Scooting with Dru

Alright, so I'll be the first to admit that I really didn't like the old look of the site, so I decided to rearrange and rework.  This is the result. Hope you like it, obviously I've tried to simplify things a bit.  

As I mentioned in my last post, my brother was buying my People 250.  I had just taken taken it up and parked it in his garage so he could get a feel for it, but this last weekend he asked if I would give him a little bit of 'getting started'.  While I said yes, I'll be totally honest.  I've spent most of the past 2 years learning about how much I don't know.  The idea of teaching someone else.  Well, it intimidates me, because of what I know I don't know.  So part one of my visit was to get his MSF class booked.  That took no time, so part two was the take it easy, ride along around the neighborhood, just to get comfortable with the bike, the throttle, starting and stopping.  Blinkers, turns, brakes and throttle, oh my.  

We spent a little over an hour just riding through his neighborhood, with frequent stops for Q&A sessions.  These proved to be interesting, because I found myself frequently mentally referring to my three strongest education influences, the MSF course, Proficient Motorcycling, and the Musings of an Intrepid Commuter to put into words the practices of what the body learns through repetition.  The one thing that kept coming home to me was that there is no substitute for seat time.  No amount of reading, watching and dreaming can replace the real seat time.

So after over an hour of neighborhood, low speed practice, he felt he was ready to tackle a little more.  So we tackled something a little more adventurous, his daily commute to the office.  Figuring that these are the roads he will have to ride to supplement his car, these should be the first roads to get comfortable with.  Again, taking it in sections with frequent stops, we traversed the 10 mile commute to his office.  It was a good chance to really get out and get a feel for what he was signing on for.  After the ride down, I could visibly see the confidence growing, but with it, an awareness of how different riding is in reality to the imagined experience.  After talking about some of the things from the ride down, it was time to head home.  Because of traffic patterns in the area, he uses a different route home, so we headed out that different route, and during the ride, I got to see first hand the improvement in his confidence from the first half of the ride to the second half. 

It took a little over an hour to make the round trip loop with all of our stop and talk breaks, but at the end, I think he has the confidence to make the trip safely, but not the overconfidence that causes issues.  In the end though, he is very excited to go take the MSF course, as that remains the single best resource for new riders, and yes, at the end of the day, he had the same ear to ear grin that all riders know.

The thrill of the ride.