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@pdlouche
What a difference that made! It actually feels like a motorbike now! I felt very anxious about going out on it after all the troublesome woes so far, and clearly a stupid time of year to try lean into shaded country lanes, but had to actually test it on open road.
Fortunately had a real blast going out of town. After Swindon and the hell of Wootton Bassett, took one of my road cycling training routes that goes out past Bushton, up Cherhill, and down again toward Avebury.
Easy getting up Cherhill but felt a much stronger breeze high up on the plains whilst accelerating past 50mph. It’s only a little bike! With confidence I think it could happily stick at 60, maybe 70 is asking too much. I was pushing it to 50 on a gentle uphill and relatively low revs (under 8k), so anything is possible.
Then again, I was knees clamped, chin on the bars cafe-racer position at times, just to fight off the wind resistance.
There seems to be a moment - noticed it on the Yamaha CBT-bike too - that around 50 the bikes feel much more like they’re on rails, and you need to commit more into any lean or turn. Didn’t feel quite ready for going beyond that after Cherhill, especially with knowledge of the really sweeping downhill that stops abruptly on the Beckhampton roundabout where a girl from school crashed her car and died.
Nice stop at Avebury to have a pint of coke and a stretch, and wait for the feeling to return to my index finger. Then back along the road to Wroughton and back over Old Town and crawl through traffic home.
Steep downhills into blind, clearly wet and shaded areas like Wroughton were definitely annoying for the HGV sat behind me for 5 miles, as I kept right on the speed limit. I was grateful for his patience. That road is scary as hell on a road bike, can’t say it felt any better on a motorbike.
Back in Swindon what must be my first real world U-turn ticked off as well, where a little shortcut was totally blocked with two flashing police cars, cones, and backed up traffic, so swung back around. I was a little surprised how easy it came.
7/10, would get numb finger again.
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