I get on the bike and my dumbass moment

So now I have all my gear and Peter starts to show me all the controls on the bike. It's a little overwhelming at first trying to be coordinated enough to use the clutch, throttle, and back break but the start of the practice of going up and down the driveway a billion times has begun.

Thankfully the driveway at our house is about 50 feet long, 12 feet wide, and straight so it's great for practicing slow speed riding and wide enough to work on my u-turns. I always did really well at the top of the driveway, but when I got to the bottom I was always getting psyched out by a flower pot. I always told myself, "don't look at that flowerpot!" because I knew that just by looking at it I could run into it! Don't look at what you want to avoid! That was the first lesson. I finally got tired of looking at the flower pot so I moved it out of my line of sight!

So, I rode up and down the driveway for a couple of weeks just getting used to how the controls work and the bike feels and thought that I was doing well. By this time it was getting closer to my birthday so we decided to insure the bike so I could actually get out of the driveway. This was very exciting knowing that I was going to finally go further than 50 feet! I was doing well until I learned my second lesson.

The second lesson was a mix of the first lesson and learning the hard way to wear my gear at all times. I went from riding in the driveway to riding up and down our street. The first time went well and the corner that I thought would be a challenge really didn't turn out to be one. So I get back to the house, cheer, and start out again. I wore all my gear except for my pants thinking that I was only doing low speeds so it wouldn't matter. Boy was I wrong! This time I forgot to shift down from second and started to turn out of the driveway. The bike starts behaving badly and in the process of trying to figure it out, I looked down. When I looked down I looked at the gravel on the side of the road. The next thing I knew I was busy inspecting the gravel. Of course this had to be in front of not only my husband, but my kids as well. Boy was that embarrassing! The bike landed on my leg and thankfully I was wearing my boots but I wasn't wearing my pants with the protective armour and ended up with my first (and hopefully last) road rash on my knee. Peter came over and picked the bike up off of me while I was laying there and telling the kids that I was okay. Lesson learned. No more dumbass moments for me! I wear all my gear at ALL times!

I've always taught my kids that if you fall down, you pick yourself back up and keep going. That's what I did, flaming face and all. After about another 20 minutes of riding, I limped into the house to fix up my knee while Peter of course had to take photos of the whole thing. Sheesh!

next...my birthday and my first real ride!