Corrina Is Home

Editorial – 04/03/2024 – With a snow storm this past week, and two in the forecast for this week, today was all sunshine, clear roads and 50°F. It seemed a good day to bring Corrina home from dealer winter storage.

I bought the bike at Reynolds Motorsports in Buxton, Maine. They have a good group of friendly and professional people. My sales person was Madisyn, a very thorough and hard working individual who always answered questions, put the purchase together, and always coordinated all pre and post sale tasks. Fortunately, I have some very accomplished grand children, so I am used to the notion of accomplished young people, and I don’t go looking for the “old guy” salesguy for assurance.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit apprehensive. I spent a little more time searching my memory, back to the day I sold my last bike and left California for good. That was 2002, so a 22 year break between rides. What could go wrong?

Cindy, a good friend and coworker at Real Guns, drove me to the dealer and led the way home. It is good to have a pace car during break in. Reynolds people came out to compliment me on the bike and to wish me luck. I couldn’t help wonder if there was a pool in progress.

Madisyn took me through a preflight checklist, a explanation of controls, displays… which was like learning how to use every Android or iPhone app, and all of each apps’ features in one learning session. She did a great job of explaining, but my brain was having reservations.

She was about 50% into explaining cursor control and the twenty seventh screen for setting traction control and power levels, and I was just getting past the fact there was no analog speedo and tach. So I practiced active listening “I see. That’s very interesting. Of course.” while looking for my essentials: throttle, shifter, clutch, brakes, speedometer/tachometer display.

The plan was to get home, then spend some days reviewing bike tech. I think Madisyn recognized the fixed look on my face and the glazed over eyes and she departed when I told her I was all set. I did not want to leave before an audience.

Cindy was supposed to lead the way but, at first, that did not happen. I fired up the bike, cracked the throttle, and found myself going across the driveway, turning left and headed on down the road. The ride home progressed in installments of self education and self awareness.

I have built and raced a good number of cars, I have flown airplanes and I have ridden some pretty fast motorcycles. None of that prepared me for this. Slightly cracking the throttle resulted in a very loud Brraap!, with a bitter sweet result.

The good news was that is sounded like none of those ringadingding sport bikes that permeate social media. This was solid horse power, and a lot of it. The bad news was that if I did not practice constraint on throttle rotation, I could find myself competing for the wheelie king title, or the subject of one of those embarrassing Youtube videos where the guy goes airborne and runs into an oncoming truck.

It took a quarter of a mile for my feet and hands to make friends with the GSX’s controls. It took half a mile to remember Cindy knew how to get back to the house, and I did not. So I pulled over, let her catch up, and fell in behind her lead.

In a couple of miles, counter steering again became comfortable, as did moderately leaning to break in new tires. I kept engine revs below 5,500, about half the RPM limit, and received a quick education in the use of ABS Vs non ABS brakes.

At five miles into the ride, on a 50 MPH stretch of mountain road, a woman in a car made eye contact with me, just before pulling out in front of me, apparently to head in the opposite direction. She looked confused, so I do not think it was malice aforethought. I think it was one of those deals where a person sees something, but the brain doesn’t put the image into proper context.

Lots of past motorcycle memories filled my head…. and I got to test my reflexes and counter steering avoiding a barrier drill. I also had time to: further test ABS, remember where my insurance card was, wonder what the market was for collision repaired motorcycles, and assessing which bones I would probably break.

Fortunately she did no freeze and continued on her chosen route. She had young ones in the car, maybe grand kids, so I looked into the drivers side window, kept my mouth shut and refrained from hand gesturing of any type. Hey, accidents almost happen.

There were some miles of scenic coursework, some wistful, exaggerated leaning to impress… well nobody but me, and I was settling in. Then I hit a stretch of road work… then another. Each complete with a crew of two holding reversible Stop/Slow signs, and I got to practice riding at zero MPH, duck walking and seeing how fast I could lift my feet back on the pegs when pulling away. Pretty fast.

The joys of riding in congested traffic on Route 202, was as it had been in the past, no joy. The car ahead always seemed to want to creep up on stopped traffic at a rate of one inch per second, the car trailing wanted to push start my bike. And people try to talk to me, not accepting that I was wearing a close fitting full helmet with the visor down. And I don’t actually like humanity all that much.

The last five miles, and a bit, was all narrow mountain road leading up to the house. I tried to go slow and enjoy the scenery and twisting road, at the speed limit, but there was always some clown trying to show me that they could keep up with a bike. Not this one. So a couple of gears down, just a little throttle, gave me a half mile of car/motorcycle separation. But that wasn’t the ride I wanted.

So Corrina is home, resting in her place of honor in the garage, next to Skippy, and I am working on my Real Guns’s projects and getting ready for 15″ to 18″ of new snow, and planning some break in trip route for when it has melted away.

The bike? Everything I wanted in a motorcycle and a whole lot more. It handles great and it is really, really fast. It will take a long time before I can tap into the bike’s potential, but that will be a lot of enjoyable miles and lots of memorable experiences.