Homes and bikes
Not so much on the homes, really. It’s all very exciting and stuff to be setting up a new place, but it’s really not that interesting for anyone else to hear about it. At least, I don’t particularly find myself salivating over the details of other people buying exciting things like furniture, air conditioners, and TV sets.
Instead, I’ll bore people by talking more about bike school. Lately, I’ve been riding an impressive variety of motorcycles. This is deliberate on the school’s part, of course, in order to remind students that different motorcycles do indeed handle differently.
I got to ride on their scooter, for example: it’s a Yamaha Majesty 400. After riding around on the CB750 for a while, it definitely handles differently. I felt like I was sitting on the ground. I have a 400cc scooter myself, but that has proper-sized wheels and generally handles, well, more like a CB400 than like one of the big Japanese scooters.
The Majesty felt like I was sitting on a barrel. I certainly know what people are talking about when they talk about the handling problems that scooters have—its tiny wheels, low sitting position, and long wheelbase made for a bike that just isn’t very agile.
The Harleys also have a similarly-long wheelbase, which explains why I felt like they just didn’t know how to do go around corners. The Majesty was similarly-bad at cornering.
Also, I managed to fall off it on the balance beam. I didn’t fall off the balance beam on the bike—I fell off the bike on the balance beam. I managed to right the bike, noticed that the wheels were still actually on the balance beam, and finished it normally (even though were I being tested, I would have failed the test).
The next time across the balance beam on the scooter, the instructor got out his stopwatch and timed me going across it. You’re supposed to spend at least ten seconds crossing the blaance beam for the unlimited license test. When I arrived at the other end, the instructor was laughing and laughing—turns out I’d done it in just under 18 seconds.
Then I got back on the CB750 and wow, does that bike ever handle obediently after piloting the HMS Majesty around.
The next lesson, which just happened to be in the midst of a rainstorm that continued for several days afterwards, was all about emergency braking. Just to give the other student and me a feel for how different bikes behave under emergency-braking conditions, the instructor had us hop onto the little CB400s and do the emergency-brake exercise on those bikes too.
Let me tell you, hopping onto the CB400 felt like I was getting onto a bicycle. It also felt like I was getting onto an old friend—and I realized then that it is, indeed, true: my Scarabeo does indeed handle exactly like a CB400. The only thing different about the CB400 is that I had to change gears. Otherwise, I was entirely at home.
Next weekend I’m signed up for an astounding five hours of lessons, which seems to me to be the entirety of the rest of the instruction I’ll be receiving to get my unlimited motorcycle license. Then all I’ll have to do is pass the test and make a trip up to Konosu to change my license over, and then I’ll be able to ride any motorcycle I want to.
On a slightly different topic, how do you feel about this gaijin’s “i hate it here” tale?