Finally! I got to ride a motorcycle!!

Good day friends of the blog. I am typing this very contentedly as I still have a nice little smile still stuck on my face. Why you might ask am I beaming through the printed word? Well, as the title of this post might allude to, I finally got to ride a motorcycle for the first time in almost six months. After weeks of waiting and months of patience, I finally took AND PASSED my BRC2/USFJ (U.S. Forces Japan) motorcycle test! Now I just have another three or four hoops to leap through and I will be on the road up on two wheels. To document this glorious day I have a few notes and pictures to help share the experience. Read on to see how it went!

I scheduled my class through the Navy's Safety Website, downloaded the instructions for getting there and went about my day. The classes fill up pretty quickly so I had several weeks to wait. Finally the day came. One good thing about this training for service members is that since it is required, the training becomes your duty for the day. I didn't have to take a vacation day to attend and it was free. I have written about this when I attended several higher level training sessions at my last duty station in Camp Pendleton, CA. Thanks to the US Marine Corps I was able to attend American Supercamp and 1/2 day California Superbike School for some training a little bit more advanced than second gear parking lot drills. I had to walk a mile or so from the train station to get to the training site. It was a very nice morning so I didn't mind.

As I have mentioned several times over the last few posts, getting your motorcycle license as a US Service member in Japan is not a straightforward process. It is so complicated in fact they provide a logic flow chart to help walk you through the process. One of the by products of this is a niche market for a single motorcycle shop to rent and deliver bikes to the training range for service members, for a nominal fee of course. For a little over $100 US dollars, I had the pleasure of mounting this steed for the day. It is an undetermined year Honda CB750. I'm guessing it is an early 2000's model. Analog gauges, carburated, inline four standard bike. The size and weight are very similar to my 2006 Yamaha FZ1. I chose this bike from the couple of choices they had for several reasons. One, it reminded me of my FZ and I figured it would be easy enough for me to remember how to ride as compared to some other kind of bike. The second is that in order to get my unlimited class license I needed a bike 750cc's or bigger. This bike fit the bill and as it turned out was a blast to ride. Being the MSF BRC2 class, I only got it into second gear, but the riding I did get to do was fun. It handled as expected and had good get-up-and-go. It had me yearning for a twisty mountain road.

All what not pristine with this bike however. It was most definitely a rental. It showed the signs of having been used by many a riders with a few dumps thrown in for good measure. Japan has a strict vehicle inspection program tied to the compulsory insurance and registration process. The good thing is that used vehicles are generally well maintained. The bad is that vehicle inspections can be nit-picky and cost money to fix all of the things "wrong" with the car or bike. These bikes had not seen the inside of an inspection center in many years as evidenced by the amount of rust and lack of license plates. These were trainers, sentenced to a life of ham fisted newbies and old timers that have lost the touch a bit. Most of the age related decay was related to the periphery of the bikes as the engines ran very well. The big air cooled, inline fours sounded pretty nice on this cool, crisp day.

Right away I had some issues with some of the drills. The pressure of passing my test was hanging over my head as I concentrated on one of the drills I usually have trouble with, the quick stop drill. I don't have problems with the drill or stopping quickly. I usually get corrected for sliding the rear tire. As I first did the test the instructor said I did well, but try not sliding the rear tire. This time I was surprised as the bike stayed perfectly upright and didn't feel like I was locking up the rear. After several tries I was able to get through the drill without sliding. Because I was curious about the condition about the tires after seeing the rest of the bike, I found the date code and a few other surprises. Those surprises were a disconcerting number of dry rot cracks in both the front and rear like the one you can see in this picture. The dates of the tires told me that the rear was 13 years old while the front was a positively spry 11 years old. Both tires being older than my first born child... I was able to finish the day without incident, but to say that I wasn't conscious about how I rode would be a lie.

Once I got warmed up, all of the old skills came back to me. The bike felt almost exactly like my FZ and performed beautifully on the course. It is a heavy bike, somewhere in the mid 500 lb range, but handled as I expected. The suspension settings were pretty close to optimal, I wasn't experiencing any front end dive or rear end wobbles. The acceleration was smooth and the revs climbed without any weird power dips. I haven't done a course like this in almost a year so I tried to come in with an empty mind and just perform as told. I do take issues with some of the instruction at these courses. All too often I feel like the instructors put too much emphasis on the rider performing exactly like the curriculum says without regard for how the bike, rider, weather etc match. In the Total Control course I took last year, we were instructed to get our butts off the seat, use more body angle and other techniques for low speed maneuvers. Here I was cautioned to keep my butt on the seat and to keep my knees in. It is hard to take someones word as an "expert" if they always counter another "expert's" training. I'm not saying the instructors need to not follow the curriculum. They can easily overcome these curriculum differences with the language they use. Instead of being told that I could hurt my leg in a fall if I put my knee out, tell me how I can perform the drill with my knee in and get the same result. Either way I had fun, rode a bike and best of all, passed my test paving the way for me to finish getting my license.

After the training, I was taking a morning walk around my neighborhood. The weather has turned for the better and fall/winter is rapidly making being outside a much more pleasant experience than sweating my bits off in the heat and humidity. It was a Saturday and on certain Saturdays it is bulk trash collection day. As I was walking I noticed this little gem being set out for collection. Once I got home, I jumped in the car and went out to retrieve it. There are no markings telling me maker or age, but it is a well made track stand that has just the right amount of patina. All of the moving parts operate freely and it has just a bit of surface rust. It should work well in my driveway. I'll keep this in mind for future collection days.

That is it for now. I will be continuing my saga in the quest to get a motorcycle license. There are also some motorbike related events coming up that I want to attend. The weather is getting cooler and I'll need to see about possibly picking up some new gear. Christmas is right around the corner and I have a few more days off coming up. If you can, ride safe. Take it easy friends!

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