Stro,

Like so many others I have become "hooked" on your thread. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience and good luck on your test though it sounds as though you will nail it!

 

Instead of just resting, you should be doing cat stretches, windmills and such for the back to release adhesions and stiffness for the next day. Better than painkillers, which usually don't do much for back pains.

 

So I suppose big pillows attached to the saddlebags and crash guards defeats the purpose huh?!?

 

Stro,

I'm really enjoying your posts. The only problem I have is that I've made a deposit to attend this school http://www.northwest-motorcycle.com/index.htm in July and now I'm beginning to wonder if this 64 year old body will be able to handle the pounding it's going to take. I don't recover from bangs and bruises as fast as I used to and if a young guy like you is feeling tha pain I can't imagine what I'll feel like after a couple of days. Good luck, stay safe and I'm sure you'll pass without any problem.

 

Amazing thread, thanks for sharing! Very entertaining and informative.

What amazes me is that protective gear isnt required and that there arent more injuries with as many times as the bikes get dropped. What Ive also realilzed is Im not where near as good of a rider asa I thought I was, I guess time for the RLAP DVD's.

 

Awesome thread! Very well detailed and written. Thanks for taking the time to do this.I am sure you have already helped several...including myself.
Keep up the good work, keep your head high and well...you know where your eyes need to be!
I will continue to follow this thread.... as my curiosity peaks into what the next "treatment " will be.
I feel like Im following an episode of Survivor but your scenario/environment is WAY more interesting!!
Thanks again

 

Awesome! Just wanted to be part of the updates to hear the finale!

 

STRO, Thanks for all the hard you are putting intot he class and the writing, I have found myself reading your stuff like a text book and trying to absorb the information. I went riding with my wife this weekend on some pretty twisty (read slow) roads in the TEXAS Hill country this weekend and found myself whispering "up, up, up" to remind me to keep my "head and eyes up" while going through the turns, thanks to you.

 

Day 7, Tuesday, May 4th

It was kickstands up at 8:00 this morning again. My back was hurting so I took Ibuprofen and Tylenol before I left the house and applied some IcyHot once I arrived at training. The early morning warm-up was the same as we’ve been doing, on your own with the instructors working with anyone who appeared to need it. As has become routine for me, I started with the slow cone weave and offset weave, then worked my way up in difficulty until I’d been through everything a few times. It occurred to me at the end of the warm-up that I hadn’t taken out a single cone!

We split up again, with half of the group working on braking and the other half working the slow cones. I was in the first braking group with 3 others. We started with a few simple emergency stops, and then they set up the brake and escape exercise for us. Everyone in my group seemed to be doing pretty well. Occasionally someone would take out a cone on the “escape”, or put a foot down at the end of the “brake”, but all in all it was uneventful. All of my own runs were clean.

At about 10:00 A.M. the groups traded places and we took over at the pad. I worked my practice routine similarly to what I did yesterday, in that I would do every exercise 4 times, if all 4 runs were clean I would move on to the next exercise. If I made a mistake, my “penalty” would be to do it cleanly at least 5 times before moving on. By the lunchtime break I was really doing well and was running everything cleanly almost every time.

After lunch it was back to braking for the first group. Again, there were no real issues for me. After several runs I asked the instructors if they would allow me to test out. They chatted and decided to ask the group as a whole if they wanted to test. As it happens, I was the only taker. I made my 4 clean runs and went back to the slow cone pad. One more test out of the way for me! One of the instructors pulled me aside later and told me that he thought that I was one of the two best “brakers” he had ever seen. Made me feel pretty good!

Working the same exercises so many times has allowed me to get pretty decent, in that I can now enter an exercise, make a mistake, recover and still come out clean. One of the instructors said that muscle memory comes into play at some point, I tend to agree. If I ran the keyhole 20 times, 19 of them were clean runs. I don’t think I made a mistake at all today in the slow cones or the offset weave. The only mistakes I made, as I recall, was one crash in the keyhole when I went in with my rpm’s too low, one cone down on a run at the 180 decel when I took my u-turn a smidgeon too wide, and one cone on a 90 degree pull-out. 95% or more of all of the runs I did today were clean.

Tomorrow is the big day. Ride testing. We’re actually starting at 1:00 P.M. and working until 9:00 P.M. so we can get in some night riding. I feel pretty good about the tests, having already aced the 30 mph cone weave and the brake and escape takes some of the pressure off for me. If I can make clean runs tomorrow as I was making them today, I’ll get through the test easily. My goals have changed slightly though. I’m no longer too worried about passing. I want to score 100% and I want very much to be the class “Top Gun”. Anything less is unacceptable! Bring on the tests!

 

it all sound great !