The skills practice started promptly at 9:00am, in a parking lot at Creekside Way and Hamilton Avenue in Campbell. Being a Gold Wing club event and all, the number of Gold Wings far outnumbered any other type of bike, but there were a couple of cruisers and sportsbikes thrown in for good measure. It was a very inclusive group, and everyone there was friendly and welcoming to us non-Gold Wing riding newbies. After a short introduction, Bob stood before us and explained the drills. They were definitely challenging enough to be interesting, but not so hard that anyone become frustrated or dropped their bike.
The first drill involved a very tight cone weave, and to be honest, I sat out and watched this one. Low speed turns aren't my forté, and I didn't want to start out the morning with the bike on the ground. The idea was to do very elongated S-turns down the length of the parking lot, perpendicular to the normal flow of traffic. It was amazing to watch the Gold Wings do this exercise, and I learned just as much from watching as I would have from participating, I believe -- it was easy to see how people improved as they turned their heads more, or leaned the bikes rather than just turning the handlebars.
I saddled up for the second drill, which was trickier than it first appeared. Bob and company had set up two rows of half-tennis balls, about a foot and a half apart. The trick was to keep your head and eyes up, and ride straight between the two rows, as slow as you could without putting a foot down. It seems easy, but even when I felt like I couldn't possibly slow down any more, Bob would be right next to me, shouting "slower! slower!" The slowest I was able to manage was thirteen seconds -- given that the record was 25 seconds for a Gold Wing, I definitely was going faster than it seemed! This would definitely be a good drill for anyone who finds themselves stuck in slow-moving traffic or wants to lane-split -- the latter is a good real-world example of a time when you want to ride slowly in a straight line.
We took a short break after the second drill, and chatted for a while under some trees. Getting to talk to people was just as fun and informative as the drills; I can't stress enough how friendly and welcoming everyone was.
After our break, we got back on the bikes and back to the drills. The next one was the most useful for me, because it emphasized my weak point: slow-speed circles. Bob had us line up and, one at a time, ride into a square of half-tennis balls. The point was to circle around the inside of the square three times; first counter-clockwise, and later clockwise. I was really nervous, but found it much easier than I'd ever anticipated; having Bob stand in the middle of the circle and shout "look at me!" repeatedly was definitely helpful. It's hard to remember to look across the circle, and not down at the handlebars or the ground! I had a much harder time with the clockwise circles, but Bob was encouraging, and I managed to complete the three circles without dropping the bike or swearing off of motorcycles forever.
The last drill was a follow-the-leader exercise. We rode through a decreasing-distance weave of half-tennis balls, around part of the parking lot, and then made a sharp 90-degree right turn into a lane of cones. At the end of the cones, we made a sharp 90-degree left turn out (Bob told us to think of it as entering and exiting a driveway), and rode back around to the end of the line of riders. I ran over a couple of the tennis balls while doing the decreasing-distance weave, but other than that, escaped from the drill unscathed. I could tell that I was improving already when I noticed myself subconsciously turning my head more than usual when entering and exiting the cone "driveway," which was really encouraging.
The moral of the low speed skills practice is to always, always, always look where you want to be going, and keep your head and eyes up. The natural tendancy, for my eyes anyways, is to start to drift downwards, until you're looking at the ground. It's no wonder that I end up there so often! After the two hour workshop, I noticed myself keeping my eyes up more often, and turning my head more, which gave me a huge increase in self-confidence.
In case any more proof was needed that the skills workshop was a huge success, as I headed home after lunch, I found myself needing to make a U-turn...and I approached it without reservation. As I neared my house, I passed a large parking lot...and took a slight detour to do four or five low-speed circles. I intentionally did a U-turn in the street in front of my house, just because I'd always assumed that I couldn't. Amazing! In just two hours, I'd managed to overcome my fears of low speed maneuvers enough to practice them on my own time, and I see the improvement already. So, if U-turns are on your avoidance list as well, I can highly recommend running through some of the above drills, especially with a willing friend or twenty to shout encouragement and help you keep your eyes up and looking where you want to go.