I did it–I passed the riding test and got my motorcycle license today. I cut it pretty close, but there was a reason for that. On the last run of our last practice exercise, I dumped the bike. We were doing emergency stops and my front brake locked up on the wet pavement and down we went. The bike was ok. I was ok (except for my bruised ego and a few bruises that appeared on my legs after the adrenaline wore off). Life went on. I could’ve easily gone home at that point. I was so worried about passing the test that dropping the bike hadn’t even occurred to me. Anyway, the test was next, and I figured I didn’t have anything else to lose so I stuck it out. What’s the worst that could happen? Drop the bike? Nope–already covered that.
Dropping the bike made me the pariah of the group. No one would look at me or talk to me after it happened (better safe than sorry–these sorts of things could be contagious). We had a little break while the instructors were setting up for the test. I went to my car to get a drink of water. When I returned to the group, someone finally summoned up the courage to speak to me and they asked me if I got hurt. I made some smart ass comment, everyone laughed, and that was the end of that. I do feel that I will be remembered well by this group of people, though it’s not for anything I’d want to be remembered for.
So, the test was next. I didn’t figure I had a chance in hell of passing. Prior to today, I thought I’d do ok on it. I knew I was going to flub the figure eight. Luckily, or unluckily, that was first. I wasn’t even close to staying inside the box, but I didn’t put my foot down or stall like some of the others did, so it wasn’t a total loss. Next was the swerve test. I did fine on this. Then came the dreaded emergency stop. I messed it up somewhat, but that was to be expected given the circumstances. Last was the two curve test. I got dinged a few points on this one, but nothing major.
While I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, I blame that on my earlier indiscretion. The stress of the test did a number of most of the people, from what I noticed. A lot of them were messing things up that they did perfectly in the practice runs. I think everyone passed except one woman who had never ridden prior to this class. I don’t feel I could’ve passed the class without some practice riding first so you can’t take that away from her. She did perfect figure eights, though–go figure.
They say there are two kinds of bikers–those who drop their bikes and those who will. I was hoping to fall into the latter category, but, like my instructor said today “at least you got that out of your system.”