Learning how to ride a bike...

I just passed the riding test!
Originally uploaded by surferdwa.

A bike with a motor that is. I spent Thursday and Friday night doing classroom work and watching training aids, and Saturday/Today out on the course doing drills and learning how to ride. The photo is of me after passing the riding test. I put a foot down in one of the slow maneuvering tests (that I had nailed in practice all day long) but otherwise passed with flying colors.

As you can see we rode some nice little bikes. I say little because I pretty much sat in the passenger's seat to get my legs to fold up enough to get to the controls, but other than that it was a fun bike.

Tomorrow is "Graduation", which sounds like a lot of paperwork and some cake. The instructors were great and had a lot of good tips for me. At speed, the moto is not very different than a bike in the way it handles. I had no problems nailing all of the turns at speed. Stopping is very different, however, but I got emergency stopping by the end.

Overall it was a fun weekend, glad I did it. I've wanted to ride a motorcycle for a long time now, but this is the first year where I haven't thought I would kill myself in the first 30 minutes because I would want to drive 120 mph everywhere. Growing older I guess.

Velodrome Excursion

Match Sprint
Originally uploaded by surferdwa.

"The Fur" (as Scott calls the dogs) and I traveled up to Colorado Springs last weekend to race on the 7-Eleven Velodrome at the Olympic Training Center (OTC). What an experience!

Track cycling is similar to track or swim meets, they last all day but you really only race 3 or 4 events. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday I raced: the 200m flying sprint, the matched sprints, the keirin, the Kilo, a scratch race, and the olympic sprint. In between there was a lot of sitting, talking, playing with the dogs and watching other people go really fast! Everyone is very supportive of one another, and they were all excited to have a new cyclist on the track. Quite a difference from road racing where you all try to pummel and discourage the newbies.

This weekend was the most fun I have had on a bicycle in a long time, and despite having not turned over a pedal stroke in over 7 months, I faired pretty well. Just think if I had some fitness!

Anyway, my new rule on bicycles is B^2. Barriers and Banking. If it doesn't have one of the Bs, I'm not interested.

iMazing, iNcredible, iPhone

Dave Allen, Apple Fanboy here. Tiffany and I made a big mistake this afternoon, we went into the AT&T (Cingular) store and played with an iPhone. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past several months, the iPhone is possibly one of the most hyped gadgets in history. And may I say it is truly awesome.

I didn't even get to the phone part before I had to put it down. Another second in my hands and I would have been forking over Tiffany's tuition money for a $600 phone that I can't even take into work. Let me tell you what I did play with before I ran screaming from the store:

1) Internet: Uh, amazing. We're not talking stupid internet like we had on Tiffany's Palm Treo for the first couple of months. We're talking full on web pages, maps with Satellite, the whole works. Speaking of maps, I mapped out directions to Grand Junction, searched for toy stores and all I had to do next was select the phone number and it would have called!

2) Music: Cover Flow is awesome. It's like scrolling through all of your albums and then you tap on one and if flips it over so you can look at the tracks. I love it! Sound was pretty decent for not having headphones in.

3) Photos: Slide show was truly beautiful. Colors were stunning and then you just flicked your finger to the next. Oh god it was so beautiful.

4) Weather: Setup multiple cities and do the finger flicking to move between them. I typed Santa Fe in on the virtual keyboard and had a little trouble, but overall it wasn't bad. Apparently it learns how you type, so a demo iPhone probably is all sorts of messed up from lots of people using it.

5) Phone: Phone? Wait its a phone too?!?

Seriously. That thing is amazing. I couldn't put it down. It was light, gorgeous, easy to use. Oh god it is beautiful. Gush Gush Gush.