Today's ride was fantastic! I had a lot of fun and learned a lot more than I can enumerate. The biggest takeaways: 1. I am extremely appreciative of all the time we spend in the parking lot. We ended up encountering every situation we practiced except for the emergency breaking. Without that practice, I would not have had the skill or the confidence to handle course you took me on today. 2. Thanks to the time we spent practicing in the lot, and the many hours we spent toiling on the bike, the throttle jumping issue was not a big factor today. Either the behavior has been improved, or I'm compensating for it better, or both. Either way, I hardly noticed it when I was riding, and I didn't blow any right-hand turns from a stop. 3. Still, I went dangerously wide on two turns. While there was no actual danger this time, it was definite reinforcement of why training and practice are crucial to safe riding. 4. Gears! The one thing that is difficult to practice in a parking lot is knowing which gear to be in. Both times I went wide, I entered the corner in too high of a gear. I practiced a lot of shifting, learned to feel where the power band is. Over the course of the day I got a lot better at shifting quickly and smoothly, picking the right gear for a given situation, and downshifting back to first when coming to a stop. Still need practice, but the improvement was night and day. 5. Turn signals. Or more specifically, I need to remember to cancel it after a turn. If I could suggest, you might consider adding turn signals to the parking lot exercises to build that habit early. 6. No drama. While there several new experiences, and a number of surprises, I kept the bike upright and on the road. Over all, even the things that surprised me didn't really scare me or cause me to lose my cool. I was able to stay calm and focused throughout the ride, and recovered from every misstep. It was a very pleasant ride in country side. 7. By the end of the day, I found I had loosened up quite a bit. Not just on bars, but I was sitting back more casually in the saddle. I still need to work on proper form in the deep corners, but I wasn't sweating the small ones. Can't wait for the next ride! (8. I'm extremely appreciative for the challenging ride and methodical guidance. While I was on the bike, my mind was focused on just the ride. It helped keep me from stressing out about the impending decisions I mentioned at lunch.)

So Ben Mendis(https://adv-traveler.com/7576) has started the 1000 mile on-road portion of his Yermo coaching sessions. A few days ago he did his first on-road riding and did really well. Today we clicked off 133 miles of varying road types through northern Maryland including slow back country roads, fairly traveled strip mall lined main streets, highway and even some sections of gravel road. (No trip with me is complete unless it involves 'Pavement Ends' and there is no better way that I have found to demonstrate how to manage lack of traction than getting off pavement.) Ben's Coaching Ride #2(https://adv-traveler.com/136/maps/10302/ben-s-coaching-ride--2)