58b992be-c0da-42ab-8bea-65c3cc1f26db.md (1506B)
1 Topics: motorbike ride-report 2 Date: 2024-05-09T17:16:47.913222Z 3 Title: First ride 4 5 Yesterday I went out for my first ride not counting riding home from 6 the dealership. 7 8 tl;dr didn't drop it didn't crash, so it met the basic success criteria. But not an unalloyed pleasure. 9 10 For the longer-form report ... the plan was to go to a [garden centre](http://www.blueroomscafe.co.uk/) about 20 miles from home and 11 buy a coffee to sit in the sunshine with. I perhaps foolishly decided 12 to try navigation using 13 [Kurviger](https://kurviger.de/about/en). Foolish (1) because 14 Kurviger's idea of a "curvy" route in London turns out to be a route 15 that eschews all major thoroughfares in favour of 20mph residential 16 roads, and foolish (2) because Kurviger "Follow mode" is not terribly 17 (at all) clear on a smartphone screen when the sun's shining directly 18 on it. 19 20 I spent 20-30 minutes riding around Chingford and South Woodford 21 before deciding I was lost enough to stop and look at the map 22 properly, and when I did, I appeared to be on a long straight road 23 that would have passed under the A406 (London's "North Circular Road") 24 and rejoined the route. So I set off again Unfortunately, when I 25 reached the A406 it turned out to be not a bridge but an 26 on-ramp. Downside: I was now pointing in the wrong direction; upside: 27 I knew exactly where I was and it was about 5 minutes from home. So I 28 went home and had a coffee in the sunshine there instead. 29 30 Lessons learned: get some miles from home before engaging wiggle mode.