Lobo in Parking Lot-before first road trip

Aunty Flo-El Lobo begining of RLAP PRACTISE

After an hour ..check out the lean

The gang that came to get El Lobo home safely! The Hut in Qualicum.. Shawns new family. He was just gob smacked!

Flo and her bros!
Today, my nefew Shawnboy/El Lobo was going on his first group ride. Actually it would be his first ride on his new bike. Honda vtx 1800. He just upgraded from my Stinky Pinky 1981 cm400 that I taught him how to ride on. On his new vtx, all he had was about 3 miles to Uncle Blingos house and up to CR to RLAP with Auntie Flo. He was suppose to be here at 9 am. Now being Shawn is a very conscientious boy, and very reliable, I made sure I was there at exactly 9 am. Around 10:00 I start to get worried, where is he, as he really wants some parking lot practise before he make his venture home to Victoria on his new big Sweetheart. I think his uncles kept him up a little late putting on the bling on his new ride. As it turned out it was 10:30... Okay, I have exactly one hour to help show the boy how to RLAP like he did on the Aggresive Salmon Stinky Pinky.
In the meantime I had been riding my X around the parking lot to find her FRICTION ZONE.. I remember MM telling me, when you are getting good Flo, you can jump on any bike and find the Friction Zone.
Okay, I am all alone, with the Biatch. She just had her exhaust adusted, she should be fine. No one here to watch me, or think... hmmm,... he can not ride that thang, and she used to own it.
Omg... I was so determined. It was horrible, trying to find the friction zone!!! Horrible. The clutch was stiff, ...the brake was spungy, handle bars high.. I hated the sound... Where the hell is that smoothness??
Determination.... I started all the excercises slowly and consintrating very hard. Finally, I could keep a little consistency on the friction. My arms were aching!!!!
This was NOT a pretty sight, and I was so glad no one was around. Crikey she used to be my friggin bike!!
Finally it all started to take place, it was not by any means the same as the Queen, but at least I could say I was doing it. Then along came Jippo, as he knew my nefew was coming to practise the excercise on his new bike. The parking lot needed some sweeping. He cleared off a couple of the excercises.. How nice that was, so to make it fun, we tied a broom to the Blinga and started to video me cleaning the lot with a broom dragging behind.
Jippo was still there when Lobo finally arrived, and started to watch and in the first 3 minutes, the good on gal, was lying on the pavement, and not from the gravel. It wa all my fault, I pushed him into the excercise as we only had an hour by this time, and had alot of things to fit in.. I do apologise!!! I am not an intructor, but I should never have put him into that before playing around first. I thought the trip up from Courtenay would have warmed him up as he came in with just a grand smile on his big huge bike.
Anyways, being who he is, he was feeling slightly inadequate!!! As soon as I put the camera on him and tell him MOTORMAN will critique him... he start to ace it!
I told him we now had 45 minutes to cram in the 3 hours that I would have showed him in that time. When you say MOTORMAN to Lobo, he all of a sudden remembers everything, that I had told him EVER as far as it come to riding.
Bottom line, I was very proud of him and he aced it in my eyes. He did all the excercises in one hour and did them better than most do in 4 hours.
We got ready and headed to Qualicum to meet the gang.
He rode absolutely fantastic!! I was so proud of him and he was so proud of himself. This is what he had to say.

So I headed up to Uncle Blingos' in Courtenay Friday night, and he, El Capitan, and I attacked my new ride (well, they pretty much attacked it, and I assisted), which had been waiting in his garage for the past two weeks. Had to clean her up all nice and purdy-like, and had a pile of stuff to install: lightbar, windshield, saddle bags, crash bars, and some odds and ends bling for good measure. (Hey, what I can say? I am my uncle's nephew.) Took us about six hours all told, but we all had a good time.
Next day, El Capitan and I rode up to CR to meet Aunt Flo in her RLAP lot. Boy, she's one heavy bike, and it took some gettin' used to, but it felt good on the road. Was a nice ride with the good Captain. RAM and Jippo were waiting with Flo in the lot, and well, she got me right into it. (Rob and I had lost a bit of time gettin' ready to go that morning, so by the time we finally got there, we only had like an hour to practice.) Slow walk for about 20 yards, okay, let's hit the U-turn. Haven't really mastered the friction zone on this massive beast yet, but okay, let's give'r a shot. Down she goes. Three times within the first 20 minutes, I think. Dammit. NO, I was NOT happy. Shouldn't've rushed into the U-turn so soon. Ah well. Thankfully I had the bars on, so that's the only part that took a scrape. In the end, having that hour did help, because by the end of it, I was really starting to get used to the weight and feeling the friction zone.
El Capitan, Aunt Flo, Uncle BigE, RAM, and myself departed for Courtenay at about midday. Stopped to see Uncle Blingos for a short visit at CMS, and we were on our way to the Qualicum Hut. There we met up with GearJammer, (I'm sorry, don't know all the nicknames here) Bill (GearJammer's friend), CC (& Bob, is it? I think so), and Vic & Steve. After lunch, CC & Bob had to head back up to PA, which left us as 9 for the trip down-Island. My little bro (in Parksville) called me up and wanted to see the new ride, asked if I'd be rollin' through on my way home... HHAHAHA... well, he and his girlfriend were sittin' outside at the end of the driveway when I (who was leading the pack at this point) came around the corner, and lemme' tell you, I don't think he was expecting to see a PACK of cruisers takin' up the real estate!! I think he just thought it was gonna' be me and the family. No doubt he heard us feeding our way through the residential streets leading up to the place, and then to see Big Bro come around the corner, leading the pack... that was pretty freakin' sweet, I think.
SOOO (this is getting long), GearJammer took us all on a real nice ride through the backroads through Nanaimo (some nice windies, but not too crazy for the newbie). We stopped to pick up Tazzie in Ladysmith, and carried on with some more scenic backroad ridin' on to Duncan. Jenn and Mir met us at Timmie's for a nice break, at which point RAM had to leave us to head back up-Island. On the road again, our party of 11 soon became 6 as Vic, Tazzie, Steve, GearJammer and Bill all broke away to head back to their respective homes. We hit Langford Timmie's just as I was about to turn into a pumpkin (dusk; I'm still restricted to daylight riding only). We said goodbye to Jenn, Mir, and BigE, and Flo & Rob came home with me.
Just saw 'em off this morning, on their way to Port Angeles for a week-long cruise in WA/OR states. Off I went to meet up with RAM and Jippo again, who were down for the Victoria Toy Ride. I missed the ride itself, but met up with 'em all at Butchart Gardens. WOW. Lotsa' bikes. Eep. Went out for lunch with RAM and Jippo, as well as Susan & Mike, Wendy & Marty, John, and Zeek. After lunch, off we went in our separate directions, and thus ended a FANTASTIC first weekend of riding.
To all of you who participated in seeing me home safely, thank you so much for coming out. It was a great experience, you gave me one helluva' nice ride, and I learned one helluva' lot from you all. Thanks for showing me the ropes (or at least some of them).
I look forward to riding with y'all again!!