Me and my motorcycle

I have a motorcycle. Her name is Pirate. I bought her last year from someone who work at the same company I do. She's what you might call "retro" (she's a year older than I am), but the person who sold her to me rebuilt her from parts taken off of three bikes of the same model, and she generally runs damn good for an old lady.

Anyway, I have realized that, when I'm a passenger on a bike, I'm totally relaxed. When I'm the driver, however, I am very nervous. Actually, wait. That's not entirely true. I'm nervous when I'm NOT on the bike and I'm THINKING about getting on the bike. Once I get on and get going, I'm generally okay, other than fretting about how much to slow down before entering a turn, and do I countersteer or not and should I be giving it more gas or maybe a little brake, and did I remember to turn my turn signal off?

In other words, I'm thinking WAY too much. I am a fledgling biker chick that needs to get the hell out of her own head and just RIDE.

It's not always like this, thankfully. I have had miles out of my rides where I'm just kind of hanging in the zone, relaxed, alert and comfortable. That tends to be on the straightaways, I guess, but it does happen. I keep telling myself that it's probably somewhat natural for a person with a well-developed (and HEALTHY!) sense of self-preservation to feel nervous getting on a yet-unfamiliar machine, and I've been advised that this feeling will pass with more miles and time on the bike. So, I just need to get myself on the bike more. That's a goal for this summer -- to have put at least 250 miles on my bike by the time I put it away for the winter. I think I've got maybe 50 so far. Gotta just ride more.