Its been almost two months since I had my mishap on the bike. I’m not happy that the bike got totaled, I am happy that I walked away mostly uninjured. Don’t ask about the spleen thing. This past weekend I got a new helmet.
Here is why you wear a full face helmet:
If I had been wearing an open face or one of those stupid half helmets what was a minor accident would have been severe, perhaps even fatal. But that is all behind us now. For now a new lid:
And in a few months I plan to get another 848.
At the moment I’m starting to make my plans for next year. My initial thought was to attend a few more days at California Superbike school. I’ve already done all four levels. I can go back and repeat level 4 and keep perfecting what I’ve been taught. A friend pointed out a really cool alternative though: personal one on one coaching with a professional rider. Ty Howard holds all of the track records on the local tracks. He also just won the MotoST championship. So getting one on one coaching from him shouldn’t be a bad thing. I’m going to try it, if it works I’ll spend my CSS budget with him. If it doesn’t – no big deal I’ll do CSS instead, no worries.
The other piece in the planning is that right now I don’t have a big bike for the track. Crashing Ducati’s gets really expensive really fast. So next year I plan to use my EX500 as my track bike. Several of my friends who are much more experienced riders have recommended the course. Learning to ride an under powered bike fast will help me develop the skills needed to make maximum use of a bike like an 848. The key to being fast with an ex500 is being able to carry corner speed. A bike like an 848 will let you park it in corners and then blast out and still get decent lap times. An EX500’s 50 odd crank horse power isn’t going to do any blasting. Your only hope for decent lap times is learning where the line is and being able to hold the bike near its limit the whole way through. Easy peasy!
Between coaching from Ty and lots of track days on the 500 I ought to achieve a respectable level of skills. The other part of my riding plan for next year will be to take some trips. Roads around DFW are bloody awful and getting worse. We have tons of oil exploration going on which is great for the economy but bad news for the roads. For whatever reason Texas FM roads have really bad pavement. Run lots of big heavy trucks over those roads and before long you have roads that are almost impassable for a sport bike, maybe a dirt bike. Instead I’ll trailer up to Arkansas or other places where the roads are better. Also, North Texas is almost as flat and featureless as Kansas. You can take a long nap between corners. In Arkansas you have areas like Hot Springs, Eureka Springs, Beaver Lake and other places. Just about anything in North West Arkansas is better than the local roads here in Texas. The only problem is that they take a weekend commitment to go ride and I don’t usually have that much time to dedicate. My family likes to see me occasionally. So I’ll have to work out when and how often I’ll get to go.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to next year. I’m going to be busy which is what I like. I’m going to try to find some balance next year. Balance between family, business and motorcycles.
Can’t wait for my extended family to read this – should be entertaining.