There are few things in life that can strike fear into my heart – like realising I can’t find my eyebrow pencil, or that I’ve got the wrong shade of blue shoes on with my fave blue jumper. But as a biker there are definitely one or two things that are guaranteed to bring me out in a cold sweat – dimwitted bunnies who contentedly wait by the roadside until you are near them and then kamikaze-style leap out into your pathway, or adverse cambers that suddenly form exactly where you need to stop.
Not having been gifted with a left leg ten inches longer than the right one, in these circumstances I have been known to admit defeat, turn left and head off down the hill, which is of course completely in the opposite direction I want, to find a nice even place to turn around and come back! AND all because I have never learnt to get my right foot down!
If, like me, you were taught left foot down, right foot on brake, and have been doing that for years, it seems alien to do it any other way – which explains why I once dropped my first bike – the GPZ, when I came to a T-junction, put my left leg out …. and kept going as the road wasn’t where it was supposed to be! Once past the point of no return I had no choice but to gently lay my bike down on the road as it sloped down the hill to the left, and slide out from under it, watched by the chuckling car driver behind me – oh the shame!
Lots of biker mates – both boys and girls, have been keen to give me the benefit of their experience, and lots of advice on how to do this. But if there’s one thing I know it’s how I learn, and how I face my fears. If I can teach myself something then I’ll happily give it a go, but when there’s a distinct danger that I’ll end up under my wheels there’s no more stubborn a force on earth than me and I want a professional holding my hand all the way – explaining in great detail exactly why I need to do something and how.
I began by trying to teach myself but fed up with the traumatic attempts which seemed determined to end in tears, tantrums and new plastics for the bike! I opted for a return to my old bike training school and fell sobbing on the neck of my friend Peter.
A lesser man would have baulked at the task, but having been married for years, Peter is made of sterner stuff, and braved the tears and tantrums to spend a morning in the cold, rain and even hail, talking and walking me through it. Realising just how nervous I was he even placed himself close by so that he could break my fall if I did ditch it – how’s that for service!
We started off with the first attempt which typically resulted in me grabbing the front brake and almost ditching the bike on its right side 😦
From there Peter decided baby steps were needed and we focussed on me getting two feet down like a fat duck coming into land 🙂 Strangely I very quickly dropped the habit of grabbing the front brake and went the other way – not actually braking hard enough and therefore not stopping where I intended to – eek!
Then we moved onto stopping with right leg down – and that’s when the fun really started! WHY doesn’t ones foot tend to get a message from ones brain??? I lost count of the number of times I’d stop and then realise the left foot had automatically come down d’oh!!
EVENTUALLY it started to happen – with no rhyme or reason to it, my right foot started to come down when requested – but the battle with the brakes continued and I’d occasionally end up dragging the right foot by one wheel length.
Then just to make things even more fun, Peter decided I needed to learn how to stop and start on the right foot – uphill. Oh bliss, oh joy! I discovered stopping wasn’t the hard part, it was starting again! Peter taught me to hold my front brake on with the first two fingers and roll on the throttle with the last two. But of course there’s just one teeny problem …. I have teeny hands and can’t reach the brake lever and work the throttle at the same time 🙂 Cue for more practice of my wrist action. Having done it uphill, of course I had to learn to do it downhill as well.
Well at the end of two hours I’d moved from a position of left foot only, grabbing front brake and almost ditching my bike, to being able to put my right foot down without a wobble 3 out of 5 times 🙂 🙂 My thanks go to my hero, Peter, who was calmness personified when faced with a mad bint armed with a motorcycle!!
Well 3 out of 5 isn’t bad going for this bird, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE…. that must be the key.
It’s a few days later and I still find that sometimes my brain and right foot don’t get the message and the left foot just comes out automatically, or there’s a little dragging of the right foot when it does come out, but it’s a big step change for me and I will persevere in the knowledge that I’ll get there in the end.
Ride safe
A bird's eye view to biking! 