[megaspaz]

Yeah, yeah… I know I was at work doing stoopid deps tracking, but a coworker who took the MSF course with me came down and talked me into some riding (didn’t have to do a whole of work with the convincing). He just picked up a used Ninjette earlier in the week and was itching to ride it. We rode all around Mountain View and ended up doing some drills in one of the more spacious work parking lots. Another friend/coworker came down also and joined us for lunch in the Castro and he took the pics, after riding around my other buddie’s newly aquired used bike…

Some notes:

We mostly did emergency stops and slow speed tight turns. We also rode as fast as the parking lot would let us since no one else was there at work. Anyhoo, these pics, I think are kinda biggish (around 1MB each), so I’ll just put up a link to their directory instead of inlining them to this post.

Main observation on emergency braking is that hard braking @ 40 – 50 MPH is a very different feel than what you did at ~20 MPH during the MSF course… All I can say is that I hope you’re never in an emergency braking situation at those speeds or faster (remember S.E.E.)… Another note, ABS certainly does kick ass in said situations…

Pics Directory – Sat. 05/10/2008 – opens in new window

[uncle_bernie]

I had a humbling experience having to hard brake at 35 mph on one of our Houston feeder roads. I wasn’t quite prepared and laid on the back brake a little too heavily and lost traction. Luckily, the truck in front of me and my front wheel missed meeting each other by about seven feet, but for a while there it was fairly unnerving. Good on you that you practice these things in non-emergency situations.

~He who laughs last didn’t get the joke…

[megaspaz]

oh man… glad to hear that everything came out good and that you hit nothing.

What I find unnerving about emergency braking at higher speeds is that you really feel the downward force on the front of the bike from the frontbrakes. It’s a lot more pronounced @40-50 mph than @20-25 mph done at the MSF. I don’t even really want to think of what 70+mph would feel like on an emergency stop… The only thing I can really think of is that emergency anything @70+mph is just a bad deal all the way around… especially for the rider… >.< —
If there’s anything more important than my ego
around, I want it caught and shot now…

[Ben]

Great pictures!

Quick question, how did you attach your tail bag? I think I have the same one and I attached mine by using these bungie cords that came with it, but they seem to be absent on your bike. Looks great though!

Ben
~Best Beginner Motorcycles Admin

[megaspaz]

The bungie cords are just hard to see due to the blackness of the rear fender and the dark blue paint job. The front bungies go through the rear bar and hook onto the bottom of the rear fender, and the back bungies hook into 2 metal pins on each side between the rear seat and the rear fender.

Edit: I take that back… after looking at the pic showing just my butt, the back bungies hook onto the 2 metal pins underneath the rear handles.

—
If there’s anything more important than my ego
around, I want it caught and shot now…

[Author]

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