MSF Course

I'm late typing this one up... I've been too busy riding. :)

If you just bought a bike, and you want to start riding it, do yourself a favor:

Take the MSF course first.

True, everyone there probably had their loved ones rubbing their butt in baby oil afterwards, but it was the most rewarding thing I've done in a long time.

If you follow this blog at all, you can see I've been riding in parking lots until I felt comfortable. I did eventually feel pretty good on the bike, and started to think I had some basic skills down. I was wrong. I may have been okay on my bike, but I quickly in the course saw that the basic skills I thought I'd learned were not easily transferred to another bike. I went with my buddy Bil, who was a natural on the damn thing. Oh well, he doesn't have one- I have time to hone my skills.

The course consists of a classroom day that was about four hours, and two days of riding at six hours a pop. Not bad for $150 bucks. And that's just the basic format of the course- If you go to Balance Dynamics in Georgetown, KY, you get two of the greatest instructors I've ever encountered. Dinah and Bill are fantastic teachers, riders, and people. Their personalities seem very different with the exception of their love of riding. I'm surprised they didn't have bugs in their teeth, because they were smiling on every exercise. Their different approaches give the course a good cop, bad cop feel. Go through Dinah's line, and you are offered great encouragement; go through Bill's line, and you know everything you did wrong. As the son of a Sgt Major, I chose Bill's line most of the time. :)

All in all, the class was great, and I left with valuable knowledge that I could use to improve my riding. I'll be there for the next one, so I can try it on my own bike.

Ninja's are cooler than Pirates

Why?

Let's take the movie Kill Bill as an example. Uma Thurman is a certified badass, crazy chick that always carries a sword. She sneaks around when necessary, and gets down when she has to. Sounds like a Ninja, right? She even rides around, on a Kawasaki... get this...NINJA. She's cool, and always wears her helmet while riding. It's important, because you could get a bug in your eye.

No one wants something in their eye, let alone a bug...

A bad enough sting and you could end up looking like Darryl Hannah's character. True, she is incredibly hot, but she still only has one eye. I bet people call her a pirate behind her back.

So, wear your helmet while riding, because Ninjas are way cooler than Pirates.