Well I just got back from my first freeway ride and it was great! I had a huge smile on my face the whole time (while maintaining my s.a. of course)!
It was about 10 minutes of freeway and 10 minutes of city driving. We started out around 7:30pm and traffic was low. Our destination was a rocky shore down by the water. We got there and it was a great view with the sun setting over the city. Chilled for a couple minutes, took in the view, and joked about popping my freeway cherry (haha). Then we rode back.
Merging on the freeway I was a little nervous, but once I got used to it I relaxed a little bit. First thing I noticed was being pushed around by the wind and other cars a little bit. Other than that I got in my usual rhythm of checking my mirrors and my surrounding regualrly…and watching for pot holes. Reminded myself to stay loose on top, tight on bottom and keep the ankles in. I would say I only got up to about 65mph going there.
Riding back I got up to about 85mph at one point My little Ninja 250 was screamin down the freeway haha. I felt out that tuck position and that was pretty cool! I did get a little spooked exiting off of the freeway to base. This exit even makes me nervous when driving my truck. I think I would just confuse you guys trying to explain it so I made a illustration of it…check out my paint skills lol.
So as you can imagine cars merging almost never compltely obey the yield sign, and this is one exit where that can get dangerous. Approaching that exit is also a blind corner, so you really don’t see cars that are coming on the freeway until the last second. Often times in my truck a few cars will pop out of nowhere, not yielding of course, and I will have to kind of floor it to over take them and get in my exit lane and then brake hard before that twisty off ramp surrounded by woods and gravel…and is bumpy as shit (as pictured haha). In these situations I find myself braking hard before that twisty off ramp.
Luckily there were no cars this time to spook me even more but I still had to slow down fairly quick and that twisty off ramp spooked me. I ended up coming in a little too hot at like 50mph, had a little “oh shit” moment then I pulled in the clutch, click, click, click, etc etc all the way down from 6th to like 2nd and kept on the brakes as smooth as possible as I went around the twisty exit. I held the clutch in the whole time around the exit. All of this made me forget about my entry point into the turn, I came in too much to the inside so I was all over the place as I was trying to slow down and get back in the middle of the lane and keep up with the turn….I just realized that I was braking during a turn…a big no-no.
Ok so that last part of the ride was a bit bumpy (literally lol) but overall the rest of the ride went very smoothly and I had a great time…I think were going to go out again tomorrow.
Thanks for reading…any comments and advice are greatly encouraged/appreciated