As the wind blows

And the wind really does blow.

Riding a tall motorcycle such as my Kawasaki KLR 650 in traffic is not what I would describe as a simple task. One of the first things I noticed once I got up to highway speeds was the wind. Wind + KLR = Fear. The wind is not nice to the KLR and I felt like I was going to get blown into traffic, the median, a lightpost, you name it. I struggled to understand: a: how riding this quickly could be fun and b: how could anyone survive riding around the world on a bike like this. It's been done before by a few Polish Canadians, Greg, Jacek and Natasha. Greg did the trip with natasha on the back of his KLR (2-up). Their story is at www.motodreamers.com

Over the course of the next week I did a lot of reading about wind on klr650.net and learned to relax a bit and let the bike do its thing. Soon I was riding more comfortably but still didn't like the wind - or the noise it created. The fear began to subside although I had flashbacks from learning how to drive for the first time as a boy. I knew I would learn and it would get better. The learning curve seemed steep.

Bike Odometer (2006 KLR 650): 100km. My riding experience: 60km.

More to come...