Looking like the busiest part of my summer is winding down, it's now time to start getting into a break. The motorcycle road test has now been confirmed for Friday July 22nd at 2:30, followed by a flight the next day to Shanghai. As they say, no pressure. Haha, yeah right.
Nonetheless, before practicing my brains out, I'm going to take a much needed retreat and disappear on the weekend to an undisclosed location somewhere near Vancouver.
Living life at the pace I've been doing for the last couple months hasn't been very good, and even a short retreat is better than none. So with that in mind, I'll be off the grid.
Actually I'm already off the grid as it's so darn difficult to get access to a cell phone here. Whatever happened to the concept of buying a temporary SIM card at the airport or convenience store with a pay-as-you-go plan built into it? Every Asian country I know of has been doing this for years. The North American concept of locked-in contracts, plans, activation fees, etc. is all foreign and strange. Maybe it's time for North America to get with the future and just do what the Asian countries do.
Anyways, last night was a roaring success (literally) with our second and final road ride of the motorcycle course. I showed up 45 minutes early, on purpose, so I could claim the prize bike of the lot. Suzuki GS500. This is mainly because in all the years of my motorcycle riding career so far, I've never ridden anything more than 250cc. I was chomping at the bit to get on a 500cc bike to feel the power, and oh my goodness, what a power trip it was.
The bike roars out of first gear with authority, and out-accelerates any other vehicles at the light. It makes that unmistakably loud sound of a sports bike, which can be head for miles.
Anyone know how much horse power a 500cc bike has? What about a 650cc? Some of the students brough their own like that. The shocking thing is these are MID RANGE bikes for crying out loud, and you can get a lot more powerful than that. In China, the maximum capacity for registration you can find is a 250cc which explains the above. Somehow people can get 500+ cc bikes on the road in China, as I have seen them on rare occasions. But how they do so is a mystery
I hardly touched 5th gear on that bike, and was already at 60km/h in 3rd gear only. In fact, we climbed up the top of Mt Seymour, and it was easily done in 3rd gear. Lots of fun cornering, hill starts, and freeway riding to end things off. The scariest part was rocketing down the "cut" at 100+ km/h, i.e. the long steep downhill on the Upper Levels Highway as you're coming towards Vancouver before the 2nd Narows Bridge.
It is hard to believe my motorcycle riding career has come to this, when it all started with humble scooters out of necessity while working at a school in the boonies of Shanghai.
Nonetheless, I'm going to rent out the GS500 for 24 hours and practice my brains out for the upcoming road test. That is in addition to a mock road test, followed by the real thing a week Friday.
If all goes well, there will be a celebration dinner on Friday night (July 22nd) the night before I catch the flight back to Shanghai.
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