Women’s Intuition

Perhaps it was women’s intuition. Most likely it was God’s nudging.

Duck, Doodle and I went riding again yesterday evening. When Duck had gotten my bike out of the driveway (I have not braved gravel yet), I asked him if he’d checked the gas in my bike lately. See, his big, fancy bike has a gas gauge on it. Mine, does not. You actually have to take the top off and look into the tank to see if it needs gas.

Duck reassured me the bike had plenty of gas. Notice he didn’t say that he’d checked it recently — just that it had plenty of gas. I took the bike for a warm-up spin around the neighborhood. A couple of times I made the turns a little wide, so I rode around the neighborhood until I felt comfortable on the bike again.

At one point the bike back-fired and I stopped to ask Duck what caused that. Oh, it’s ok — the bike’s just not getting enough gas. It’s a cold engine so it just needs to warm up. I bought the excuse and decided what better way to warm it up, than to go on one of the country roads we live near.

Now, mind you, we don’t live in the city necessarily, but we don’t live in the country either. I headed down one main road toward the country with the intent of going several miles and turning at this one intersection and heading back into town for dinner.

The bike kept jerking here or there, and sputtering along. At one point it started to slow and I tried to roll on the throttle (that’s biker talk for give it more gas). It wasn’t going. I looked behind me and Duck was following behind safely. Cars had begun to line up behind him. I looked for a place to pull off the road safely, but there wasn’t such a place. I knew something was wrong with the bike, but I just didn’t know what. I mean, really — we’d just gotten it out of the shop, so it should be running perfectly for awhile at least.

I crested a hill and saw my oil light come on — not a good sign. The bike engine had cut off and I was going about 45 MPH. Thank God the hill I crested gave me enough umph to coast down the hill, through the green light and pull into the gas station parking lot. Now really, I have to say this was truly a blessing from God. When we first turned on this road out of our neighborhood, we passed 2 gas stations. But we were heading toward the country, and as you might know, gas stations get further apart in the country.

Duck apologized for not checking and I felt like an idiot because I should have checked myself — it is, after all, my bike. He filled it up with gas, and we were off again. This time I got a little highway experience. We actually rode to dinner and I got some nighttime experience as well when we left to go home. It’s a good thing that Duck’s bike is bigger and more headlights — his bike actually helped me see and be seen. If I keep this bike, we’ll be getting extra headlights put on

So, for my Thankful Thursday post, I’m very thankful that I have learned how to ride a motorcycle; that I have actually ridden on the real, live road and haven’t died yet; and that this is turning into something I enjoy doing. Perhaps Duck and I will be riding bikes together for a long, long time.

Bike Miles Today: 19 miles
Bike Miles Total: 33 miles