Lena Mae: The First 150(ish) Miles

Perfect mix of a ride yesterday: A few blocks of city street here and there, about 80 miles of "country highway" (including what passes for hills and curves -- near rivers, that is -- in north central Florida), and a little bit of the "sugar sand and ruts" country road action. Finished the day with the odometer at 147 miles.

Running a top box with maybe 8-10 pounds of rain gear, etc. didn't seem to affect the handling or aerodynamics at all, and the bike didn't disappoint on any metric -- speed, power, handling, comfort, etc.

I was especially impressed with the part I was most worried about, that "might as well be dirt single-track" stuff. She just plodded along through sand/ruts with almost no rear-wheel slaloming, etc., none of it wild enough to feel like pending loss of control. If I want to ride on that kind of stuff for fun, I'll crank up the Lifan KP Mini 150 and see how many bones I can break. But when riding to get somewhere, I prefer boring and dependable performance where the terrain gets sketchy (I'm fine with just getting my jollies by riding fairly fast on pavement).

So far, this bike looks like the right decision for my "forever bike." It will get up and go, and it will settle down to low-speed work when that's what the situation calls for.

I think spending a couple of years on cheap, light, small-displacement bikes first actually served me well. 

Those smaller bikes are simultaneously more demanding and more forgiving.

I had to learn to use a clutch that might as well have been made in 1970 before moving up to the modern "slipper/assist" clutch. The difference is quite noticeable. It's just easier and feels slicker. But I've got muscle memory helping me do things right instead of just counting on modern technology to fix my miscalculations for me from the beginning.

I had to learn to get myself out of trouble with ~15 horsepower at my disposal instead of ~45 horsepower.

But at the same time, I only had to worry about wrestling (when it came to that) 260 pounds of motorcycle weight instead of 390 pounds, and I had a lot less money at stake repairing or replacing a badly damaged bike if I messed up, which allowed me to be more comfortable taking some risks to see what happened.