So I went for a ride on my first real "twisties"

[Egaeus]

Living in Florida, the only time I see tight turns is getting on I-10.  So since I'm in Arkansas, I sought out some twisties on which to test out my new fork seals.  I took AR Hwy 9 from Mountain View to Melbourne. 

The good:
Some nice, technical turns
A cool place to stop and take pics.  Now I need a USB cable to get them off of my camera phone.
I didn't cross the centerline.  I touched the stripe on my side once because I went in a little hot (for me, not the bike) and had to press pretty hard to get it turned. 

The bad:
The road was in terrible shape.  Much worse than the last time I was on it (like a decade ago).  It was sealcoated (i.e. resurfaced with pebbles and tar) and heavily patched. 

I need to practice hitting the apex.  I was really bad about early apexing and having to lean more later into the turn. 

I need to work on judging the corners (ties into apexing too early too).  Once or twice I found myself in a decreasing radius turn where I had to stand the bike back up early in the corner so that I could brake.  If I was delayed apexing correctly, I wouldn't have been able to stand it up, but I also wouldn't have needed to.

Did I mention the road's shape?  I had a couple of pucker moments and one very close call.  There was gravel, and while I managed it well most of the time, adjusting my track to miss the gravel, I hit a few pebbles that caused my front wheel to bobble.  The one where I (think I) almost wadded it up was a curve where there was an asphalt patch.  I wasn't going very fast, but probably too fast.  The patch had what seemed like a tire track from a tractor in it.  As I'm leaning, my bike rumbles and starts going sideways.  I totally understand how AlphaFire wrecked his bike now.  If I'd been pushing it, I wouldn't have had any leftover traction to absorb the lateral movement, and could have easily lowsided, or perhaps it would have moved and then gripped enough to highside. 

All in all, a successful (I'm still here) learning experience. 

[melloGS]

Congrats on not crashing...it's crazy out there.

[pantablo]

woo-hoo...twisties...

[Phaedrus]

The road was in terrible shape. 

Reminds me of a local road around here. It could be SUCH a nice, twisty road. There is barely a strait that last more than a 1/4 on some stretches of it. Lots of S curves. Problem is, the pavement is so chewed up (harsh upstate ny winters), and it is in a farming area, there is ALWAYS large patches of tractor jam in the road. Makes it pretty unsafe to fly through, but if the road was patched and was clean, it would be spectacular.

Sounds like you had a good time 

[pandy]

A cool place to stop and take pics.  Now I need a USB cable to get them off of my camera phone.

Waiting patiently....*tap*......*tap**tap*......*taptaptaptaptap*

Congrats on your first twisties!

[Egaeus]

woo-hoo...twisties...

Hey, some of us don't live where canyons are a 10 minute ride from your front door.  It's a big deal to actually get to ride your bike (and realize how bad you're doing it).

[JasonD]

For some reason, I feel blessed right now......