Ride Log 09/25/09
37 miles
Closed the deal on the Raven and practiced for about 15 minutes in the parking lot of the Little Flower Church at the corner of Northwood and Woodward. Stalled it four times trying to turn onto Woodward, until the woman in the van behind me got fed up and went around. Stalled it once in the "Michigan left" turnaround, then made it to Anita's Kitchen to meet Aaron and Greg for dinner.
Rather than take the highway, Aaron suggested back roads to practice the starts and turns, so I took 9 Mile west toward Haggerty Rd. 9 Mile turned south and became Orchard Lake Rd., so I made the first right I could onto Folsom St. and continued west. I was almost to Farmington Rd. when I encounterd construction that had removed big sections of the westbound side of the street. Because of how the marker poles were arranged, it looked like I couldn't cross Farmington Rd to continue, so I stopped to make a U-turn and head back to Orchard Lake. As I was turning, I saw the front tire wasn't going to make it past the curb, so I leaned a bit more, squeezed the brake a bit, and...
Dropped.
The.
Bike.
X-O
I hauled it back up as fast as I could and tried to restart it, but the engine wouldn't catch. I got it turned and rolled it up into the parking lot next to me. I checked it over and found a few small scrapes on the left side to match the ones from the original owner on the right side.
Fuck.
There didn't seem to be any actual damage so, after turning it completely off and on again, the engine fired back up and I continued on Folsom across Farmington which, it turns out, I *could* have crossed in the first place. On the plus side, I was so pissed off about dropping the bike that I completely forgot to worry about stalling it, and therefore never stalled it again for the rest of the ride.
By now it was getting dark, I was semi-lost on barely remembered roads, and suddenly the low fuel light came on. I rolled into a Meijer gas station and, while I'm filling up, some guy comes over to tell me that my left headlight was out.
Fuck.
Convinced I managed to break the light when I dropped it, I continued on with one low beam light, though the high beams worked fine. At LONG last I reached Ford Rd., made my way west to the M-14 ramp, and opened it up for the home stretch. The Raven has almost no low-end torque, so it won't beat anything off the line, but once you cross 6000 RPM it's like going to warp speed. I reached 80 MPH in a matter of seconds. I left M-14, went through the double roundabouts on southbound Maple, rolled up to the red light at Miller, and discovered another interesting fact:
There is not enough metal on my bike to trigger the underground traffic light sensors in Ann Arbor, so I had to sit at that light until another car rolled up behind me. I'll have to put a strong magnet or metal plate on the underside of the bike; something ferrous enough to trip the magnetic sensor.
I finally rolled up the driveway and killed the engine. By then my wrists were so sore from tension I could barely squeeze the clutch, but I made it home in one piece.
As it turns out, I DIDN'T break the left low beam. Only the right side headlight is on when you're set to low. They both light only on high beam. *whew*
Posted via email from Nerdimus Prime