Okay, yeah, I’ve gone against the grain a bit and not only BOUGHT a bike before taking the MSF course, but went “big”. I’ve had a 2005 Suzuki SV650s (only 4100 miles on it) in my garage for a week now, and between yesterday and today, I’ve put a few miles on it.
Yesterday was just doing duck-walking in the driveway, getting a feel for the friction zone, killing it a few times… I found the throttle to be touchy, and the clutch had a pretty hard grab-point. I actually found it easier to do the starts going uphill, or 2nd gear.
Today, I (and my wife on her bike – a cruiser that I have no wish to throw a leg over) took it on the road a total of about 400 feet, to a nearby church parking lot. Within feet of leaving the driveway I had my feet on the pegs. Steering and keeping the bike steady was no problem at all. We cruised through/around the parking lot for a while (maybe a half-hour), and I tried my hand at slow-speed maneuvers, U-turns and the like. Comfy. And I never got out of 1st gear the whole time. I did a couple of quick stops, restarts, etc. Only killed the bike once on accident (though I shut it down twice because it seemed like it was getting hot). Rode back home… My wife had trouble getting started on anything resembling an uphill (she has trouble giving it enough throttle at the friction point).
Anyway, I’m a LOT more comfortable on the bike than I thought I would be. But I’ll keep it like this until after the MSF class — just out-of-traffic cruising and getting comfortable with the bike.
And I know the on/off feeling of the throttle will go away once I get to, say, third gear…
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