First Day Of Rider’s Edge Course Done

As I mentioned before, I managed to get into an earlier date for the Rider's Edge motorcycle safety course offered at Dillon Brothers Harley-Davidson here in Omaha, Nebraska.

After waking up, I gathered all the equipment I'd need for the class - one of my helmets, my sunglasses and my gloves - and headed over to Dillon Harley, showing up there at 7:30 in the morning. It was already warm and muggy.

The door to the service entrance was open, and after walking in I was directed upstairs to where the class was going to be held.

A few other people who had signed up to take the class were already in the classroom, watching an introductory video. I was very surprised to see that there were 5 men, the oldest of which was 75, and 5 women, the youngest of which was 19 or so. Most of the other people in the class seemed very interested in buying and riding a Harley-Davidson bike of some kind.

It looks like Harley-Davidson's marketing to women might be paying off?

The instructors were great, they really made everyone feel at home and welcome. They did remind everyone that in order to get on a bike later on that day, we'd have to be fully equipped to ride. Helmet, eye protection, long sleeves, long pants, boots and gloves were all necessary. Because of the heat, I would have preferred to be able to wear some long shorts instead of jeans, but that idea was nixed during an earlier phone call I'd gotten from the safety course instructors.

Did I mention it was already hot at 7:30 in the morning? Did I mention that the temperature was supposed to get up to about 100 degrees? Did I mention how humid it was?

Still, I was excited that I was finally in the class that'd result in me getting my motorcycle license, so I figured I'd suck it up for a few days. The result would be worth it.

After a few "get-to-know-everyone" exercises, we started to go over the Motorcycle Safety Foundation manuals that we'd gotten mailed to us the weeks prior to the class. A lot of the information was review to me, but there were people there who obviously hadn't ridden a motorcycle before so they were getting some valuable info.

Breaks were frequent, but not excessive.

The information presented was useful, and refreshed a lot of what I had known previously but forgotten.

Lunch was at 11:30 and lasted for an hour. Since Dillon Harley is about 5 minutes from my house, I just went back home and ate lunch there. Other people who were taking the course and who didn't live so close to the Dillon Brothers Harley dealership had a good selection of places that they could pick up either fast-food or not-so-fast-food.

After lunch we did some quick review over the common controls of a motorcycle and then headed over to the range, which was right next to the new Dillon Brothers Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki dealership that was being built right next to the Dillon Brothers Harley dealership. One-stop shopping for just about every motorcycle brand that could interest you. Not bad.

It was about 1:30 or so when we stepped foot on the range, and it was hot - at least 100 degrees hot. And it was humid. I started sweating immediately. Fortunately, I had brought a cooler filled with 4 water bottles, some coke and ice - which I went back to whenever we had a break. By the time we were done, all my drinks were gone.

We each picked out a bike. The motorcycles we were going to learn on were Buell Blasts. A Buell Blast is a smaller sports bike - only 500cc. The bikes had seen better days, which I kind of expected. These are the motorcycles that people train on, after all. They're going to get dropped, and they're not going to be pristine.

The class ran through some directed exercises which looked like motorcycle aerobics. We got on, we got off, we turned the bikes on, we turned the bikes off. From there, we graduated to walking the motorcycles back and forth, learning how they felt. Then we moved to turning them on and finding the clutch friction zone, rocking back and forth.

Fun stuff.

It was a little slow for me, but I could tell that some people were having difficulty with it. Others just needed a little practice and picked it right up.

Eventually we got to go from one end of the course to the other, after which we'd go back to neutral, turn around and do it again. My group was slowed down by two of the people in it, but what are you going to do? Because I was being slowed down a bit, I kind of got a little frustrated with the speed of the class and started to "forget" to shift down to neutral while turning. It all came back to me and I did quite well. I would, at this point, have no problem hitting the street on this little bike.

One of the older gentlemen in the group seemed to have a very hard time controlling his motorcycle. He didn't drop it, but didn't manage to figure out how to get to the point where his feet were up. He also looked like he was having a very tough time turning the thing while he walked. I don't think we'll see him back tomorrow.

Another lady seemed to sort of grasp the concept of letting the bike do the work, but she also seemed to have problems controlling things. It was the whole "slowly let out the clutch and roll the throttle" concept which she struggled with - which is understandable if you've never driven a standard shift. She managed along while we were out there, but when it came time to finish up, she neglected to put the kickstand down while getting off the bike and it fell on her.

I'm not sure we'll see her tomorrow either. We'll see.

Tomorrow, we are going to be out on the course the first thing in the morning, which should help a bit with the heat. We'll have a whole slew of exercises to go through, so I'm hoping to learn something.

At this point, I'm chomping at the bit to get my own motorcycle.

Jason Davis at Dillon Brothers Harley-Davidson is in the process of helping me out with that, and I'll give you more info on that later.