Time to take the plunge.

Well I have the bike, I have the gear and believe it not I have a license but I haven't actually ever riden a real motorbike only a 75cc Honda scooter and that was 25 years ago! So what's a girl to do? Well as in most states we have the Motorcycle Safety Program http://www.palomar.edu/venture/Motorcycle.htm which is perfect for beginners. They really just hope you have the balance and maybe have driven a manual car. So off I go.

Friday night is not so bad. It's a theory only class leading to a test on Saturday night. In the class are some woman my age with even less experience than me, quite a few teenagers and amazingly enough several Harley riders that have been riding for years illegally. They take the class to save them having to do the road test at the DMV.

Saturday I actually start feeling ill, I'm so nervous. And oh no, none of the woman from last night are in my practical class :( All teenagers and one veteran. Now I feel the pressure I mean what am I doing here? And to add to the pressure a young girl is asked to leave the class on the 2nd exercise because she just couldn't get the throttle control.

So Andy the instructor spends the entire 5 hours telling me to smile and breathe, I spend the entire time feeling like at any minute my Honda CB125T is going to take off on me and I'll get thrown out. That is of course when the silly thing isn't stalled.

Saturday night is another theory session and test. This I can handle after all I do tests all the time!

Sunday arrives and I now I'm so nervous I actually start to throw up while eating lunch. I head over to the range only to arrive in time to hear someone from the previous class failing, great confidence booster!! The first exercise is figure 8 u-turn, and none of us can do it without either putting our foot down or going outside the lines. They tell us we can practise again before the test this afternoon and we all breathe a sigh of relief. The rest of the day goes pretty well and amazingly I actually start to have some fun.

Finally it comes to the evaluation test, this is instead of doing the DMV test so it's pretty important. And guess what the figure 8 is the first test, ugh!! The first 4 go through with a couple of feet down and definitely some out of the lines so I figure I can't do any worse. Amazingly I actually get through the figure 8 and swerve test without a mistake and the next two, quick stop and cornering are much easier.

At the end of the day, the whole class has passed and amazingly I only dropped 3 points!! I am thoroughly pleased with myself and ready for the next step, the F650GS.

Next will be the carparks and getting used to my bike until I feel ready to take it on the road.