Learning curve's

Every time I go out, I learn something new about the bike and myself.  On Saturday I thought I go get gas, then take the bike out for a nice spin on a lovely day.

I misjudged exactly how far I would get on the gas I had.  In fact, 1.5 miles up the road I'm calling the lovely, beautiful, smart and incredible girlfriend to pick me up.  Did I mention how wonderful she was?

The girlfriend let me know she was not happy about picking me up and getting gas for me, in fact I'm still suffering from this experience.  Lesson learned...About 210 miles is as far as I go go on a tank of gas, after that find a station quickly.

When I left in the morning the temperature was in the low 80's, a wonderful warm and sunny morning, within the hour the sky darkened, the clouds moved in and every time I looked down at my ambient air gauge...the temperature seemed to drop another 3 or 4 degrees.  I had packed a sweater under the seat and tossed that on, but not rain gear.  A friend had got caught out a few days before, and I should have learned from his experience.  The rain however held off and my little 50 miles sprint on the bike was all good.

An old bridge found on the ride.

David Masse, who writes the wonderful Life on Two wheels blog, once mentioned that he carried a crushed beer can with him to stabilize the bike when he pulled into soft shoulders to take a few photo's or so.  "Good idea" I think to myself, and promptly don't do that.   Then I pull off the side of the road to get a couple of pics of an old decaying bridge, which sadly my photographic skills do not do it justice.  I start to put the camera back into the bag and "OH SHIT!"....no the bike did not tip.  I was able to catch it in time...but lesson learned.  The camera landed softly on the grass and I was glad I dropped it, and not the Burgie.

There is a lot of learning involved.  How to do the basic maintenance, how to look for certain things, how to protect yourself, how to drive in X condition and how that differs from Y condition.

Is it worth it?  Oh sure there are gas savings, my full tank ran me a total of $12 dollars and I know I can go a MAXIMUM of 210 miles before needing to fill up again.  Does it save the environment?  Am I making friends in a larger community?
Along with the tangibles are a whole bunch of intangibles.

Ah Florida!

Of course finding something as strange and wonderful as this on the road does make it worthwhile, and being able to pull over quickly to take advantage of the camera is certainly a plus.

I'm still learning, the curves of the road and the lessons that the bike has to teach me.  What other joys does the road hold?  What other horrors and surprises?

To know that, I have to simply ride.