I got up early on Sunday morning and did my bike check-up before I set off around 8am. My rear tire was way low with a reading of 14 lbs so I headed about a mile to the nearest gas station to raise it back to 32 lbs. I’m going to have to check that much more frequently.
Once I was done I headed back towards the house before leaving town. Riding on the country roads was fun apart from the intersections where I had to slowly creep to a spot where I could see around the corn. There were a few decent stretches where I was able to put the Ninja into 4th and feel what 65 mph was like. I was mostly cruising at 45 as that was comfortable. I ended up with some kids in a mustang behind me at one point but stayed cool and far enough in front of them that they were not a problem.
My destination was the lake since I had been told it was a nice ride. When I got there I took the scenic drive to start off with. It was curvy and twists and I stayed at the suggested 20 mph. The one problem I ran into was squirrels. They must be the dumbest creatures ever. They would sit in the middle of the road and just look at me as I got closer. Revving the engine and the horn didn’t have much affect. Then when I was a few feet away they would run left, then right, then left but not actually get out of the way. I made sure I didn’t hit any but they were annoying.
The rest of the lake was either 30 roads or a 45 road. The 30 was more useful because it was pretty curvy so I got to practice corners and leans with transitions between them. I tried the flattening the corner technique they went over in class but to be honest I don’t think it’s needed most of the time. I only took 1 wrong turn where I ended up in a dead end street, which is good since I hadn’t been there before. I did 2 laps before I decided it was time to head back home before the post church traffic hit the roads and the lake.
In all I did 42 miles in about 90 minutes on the bike with a couple of stops at the lake. It was good to just ride and not be just doing practice drills. The skills were put into practice but it was much more relaxing to just be riding. It was good to hit 65 and feel what that was like. The Ninja may only have 25 hp but that’s plenty of power to haul my 140 lb butt at speed right now. When I left the air temperature was 60 and I did notice that it was cool on the bike. My normally warm leather jacket was fine apart from the gap around my neck below my helmet. When I got back home around 10 am it was 80 and the jacket was warm again.
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I almost bought an 08 ninja and i’m curious how it rides for you at like 80+ mph.
