Nerve wracking

Here I thought I was going on a nice leisurely ride to Squamish with Jason and Donna tonight… But no. It can’t be that simple.

Instead, poor Donna’s Ninja decided to ‘blow up’ so to speak in front of my place — It wouldn’t turn off and then the antifreeze started pumping out the back of it. Bad news! We finally had to remove the battery to stop the engine from turning back on. Strange incident.

So, we left poor Donna behind, and went onto our ride. Because Jason and I had started out much later than anticipated, we chose to head off to Whytecliff park instead of the longer ride to Squamish — Which was fine with me, because I still didn’t completely trust that my bike wouldn’t stall somewhere precarious again.

The ride up in West Van was lovely — It was a beautiful night, and I was starting to finally feel one with the bike. The twisty roads up to the park were just what I needed to gain more confidence, and get the feel for my bike. By the time we got to Whytecliff, it was looking pretty rosey. I offered Jason an opportunity to try out my bike while we were taking a break there, and he accepted. The bike functioned great, and he was impressed with the low-end speed the bike performed at for the couple of minutes he was on it.

Then we started back down the windy road, and within the first turn, something felt very wrong. I thought at first, “Oh Tanya — Pull yourself together… You can’t be that fatigued!” — Then it became more and more apparent as I entered each turn, that the bike had became almost impossible to steer. By the last tight turn a few minutes later, I was almost ready to puke from fright. I knew it wasn’t me… And *THANKFULLY* Jason had pulled over just past the traffic circle about five minutes down the road to see how I was doing — Which at that point, I exclaimed: “There’s something horrifically wrong. The bike is acting up, and I can’t steer worth shit.” He pulled his bike over, and took mine up the road and back again, and agreed without a doubt that the bike was unridable. We pushed it into the firestation at the traffic circle, and Jason kindly broke the law (he’s only got his learners) to take me the rest of the way home. He’s a great rider! For someone who took their course at the same time I did initially, he’s gained a ton of experience that I haven’t due to many kms on road trips. I didn’t feel unsafe at all on the rest of the way home.

Thanks J… I really appreciate you looking out for me tonight. If you hadn’t have been there, I would have been far worse off.

And so, once again, the bloody Black Beast goes back to the shop. I wonder if they’ll ever actually fix it to the point where I feel confident enough to ride it longer than an hour without it breaking??? Colour me an unhappy chick with the bike tonight. This is becoming a bad habit.