Adventioneering

I have had my blue Ninja 250 for a little over two weeks now. Alex has affectionately named her ‘Blueberry’. Even though I am finding it hard and trying at times, I think I am learning. I realize that the nice weather we are experiencing won’t last forever, so today I put 71 miles on the bike. I think this brings my grand total of miles put on the bike near, or slightly above, 200.

We left the apartment and headed east to North Bend where we enjoyed a coffee and treat at a cafe and sat in a park underneath Mt. Si. I did manage to complete a sequence of five, yes count ‘em five, cartwheels in a row before I became dizzy. When we stopped for gas we got to watch a guy pull his M35A into the Shell station for a fill-up reminding me that we definitely need an M35A in our fleet.

After fueling, we headed south down 18 and off onto Issaquah-Hobart Rd to Ravensdale. By now, I could tell I was getting tired so I turned around and headed north through Issaquah and back to the shop. I topped off the night by hopping on the Duc with Alex and heading out to Carnation for Lazy K’s pizza. Sadly Lazy K denied us our pizza by being closed (well she is admittedly lazy) so we resorted to the Mexican food place across the street. I do find it odd that the place doesn’t have posted hours so it’s a gamble when you want to visit Lazy K.

Overall, I think I did alright. I am still un-natural in corners (leaning and speed aren’t there yet) and my instinct is to go into them way to slowly. My speed on straights is fine and I feel my stops and take-offs are getting smoother. Today I concentrated my focus on relaxing the death grip on my handlebars and shifting the weight into my rump. If I got tired, or scared, I focused my energy on squeezing the tank with my legs instead of bearing down too hard on the handlebars. Needless to say, I can type tonight and my hands don’t ache, so I think being mindful of that today really worked. I did manage to get a rather nasty cramp in my right hamstring though. Nothing some hot yoga won’t fix tomorrow!