sure. Everybody came running over cause the way they told me was after I hit, I sat up and then laid flat out on my back spread-eagle in the rain. They didn’t know if I had passed out or not. The only one that knew what I was doing was the instructor. He bent over me and asked how I felt and after I told him that I was checking on that he told everybody to just give me some room. During both days there were times that I couldn’t feel my hands on the grips due to them being wet and chilled. And yes, we all had on gloves and some sort of raingear but the more we rode the wetter we got. But there we were, leaning into curves, counter-steering, and doing sharp u-turns and everything else the 17 or so exercises involved. The big difference was the big rooster tails of water each bike was throwing up. It goes without saying that if I could do all this in the pouring rain, I think I can at least operate on dry pavement with out too many mishaps. But you know what the coolest thing is? Before this week I still had trouble imagining myself actually riding on the street. And if you had told me that after a few hours on Monday I’d be turning the bike at speed and braking and leaning a bike over trying to see if I could scrape the pegs. And in the pouring rain at that? I’d have mocked you for the pithy fool you’d be. But now after the class and with a bit of practice on my own bike, I can see it happening clear as day. This motorcycle rider safety course is by far the best money I’ve ever spent. Sex not withstanding.

"and the monkey flipped the switch"