Huh!? Is the media allowed in?
11th February 2022.
This is an additional small-group lesson with a capacity of eight people.
I’ve never spoken to anyone, but I knew three of them.
I think there were four regulars, including me.
And there was one woman who was attending the 2nd for the first time.
I’ve only taken a small-group lesson once,
and because the instruction is more in-depth, I usually learn more than in a regular lesson.
And it’s the same price.
However, I’m not sure if I’ll have the stamina to last it until the end…
How to protect yourself from the cold
December, January, and this day in February.
My beloved car is still under the snow.
To protect myself from the cold when taking lessons at STEC this winter season,
When the sun is out and there doesn’t seem to be any wind, I remove the inner layer of my winter wear.
Under the wear, I wear a heat tech and another thin long sleeve.
For pants, I wear an inner layer under the Kushitani Explorer Jeans.
It seems like a pretty light outfit, but I’m always moving, so I get soaked in sweat even in winter.
So, modern electric heating wear is a no-go!
In fact,
some people got sick from the heat during winter lessons.
Winter gloves are also hot.
For this lesson, I only used them for warming up
and changed to thin gloves.
The highest temperature on this day was 9℃, but the weather was good, so I was soaked in sweat.
I’m glad I brought a change of clothes.
My first figure eight
We took our time to warm up.
After warming up our bodies and bikes by doing course slaloms in reverse and taking shortcuts,
we suddenly changed the menu!
Figure eight.
This lesson is possible because of the small group size.
Apparently three out of the eight of us requested to do a figure eight,
so during the break they made one figure eight for each person.
I was very grateful.
I was excited because I had always wanted to try it myself.
It was a pretty big figure eight.
First of all, we all started riding at the same time, and the instructor gave instructions to each person one by one.
I was the sixth person, so
the others made figure eights in a J-turn style.
Hmm, fun.
Thorough instruction included!
I received detailed advice as I made repeated turns, but
only the left side wouldn’t reach full lock.
The instructor asked, “Why?”
“Normally, you can turn well on the left but can’t turn on the right???”
After a while, I realized something and fixed it,
and both the right and left turns were full lock!
Wow, this was fun.
As for what I fixed,
the answer is simple: I just twisted my body more in the second half of the turn!
What I noticed was that
when I made a right turn,
my left arm was so fully extended that it almost came off the handlebars,
and my hand was almost on the clip.
This can’t be done when turning left while controlling the accelerator,
so I was pulling the handlebars with my right hand so that they wouldn’t turn any further.
So I twisted my body hard so I wouldn’t pull on the handlebars.
After this, I did a full lock turn on both sides!
I got carried away and thought maybe I could do a full turn around the pylon,
and I did it,
and I did it (^^)
I got carried away and spun around, and I fell over^^;.
I’d heard that doing a figure eight was good practice, and it was true.
One-handed brake
This is training where you don’t support your upper body with the handlebars.
You just keep braking repeatedly at evenly spaced pylons.
My inner thighs are sore.
That’s all for the morning, but I’m running out of stamina.
フロントブレーキも軽く当ながら曲がる
In the course slalom, I felt like I was riding more rhythmically than usual.
However, there was a difficult corner where the exit narrowed,
and I was still waiting, so when I got through it in time with the exit,
the instructor said it was a waste,
and gave us a special lesson just for that corner.
We all received a lecture on how to ride through that corner,
and then we drove through it repeatedly.
This was only possible because we were a small group.
What kind of corner was it?
.
By the way, it’s not wrong to just drag the rear brake
to match the position.
In conclusion, what I was taught was to use the front brake as well.
If you ride while lightly applying the front brake deep into the corner,
…but I haven’t quite mastered it yet.
I’m afraid of applying the front brake while leaning the bike over…
The instructor followed me.
He said that I had mostly achieved the upper body movements and line of sight that I was aiming for.
Pylon slalom is still my weakness
I really am not good at slalom.
I still don’t know how to do it.
I was told that it is better to create rhythm with the rear brake rather than with the accelerator.
I still need to practice this with it.
This time, for the first time in a while, there was a course with randomly placed pylons.
When I first started attending STEC, the layout was such that I would never have been able to get through them.
Maybe it was because of the figure-eight practice in the morning,
but I made it through the super-tight maneuver zone with ease.
The instructor even praised me for my quick direction changes.。
This was a very fulfilling lesson.
When we were refueling, I said to the young instructor that I was tired,
and he replied,
“N instructors will make you drive as hard as you can.”
I guess that’s how it is.
That’s right.
They were filming a special lesson for Sun TV’s “Like a Wind.”
But those of us who were taking the regular lesson weren’t filmed, though.
That’s all for my STEC lesson notes.
