I hate Murphy

So, tomorrow is the day I do the Stay Upright Advanced 1 course.

They've forcecast rain and strnog winds.

I hate rain and strong winds...

Perfect...

Grrrrrrrrrrrr....

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Onya bike

Gerry

 

For what it's worth - during the long winter of my discontent, back when I
was doing remedial lesson after remedial lesson just so I could get my Ls,
there was one day when it was absolutely pissing down. I was terrified,
having never ridden in wet weather - but it ended up being nowehere near as
bad as I was expecting.

When I eventually got my Ls and had to ride on real roads in rotten weather,
it just wasn't an issue, and I was actually glad I'd had the chance to ride
in filthy weather in that controlled environment with the instructor. I felt
better equipped to ride in the wet than friends who got licenced around the
same time as me, and who had never had a wet-weather lesson. They avoided
wet weather riding like the plague, and if they got caught in an unexpected
shower they freaked out.

So it may be a blessing in disguise Gerry... Stay Upright and have a fab
time! I hope you don't get too soggy (although that always makes getting
home at the end of the day seem even nicer!)

betty

 

I agree with Betty. Your friend Murphy dictates that, no matter how
careful you try to be, it's going to blow hard and rain buckets on the
way home one day. Be grateful you have the opportunity to practice
under a controlled environment.
A memorable episode was when I disembarked from the Tasmanian Ferry
then rode home via continuous thunderstorms. When I finally decided to
shelter in a motel, I walked into the office. The lady threw a key at
me and said "Please change into dry clothes and stop dripping all over
the office". Well it makes a change from the standard Motel Manager
greeting: "We take people like you...".
Good luck with the course.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:21:14 +1000

Heheh.. the first Phillip Island GP in 89.

A bunch of bods heading to the Island from Adelaide, meeting up with
others and travelling with them for a while as you do.

It started raining on us about an hour west of Ballarat and kept it up
all the way to Melbourne.

(I remember Ballarat because they closed the road behind us...)

We rock up into the suburb famously called "Sunshine" and decided it
was dark and cold and wet and we needed to sleep.

So 4 tired wet Ducati riders go to the motel expecting the "We don't
take motorcyclists" speech which we had all heard at some point in our
riding careers. Instead we got "yes, we still have a couple of rooms,
you are lucky" and not a word about us dripping all over their carpet.

As we go through the entrance into the internal quad we found out
why....

Every parking space had motorcycles in it and the balconies were
draped with wet weather gear. Heaps of people chatting all wearing
bike boots and most in motorcycle related t-shirts.

The entire motel was taken over by bikers, some from Perth or the NT.

That was an amazing weekend that was...

Zebee

 

The second half of this week was predicted to be rainy and stormy, but
my good mate Murphy showed up this morning with a balmy day, brilliant
sunshine in a cloudless sky. I'll be going to lunch with a dozen
blokes I worked with 20 and 30 and 40 years ago. A lovely 50 klicks
each way in the sunshine. I won't even need to turn on the hand
warmers.

Thank you Murphy.

Theo

 

If I'd learned to stay upright in rain and strong winds I'd have
ridden down to the gym for a full workout rather than driven down for
some painful rehab on my knee!

Hope they don't cancel on you.
Let us know how it goes.

 

OK, here's a very brief course report:

First hour, no rain, but track was wet from earlier rain. On the
first lap I found out that selecting a gear lower than the one you
want when approaching a tight corner in the wet produces an impressive
fish-tail and attracts accolades when back in the pits, but I nearly
had to change my pants out there on the track at the time. I was MUCH
more careful with down-changes after that.

Track dried, and for the rest of the day the nasty weather seemed to
scoot past on either side of Eastern Creek. We were lucky. Murphy
failed. When I watched the news after returning home tonight, and saw
trees down in several parts of Sydney as a result of the reported 90+
km/h winds I realised we'd been lucky there too. It was windy for us,
but I'd say no higher than 50km/h.

Learned heaps and came away with lots of good habits to cultivate over
the next few weeks to replace the bad ones I started out with.

Excellent course. Glad I did it. Well worth the cost.

=================

Onya bike

Gerry

 

Great news Glad the weather was only a little bit dreadful.

betty

 

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Onya bike

Gerry