As I mentioned in my previous post, I left my drivers licence at home today. I don’t normally leave my drivers licence at home, normally I keep it in my purse. But I took it out of my purse yesterday because Tim and I went for a ride on our motorbikes. I usually put my drivers licence in my jacket pocket whenever we go out on our bikes. And I take off my earrings because my helmet is almost excruciatingly tight and my ears hurt like hell if I have earrings on. Funnily enough, I also left my earrings at home today as well (damn!). Both Tim and I have a Yamaha Scorpio each. Here is a photo of one in a dealer:

Yamaha Scorpio

Yesterday was a bit of a milestione for me on the bike because I managed to get over 60km/h. It may seem weird but I have found it really difficult to get up to that speed – when you’re on a bike everything goes by so much quicker and you don’t have the security of a big metal cage around you so I have been super cautious and been going pretty slow, probably too slow for going on 50km/h suburban streets even. But yesterday I think I actually got to 70km/h. I’m not sure how I’d go doing an emergency stop at that speed on a motorcycle – I think you’d go over the handle bars (but let’s not even think about that). At the moment we are both on our ‘L’ plates and we will soon be allowed to go for our ‘P’ test. I’m still not 100% confident to ride on main roads. I need to get more practice with doing basic things like turning corners, stopping and getting back into first gear and then starting off, and also I want to get some practice in emergency braking. Once I know I can handle emergency braking then I will feel 100% confident about getting up a bit more speed and then we can hit the main roads. My goal is to get out onto the highway (which is 70km/h) and ride down to the Royal National Park in the Sutherland Shire about 25 minutes away. Not sure when I’ll be able to do that though. Its pretty tiring riding a motorcycle – yesterday was the first time I’d been out in a couple of months and I was buggered when I came back – after only 40 minutes! It takes a lot of concentration and alertness when you’re on a motorcycle along with a lot of physical energy just trying to hang on to the bike’s petrol tank with your legs so that you don’t fly off the back!