Of bikes and men

My dad and younger brother Charles have recently gotten into riding motorcycles. They each bought a motorbike in the last year and ride them around town (and even out of town) when the weather is good. Dad brought both his and CG's cycles down to the beach this week (along with the standard foot-powered bicycle, which I have grown more adept at maneuvering since living in Graz). This afternoon, Dad convinced me to ride Charles's (motorized) bike with him down the street (me on CG's, and dad leading on his own bike).

Last week, Dad took me over to our high school's parking lot, and I rode around learning how to accelerate/change gears and how to turn. The lessons went well, but they were short (only ~ 15 minutes total), and I guess I wasn't totally prepared for riding on a street (with other people, cars, cross-streets, stop signs, etc.). I crashed while trying to turn left, landing on (and dragging) my elbow at 10 mph. My left arm is in a lot of hurt tonight, with two very fun-looking scrapes on either side of my elbow, along with a scrape on my knee and other places on my arm. My dad, who is not a cussing man, probably got the idea how I felt when I responded to his "what happened?" with "I fell off the damn thing!" I hope nothing is broken (anyone know what a broken elbow feels like?), but it's hard to tell b/c the scrapes and bruises are still pretty fresh. (I crashed only 2 hrs ago).

I think I know one reason why I wasn't able to turn (other than the fact that this was my first real attempt at riding a motorcycle): after learning to balance on a bicycle, I attempted to "lean into" the turn on the motorcycle. However, my bicycle weighs around 30 lbs (maybe 10, or 50, I'm not great at guessing!), and the motorbike weighs about 500 lbs. (I weigh 225). "Leaning" a motorcycle around a curve just doesn't work. Remember our good friend Newton: "objects in motion tend to stay in motion..." Well, my motorcycle decided to follow Newton's advice and keep going straight, even though I was leaning and trying to get it to go left. Net result is that I managed to cross the road but miss the turn, and I fell off (and slid along as the bike drug my right foot which was trapped underneath) as the bike came to a stop on the embankment.

Not fun at the time, but if the bones are not broken, I guess it'll be a story to tell later.