Back on the horse
Apr. 4th, 2011 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumYesterday I took my first real ride since the crash. It was educational.
It's not the first time I've been on the bike, but it was both the longest ride I've done, (about 55 miles) and the first time I've not been on city street/highway. I took 101 from Embarcadero, to 85 (over the carpool ramp) to Saratoga, up to to CA-9, to 35 (Skyline), up to 92, and back down 280 to Page Mill, back to 101, and off at Embarcadero. I stopped in Saratoga for gas, and in Palo Alto to get supper at Mollie Stones.
All in all, I am not any worse a rider than I was. A bit rusty, so some of my line wasn't great. Oddly there were times I thought I was being too aggressive, and had to back off. Some of that was the usual struggle to not "look wimpy" to other riders/cars (and to the guy on the Vespa, near the top of 9... you need to back off. Either pass, or hang back, but sliding up, and into my blind spot as I enter turns which have tricky visibility and decreasing radius smart), and the rest was, I think, a slight decrease in confidence/practice. It's not that I've not ridden those turns that way before (That stretch of Skyline pretty familiar to me, it's where I started learning how to really work the bike from one side to the other, it's really good basic twisties).
But for the first time I was actually adrenal, which is hard to explain. Stuff happens. The guy making an illegal pass, and coming at me in my lane, me being a bit fast/loose/wrong lined in a turn and drifting just over the line, etc. Those would be a short snap of.. "Oh crap" and "that was stupid/dangerous". Yesterday that sort of thing, and a lot more besides, had my kidneys pumping, hard.
It built. By the time I got to Alice's, at Woodside, the knotted gut was, not quite, constant. I did drift just over the line on one curve, about five miles before that, and that was the real kicker. There's a lot of traffic on Skyline. There was no worry about me being hit, the lanes are wide, but there was a car coming (I got back over the line, and he went wide, and neither of us was going all that fast) but after that anything I thought I'd done poorly and the kidneys kicked out the adrenaline.
In too high a gear for the curve (and so sort of floating through the turn), Boom. Realise I was in the wrong gear, and downshift too late; so that I didn't want to release the clutch and have the bike skid for a moment? Boom. Spot a slick of seepwater... Boom.
Half an hour of really amped fight or flight, and nothing to be done but ride it out. Exhausting.
I'm pretty sure it will fade. The early part of the ride was fine. It seems that the first spike was the start of an avalanche. Next time, I'll know that it might be that sort of cascade (and the thing of it is that I know this is a positive feedback loop, but at the time I was too busy with the road, and the bike to analyse that aspect of it. I was busy seeing if I was in control of the bike). If I get that sort of overraction to being less than perfect I'll pull over and look for pretty bugs/flowers in the underbrush, or head for the first pretty overlook on the side of the road and let things come back to normal.
Other than that it was a really good ride. Probably about as far as I can go in this weather (the Seca has no fairing, and the hills are a bit cooler than the valley), but the ankle is fine, and my (general) sense of how the bike feels (and me on it) is good. The road,once I got out of the hills, where I could see who was where; and what was coming, was as much fun as the ride was before the adrenaline started.
It's not the first time I've been on the bike, but it was both the longest ride I've done, (about 55 miles) and the first time I've not been on city street/highway. I took 101 from Embarcadero, to 85 (over the carpool ramp) to Saratoga, up to to CA-9, to 35 (Skyline), up to 92, and back down 280 to Page Mill, back to 101, and off at Embarcadero. I stopped in Saratoga for gas, and in Palo Alto to get supper at Mollie Stones.
All in all, I am not any worse a rider than I was. A bit rusty, so some of my line wasn't great. Oddly there were times I thought I was being too aggressive, and had to back off. Some of that was the usual struggle to not "look wimpy" to other riders/cars (and to the guy on the Vespa, near the top of 9... you need to back off. Either pass, or hang back, but sliding up, and into my blind spot as I enter turns which have tricky visibility and decreasing radius smart), and the rest was, I think, a slight decrease in confidence/practice. It's not that I've not ridden those turns that way before (That stretch of Skyline pretty familiar to me, it's where I started learning how to really work the bike from one side to the other, it's really good basic twisties).
But for the first time I was actually adrenal, which is hard to explain. Stuff happens. The guy making an illegal pass, and coming at me in my lane, me being a bit fast/loose/wrong lined in a turn and drifting just over the line, etc. Those would be a short snap of.. "Oh crap" and "that was stupid/dangerous". Yesterday that sort of thing, and a lot more besides, had my kidneys pumping, hard.
It built. By the time I got to Alice's, at Woodside, the knotted gut was, not quite, constant. I did drift just over the line on one curve, about five miles before that, and that was the real kicker. There's a lot of traffic on Skyline. There was no worry about me being hit, the lanes are wide, but there was a car coming (I got back over the line, and he went wide, and neither of us was going all that fast) but after that anything I thought I'd done poorly and the kidneys kicked out the adrenaline.
In too high a gear for the curve (and so sort of floating through the turn), Boom. Realise I was in the wrong gear, and downshift too late; so that I didn't want to release the clutch and have the bike skid for a moment? Boom. Spot a slick of seepwater... Boom.
Half an hour of really amped fight or flight, and nothing to be done but ride it out. Exhausting.
I'm pretty sure it will fade. The early part of the ride was fine. It seems that the first spike was the start of an avalanche. Next time, I'll know that it might be that sort of cascade (and the thing of it is that I know this is a positive feedback loop, but at the time I was too busy with the road, and the bike to analyse that aspect of it. I was busy seeing if I was in control of the bike). If I get that sort of overraction to being less than perfect I'll pull over and look for pretty bugs/flowers in the underbrush, or head for the first pretty overlook on the side of the road and let things come back to normal.
Other than that it was a really good ride. Probably about as far as I can go in this weather (the Seca has no fairing, and the hills are a bit cooler than the valley), but the ankle is fine, and my (general) sense of how the bike feels (and me on it) is good. The road,once I got out of the hills, where I could see who was where; and what was coming, was as much fun as the ride was before the adrenaline started.
