February 5, 2001

first things first.
For each and every one of you who never understood my Joan Jett obsession (where Billy Idol was my childhood boyfriend, Joan Jett was my girlfriend), I give you this. Mrrrrrow. I have to wonder if she really rode in those shoes, though. Damn.

that's very nice.
So, anyway...the bike came today! :) The nice man delivered it (Cole from CC Rider Tow South in the east bay) and I put it alongside the curb, got out the owner's manual, and spent some time trying to figure it out. I did little things like take the seat off, find the helmet locks, try the horn, etc. It took me a minute to realize that you need to pull in the clutch in order to start it (in addition to the usual kill switch and starter button), which I think is sort of odd, but, OK, whatever.

After a little while, Kim rode over on her CB-1, and we took some pictures:

Yay! So this was very exciting. Peter was going to come over and take pictures too, but apparently work is nuts, so he'll just have to wait until the weekend. It was nice to have a girl-bike day, though. :) It's fun to go places with Kim with our little jackets and our little helmets and our little dyed hair and piercings. People just look at us different. Not bad; just different. Like, when I ride somewhere with Peter and we walk in with our helmets, I'm sure most people just assume that I'm a passenger. With another girl, though, it's different, because people know that at least *one* of you had to ride there. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but oh well. It's empowering anyway.

There are a few things about riding the SVS that are going to take a little while to get used to. For instance, the windshield. It's really weird to turn the bike (whether it be while I'm riding, or just while I'm pushing it somewhere) and not be able to see the wheel. The windshield is always facing front, so most of the time it's not pointing in the same direction that I'm turning the bike, which really throws me off. When I was gonig around a corner, I had to force myself to lean into the turn; not being able to see the wheel was causing me to just turn the handlebars like a bicycle. :( Peter mentioned having that problem with his bike, too, so maybe it's just a "getting used to sportsbike/windshield/fairing" thing. *shrug*

Most of the rest of the problems are posture issues: I need to remember to put my feet down in *front* of the footpegs now instead of behind them (like the Nighthawk). I stabbed myself in the shin at least a million times with those damn footpegs today. Whose fooking idea was it to make those things pointed, anyway? Ow ow ow ow. The other weird thing is that my hands cramp up like a summbitch from riding. I'm pretty sure it's because I'm putting way too much of my weight on my wrists, because once I started really squeezing into the gas tank with my knees and supporting my weight there, my hands stopped hurting as much. Also, whereas the Nighthawk's handlebars were pretty much perpendicular to my body while I was riding, the SVS's are at a pretty steep angle. So before, I could just sit up straight and rest my arms casually to the handlebars, but now I have to lean further onto the gas tank (even at low speeds) and keep my elbows bent. Now I see why Peter had to really work on his turns; it's really easy to just try to steer with the handlebars with your arms bent like that. :P

It's really hard to keep the stupid thing under 5000rpms. Only 494 more miles of break-in....

I'm going to ride it to work tomorrow and hopefully not die in traffic. It's pretty easy to control my speed, but I can definitely tell that it wants to go quickly...low speed maneuvering is not its forte. Ah well. :)

paying for the damn thing.
I called Progressive and got bare-bones insurance for the SVS until I can work out what "extras" I want. Peter had a good point that I'll probably want some sort of collision, since it would really suck to have a brand-new bike be totalled. :( I also called Meriwest and got my loan extended to 24 months from 12, so that I can actually pay the monthly payments. I'm going to try one more thing, though: remember that credit card with the low APR that also had a low credit limit? Well, I activiated it today and was told that I can transfer balances from other credit cards, and can even possibly raise the credit limit. So, since my bike balance is currently all on this credit card from the dealer, I'm going to see if I can transfer that balance to the CapitolOne (low APR) credit card. That way, I don't have to get a loan at all, and I can pay off the credit card balance at a much lower APR. Hopefully that'll work. That would seriously kick ass. So I'll try that tomorrow.

OK, that's it. :)

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