I am excited to report that I finally have over 100 miles on my bike - I realize many of you ride more than that in a day, but as a beginning motorcyclist who is still trying to build basic skills and control, I've limited myself to a nearby parkinglot and residential streets where I dont have to deal with traffic coming in and out of shopping plazas and the like....
While I still have lots of slow speed manoever practice needed (those nice tight figure 8's still elude me), I'm definitely feeling more confident on the bike. Still have plenty to learn - finding the right speed brackets for each gear is still slightly eluding me...as a rule of thumb, I group each 10mph into a gear, but not sure if that's right or not...
To celebrate, I finally took the bike on a nearby stretch of road that allowed me to get it up into 6th gear and 60+mph
it was exhilerating - except for the times when birds flew nearby at helmet level....that just had me hoping they would peel off and not turn in my path.