After almost 2 years of scooting around, Sasha has finally made the time to learn to ride a real bike.
Over the weekend, she hired a manual Honda CGF125 and we headed out for some test rides. Hurdle number 1 was getting the bike to a location suitable to learn (read: crash) which meant I was allocated the bike to ride a few minutes away to an industrial estate which has unused car parks over the weekend. I have to say, there is a slight different in handling (and quickness of the mark) compared to my 1200cc bike. I think I was into about 4 gear by the time I had gone from 1 side of the intersection to the other.
Saturday afternoon, therefore, was pretty much everything I could remember from the CBT. Sasha was walking the bike around, practising starts in the first only, getting up to 2nd and 3rd gear and back down again, and doing a few big figure-8’s. then it was time for a ride around the streets. With me on the scooter, we were off. No trouble whatsoever for Sasha. She was hooning around the streets (hooning = 20mph on the 125cc), going around roundabout and preparing for what I was yet to tell her about… our big ride on Sunday!
Sunday morning we were up and out to make the most of the last day of hire. From London we headed out to Biggin Hill (UK WW2 airfield south of London) and then out into the countryside. We spent about 4 hours riding around country lanes, down single track roads and through little villages. The weather was nice for the ride with blue skies and about 22 degrees.
Before heading back to London, we even stopped in one of the lanes to get out the camp stove and fire up a hot chocolate.
Where can we go for the next ride?
