First ride on my CBR125R

I had my Honda CRB125R delivered by the dealer on a Monday night but due to logistic reasons, I can only ride it on Saturdays. The 5 day wait till my first ride after just having gotten my L's seemed to drag on forever. I had vivid thoughts picturing myself walking it out on the road, pointing it straight, hopping on, turning on the key, pressing the clutch, shifting to first, finding the friction point, releasing the break, giving it a bit of throttle, etc. I was both excited and a little anxious at the same time.

On the first Saturday, I hopped on my bike on the drive way and practiced what I had visualized all week, i.e. just getting it started and moving slowly in first. I went back and forward doing this in my 10 meter driveway for about twenty minutes, just learning the friction point, the sensitivity of the throttle, the weight of the bike, etc. This gave me a little bit more confidence as I knew that once you get it going, it's pretty easy to stay on.

So off I go inside, grab my gear, and give it another go in the driveway. First thing I notice is that the thick leather gloves severely reduce the feel and flexibility in your hands and fingers. I found it much harder to reach for the controls and harder to get a feel for the throttle, but adjusted after about another 10 minutes of practice.

I was then ready to take it out on the back roads around my house. Thankfully the roads around me are pretty quiet most of the time with very few cars going around and no traffic lights, round-abouts, speed-bumps, etc. So I get on my bike, pop it in neutral and walk it to the other side of the road pointing it in the right direction. Put it in first, check the mirrors, head checks, make sure there's no other cars around and off I go!

I revved first a little too long before changing to second, but managed to get there, and then to third, and off I went for around 500 meters till I got to a dead-end. Not confident enough to try a u-turn on the somewhat narrow street, back in neutral it went and I slowly pedaled it around then took off and drove back to in front of my house. Did this back and forward about 3 or 4 times before I started getting confident enough to drive around randomly through the neighborhood taking lefts and rights.

Think the top speed I reached was around 40km/h on the day, which felt like warp speed! The rest of the time I was just slowly riding around at 20 or 30, keeping an eye out for other cars and pulling over to the left whenever I saw one behind me. I couldn't use the blinkers yet either, my thumb had no idea where the little slider was and there were enough things going on in my head to worry about that.

I wasn't very smooth on the gears, the bike would often jerk when down-shifting one-too-low, and I stalled it a number of times trying to start from second or third and I'd often loose track of what gear I was in but around an hour later it started getting dark and it was time to call it quits.

First ride. No drops. Success!