Wave of the Future, Dude.

We’re crossing 16th street on De Haro, heading up Protrero Hill when I twist the throttle a little more. Is it really a throttle? I guess it’s a potentiometer, really, since it’s not actually controlling any apertures. Either way, suddenly I’m moving much faster than I had expected. Before I know it, I’m jamming on the brakes to avoid colliding with the other test riders. Welcome to the world of electric motorcycles. Yee-ha.

We stop at the top of the hill and the ride-leader from SF Moto asks if I’d like to switch bikes. I really want to move onto the sportier Zero-SR, with its ridiculous torque, but my recent scare makes me trepidacious. In a decision I’ll regret later, I stay on the Zero S.

We ride back down the hill and cross through the tech-bubble turnaround near Zinga and take Townsend towards the ballpark. Turning right onto King Street, entering the highway, I twist the potentiometer again and feel the back end wash out, losing traction on the crosswalk paint. Yee-hah.

The bike has no trouble getting going on the freeway. If anything I’m just a little disoriented by not having to shift and considering resetting my grip to keep twisting the throttle. It might be nice to have a shifter paddle that control the sensitivity range of the “throttle.” I’m about to see just how far the thing really goes — planning to weave around a pickup truck — when out ride leader signals our exit onto Mariposa. This is only a test ride, after all.

Next to the UCSF Mission Bay campus, we switch bikes. As we pull over next to the curb, a medical worker in scrubs says, “Hey guys, I don’t think those are parking spots.”

“We’re just switching bikes,” I explain. But what I wish I’d said is: “I’m not sure those are really clothes.” Seriously: what’s the deal with folks wearing scrubs out on the street? How is that sanitary? Oh, well, one more thing I may never understand about health care…

Anyway, now I’m on the DS, Zero’s answer to the on-road-off-road adventure bike. I set it to Eco mode at first, just to explore the range of the bike. As we take off at the next light it feels incredibly sluggish, about as slow as the Nighthawk 250 I teach on, maybe slower. I set it back to Sport mode at the next light. As we take off again, it happily gets out of its own way, even displaying some snappy git-up-an-go.

Turning on the DS feels more forgiving than the Zero S. With more of a sport-bike style, the S dips immediately at the beginning of a turn, relaxing as the lean increases. The taller DS responds more evenly, without the aggressive initial dip, it eases into turns with more continuity. If I was going to commute or go camping, I would definitely choose the DS.

Just a few blocks later, we trade again and I get a crack at the SR, Zero’s top of the line. While all of the bikes have been fun, this is the one that hovers in my mind the same way a samurai would covet a priceless sword. I can see it in the garage, imagine the heads I could cut with its ridiculous, one hundred pounds of torque, beating almost anything off the line.

“I should at least find out what the monthly payments would be,” I think, knowing full well that I can’t afford it. But a man can dream…

We ride down Bryant, past Sports Basement and I thwack the throttle a few times, pulling on the bars and leaning back. Up comes the front tire, not quite as easily as a KTM Duke, but more readily than my Yamaha R6. I see a small loading ramp set on a curb and ponder riding the bike up it and bumping down the curve. At our current speed, it would be an impressive maneuver, and the SR is nimble enough that I have no doubt of its possibility. But this is a loaner bike and the guy leading the ride has been real nice… so I keep it on the road. Woo, responsibility.

When we had first pulled away from SF Moto, I had a moment of skepticism. The bikes were eerily quiet and the initial power delivery is reminiscent of a bumper car — that soft hum and click of the electricity snapping through the motor, pushing forward, seemingly detached from the throttle until you really start moving. I’d laughed to myself how future motorcycle memoirs will have to swap “And away we roared” for “And away we swished.”

The quiet motor is kind of a double edged sword: you can hear a lot more around you, but there’s no auditory reminder that you’re accelerating.

But the Zero SR is a bumper car with ball-balls, baby. It handles as easily as my small cruiser, delivers power like my race bike and has fewer emissions than my toaster. The only downside is top-speed and range (and a $20,000 price tag). But the casual rider will rarely push those limits. Lot’s of folks talk a big came, but when you get right down to it, most people aren’t riding more than 100 miles in a day nor exceeding 100 mph everyday.

Some of you are still shaking your heads, saying “You can ride an electric bike. I’m sticking with gasoline.”

That’s fine for now — so will I. But the statistics say that we’ll all be using electric vehicles within the near future.

Additionally, I’m for it on a personal level. Soot from the busy street I live on collects on our building like fine black snow. When I roll down my car window, it bunches up in lines like dark, sticky sand. I can’t wait to see electric vehicles displace our cancerous, air polluting standard. Will I miss our loud, brapping, gas-rockets? Hell yeah I will. I’ll probably even cry about it at some point (I’m not kidding: I will literally probably have an emotional break down when I have to throw out a random carburetor jet I find at the bottom of my box of cassette tapes, years after internal combustion is outlawed on public streets — if I’m lucky to live that long). But I’m not going to fight the facts of what we’re doing to the environment. Instead I’m going to welcome the new toys.

And I hope to see if I can’t use a hundred pounds of torque to rip a rear wheel clean off a cheap bike by pegging the potentiometer in a muddy bog after I’ve flipped a bike. Yee-ha.

We can fear the new changes. We can lament how things should or used to be. Or we can do what we can, with what we have, where we are.

Can’t stop riding, so we gotta keep going…

A Wake Up and a Knee Down

“Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greenskeeper, now about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac- it’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!” -Carl, the greenskeeper from Caddyshack

“If you think you know what the hell is going on, you’re probably full of shit.” -Robert Anton Wilson

—

It’s a Goldilocks day at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA — not too hot, not too cold, just a little overcast. The C group riders of this Precision Trackday event are being guided slowly by an instructor, pacing out the optimum line through the turns. And I think I’ve got it figured out…

An hour later we’ve been turned loose to run the course and I’m passing an instructor on the back straight. Now turn 14 is coming in hot. Too hot. Way too hot! I grab a fistful of brakes but it’s too late. The bike passes between the cones and leaves the course. But there’s plenty of pavement left and the bike and I are both fine, still rolling slowly. I look back over my right shoulder and re-enter the track, falling in behind the instructor I just passed.

“Maybe I don’t got this…”

Back we go through turns One and Two. I’m keeping up, but they keep saying this is a trackday, not a raceday, so maybe it’s not about keeping up. Isn’t it always about that a little bit, though? Maybe today is really about drawing the right line, the same way little leaguers practice bunt plays instead of hitting homeruns. You can’t win the World Series everyday, and considering this is my first day on the track, my MotoGP delusions are beginning to waft away.

At turn Three, the instructor pulls away a bit. The downhill camber is still throwing me. Turn Four is a forgiving left that leads into the blind, hill-climbing, pinched curve that is turn Five. Ha, ha! On turn Five I know I’ve got a better line — or do I just think I do? Either way, I can’t wait to try it out. Turn Six he pulls away again, going through faster than I thought possible. Seven is barely a turn unless you set up for it wrong. He gets turn Eight better then me but at the top of Nine I’m starting to catch back up. On Ten we run into a group that’s going slower than we are, which is simultaneously frustrating and relieving, giving me a moment to loosen up and relax.

Turn Eleven is the hardest turn for me to read. I follow his line through the sharp, off-camber left, but  I still don’t get it. It will take me all day to get a good feel for it and I’ll still only pull a good line about half the time. On turn Twelve, he mows over the warning stripes like a linebacker and I follow. Turn Thirteen is another barely-existent turn that merely pushes you towards the right side of the track as you blast past it. We head down the straightaway, taking its full length to set up for the next curve and braking under the bridge. Turn Fourteen looms ominously, a vague, flat hairpin of cones and far-away grass, a blurry ghost-curve, unsettling me.

But as I pull his line, it occurs to me that I might just get a knee down on this curve before the day is through.

Faster bikes blast past us on the straight away. The checkered flag waves as we get back to turn One, signaling the end of the session.

In the clubhouse after lunch, we discuss the track. We talk about optimal lines, when to brake, where to look, where not to look. I’m surrounded by sufferers of the same affliction, folks that look at a curve and see a challenge. Folks that would draw a line around their pancakes with a sausage dipped in syrup. Folks to whom a hairpin has less to do with looks than it does with where you’re looking.

During the second afternoon session, one of the instructors follows me around the course, examining my form. I’m keeping up with other C group riders, but just barely. I’m pulling nice lines, but going slower than others, and confused by my disadvantage. I trying to push it harder, but not sure how to do it. Back in the paddock, the instructor points out how I brake hard approaching turns, but let off completely before actually entering the turn. “We need to fix that,” he says.

For quite some time, I’ve been approaching turns without using the brakes at all, regulating my speed entirely by engine braking alone. This is a safe way to navigate a turn, but it’s not the fastest. The speeds on the track are forcing me to get on the brakes, but I’ve been doing it wrong. My techniques has been letting pressure off the front tire, reducing the amount of traction I have as I enter the turn. I’ve heard and read about trail braking — trailing off the brakes while entering a turn, forcing the front end into the pavement, maximizing surface area — but I’d never really applied it. Maybe I’ve been too cautious, overly prudent. Maybe I’ve just been scared.

“I know it can be scary, especially going into turn Ten,” says the instructor. “But try to do less braking for longer.”

On the next session, I try it out, using a lighter touch, downshifting and rev-matching the engine and trailing off the brakes as I get on the throttle, keeping the front end pressed against the ground as I look through my turn. And it clicks! The front end feels more connected, sturdier, less shrouded in mystery. And I feel safer experimenting with it here, surrounded by similarly-sick turn-junkies, not all alone on some backroad or cliffside highway above the ocean.

I’d guess I’m not the first would-be hot-shot at his inaugural trackday to find out that things aren’t as simple as once presumed. In the weeks leading up, I’d fantasized of being moved up to B group or even A group once they saw my riding. In my most delusional moments I imagined setting some track record, purely on accident. Cute.

But — presumably better than finding out I was Marc Marquez’s long-lost cousin — I got humbled, I learned and I improved. Feeling my riding grow was way more fulfilling than discovering I was some hidden savant. We all have Cinderella dreams, but it’s better to get woken up and discover that you’re actually putting in the work to become the person you want to be.

As the day goes on, I keep improving. By the second-to-last last session, I’m passing more than I’m getting passed, pulling strong lines through every curve. Turn 14 no longer terrifies me, and I’m getting closer to getting a knee down. As the last session rolls around, other riders are calling it a day, leaving the track wide open. It feels like my chance to get that knee against the pavement.

Turn 14 is coming in hot. But not too hot. I jam on the brakes under the bridge, feeling the front-end shudder as the shocks compress and expand. Trailing off the brakes, I look hard up through the turn and commit. I feel my right knee touch down and I tense up, straightening out. On the next lap, I touch down again, staying looser. On my last chance, the third time is the charm and as I touch down I ease into it, playing around with pressure against the road. It’s an entirely new sensation. I’m no knee-dragging savant, but I can’t wait to get humbled, learn and improve some more.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

If you enjoy riding and can afford it, I can’t recommend a trackday enough. Special thanks to the Precision Trackday crew for an awesome day.

The Lighthouse and the Lightbulb

I’m sitting at home with my legs up and ice on my knees. South Park is on the TV and there’s a Lagunitas Daytime Ale on the couch next to me, supported by my copy of David Macaulay’s “The Way Things Work.” Life is pretty good.

We just got back from the Point Reyes Lighthouse and, though it’s trite to say, it was an epic ride. 136 miles of twisting coastal roads that resulted in a real lightbulb moment for my sportbike riding.

The lighthouse is a unique piece of history perched out on the edge of the Pacific. Crafted in 1870, the ornate, rotating fresnel lens (pronounced “frennal”) is a glimmering view into a world gone by. The cliffside buildings also house of a collection of maritime warning devices. The light remained the same until recently, but the fog horns have changed over the decades. The first whistle was steam-powered, demanding 140 lbs of coal be shovel into a boiler every hour — eight tons a year.

The Coast Guard attendants spent endless hours scrubbing soot off of the intricate clockwork mechanisms. When not doing that, they were sanding away rust and painting the cast iron buildings. The park ranger giving the history lesson today didn’t mention how much alcohol the attendants consumed, but I’d guess it was the second most important commodity after coal.

On the way back from the lighthouse, my friend hooked up his gopro and had me ride in front. It provided the motivation to ride aggressively. I imagined him saying, “Get ill, dude!” or “Get after it!” So I was pushing things, trying intently to hold my lines, leaning hard around blind turns.

Keep in mind that the lighthouse road is pretty crap. Really: it’s beautiful and bumpy as hell. Pot holes that could swallow a Volkswagon speckle a ribbon of asphalt that winds between rolling hills, passing estuaries, marshes and vast green fields. It sweeps down into cattle farms and climbs suddenly around craggy protrusions of sand stone.

The road conditions forced me to get my butt up off the seat, just like downhill mountain biking. Suddenly I was whipping the bike around with much more authority, in control like never before. I had been riding in the saddle waaaaay too much. Now that I was floating over the bumps, using my legs as shock absorbers, I could really feel the bike on a different level.

Once we got onto the more forgiving pavement of Highway One, things kept clicking. I found I had been bunching against the tank too much and eased myself back, putting a longer bend into my knees. I’ve done plenty of out-of-the-saddle riding before, but the Yamaha R6 required the most aggressive posture and technique I’ve experienced yet. Basically, you get on all fours, slam the bike towards the ground while entering the turn, then use the throttle to catch yourself, using momentum to pull the bike back towards standing. Between pressure on the pegs, handlebar and throttle there’s a balance that lets the bike rip through turns like a sawblade rollercoaster.

The amount of actual lean that the bike has is kind of ridiculous. After feeling the turns in this new way, lowsiding stopped being a concern. All that was really important was whether I was drifting to the road’s edge and whether the bike was scraping the ground (didn’t experience any of the latter). I was pushing my angle of lean farther than ever before and it felt great.

All bikes, no matter how large or small have an range of lean at which they pretty much stay upright. After a certain point — the tipping point — gravity starts winning the fight. At complete rest, when the bike isn’t moving at all, a little motion either way makes the difference in keeping the rubber side down. (Try keeping both feet on the pegs at complete stop. If you can go longer than three seconds, you might want to considering quitting your day job and start riding full time.) But as speed increases, gravity takes second place to the bike’s forward momentum. It’s too preoccupied with moving ahead to fall towards the ground. As we go faster, the possible angle of lean becomes less dependent on gravity and is dictated much more by traction.

Anyway, an aggressive turn is a delicate dance between traction, gravity and forward momentum. Really good racers are actually dealing with slipping traction, which just blows my mind, considering the forces I just felt. Accelerating hard out of a turn, experiencing G-pull while leaned so far that I was looking side-ways at the road was a hellova rush — more like a rope swing than a bike.

It’s one thing to understand the physics of an aggressive turn, how opposing forces carve a vector into an invisible, three-dimensional graph. It’s another thing to climb inside that equation and get shot out of an uphill right-hand turn on a seaside road, screaming inside your helmet.

Cue the French Horns

The Giants are Losing on the television at Rancho Nicasio while the Tom Finch Trio plays soothing, melodic, jam rock. The aunts and uncles of a birthday girl dance near an unused piano. After riding down Lucas Valley Road in the dark, I’m just happy to be alive.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep…but also full of deer and cops and drunks. Oh my. And there’s also the new rear tire I’m still scrubbing in to consider. Riders are always supposed to stay loose, but that can be hard when you’re reasonably fearful for your life.

It’s been awhile since I did any night riding in a deer-filled area. The last time was in Texas, riding highway 71 into Austin after sundown. Another time that comes to mind was a mountainous region of I40 approaching Flagstaff, if I recall correctly. At first there were deer warning signs. Next there were even bigger signs with speed warnings. Finally there was a flashing billboard that basically read: “Seriously you assholes. Lots of of fucking deer. Slow the hell down. We’re tired of cleaning up carcases.” (I’m paraphrasing…)

Another moment of rational fear, also on I40, was when I broke down near the Arizona-New Mexico border in a monsoon. I limped back towards the last gas station I’d passed, riding the wrong way on the shoulder until I got a clear shot at crossing a patch of median that didn’t look too muddy. I can still see my front tire pulling back onto the pavement, feel the swell of joy and relief at succeeding. There’s also a triumphant, orchestral flourish of horns and timpani’s in my mind, but, well, that’s just wishful, ornamental thinking. (Or is it? Wasn’t music like that born from emotion…)

When you make it through situations like that, the relief you feel at your destination is as good as anything. It makes you wanna cry. It’s like being five years old again and getting separated from your parents in a crowd. The rush of emotion when you reconnect puts you at ease, but also reinforces how scared you just were, why it matters, how fragile and lucky to be alive we all are.

I’ve experienced a similar emotion after almost crashing, when the bike started to skid into a death wobble on a deserted back road. I did everything I could and somehow it worked and I found myself in one piece, still on the bike instead of broken in a ditch. I pulled over to the side of the road, turned the engine off and removed my helmet. Feeling very small in a mystical world, I stared out at distant horizon, searching for a sign that I was really alive. I can still feel the wind on my cheek, see the blue sky, smell the tree sap and dust of the forest.

Those moments stay with you. The moments of intense fear don’t ingrain themselves as deeply as the moment you realize you’ve survived. That stuff sticks with you like a beard full of bubble gum. Maybe it’s a survival mechanism, maybe it’s common sense. There’s just nothing that makes you as happy to be alive as almost being dead.

Not Worth It

It’s a friend’s birthday party and they’re outside by the boats and the pinata debris.  I’m at the bar, waiting to order another Corona, when one of the waitresses runs in and says, “They’re fighting out there!”

The barback rushes outside and I follow, finding the biggest guy from our group being restrained. One of the girls is holding her swelling eyebrow. Another guy I’ve never seen before is being held back by strangers. How did this happen? How long had I been waiting to order? Two minutes?

“Little bitch!” Yells the new guy.

“Why don’t you come on to the public property here and say that?” Retorts our friend.

I help calm things down, another rotating referee pushing the boxers to their corners. I’m struck by how tall our friend actually is — he’s usually so docile. Trying to push him back, I’m craning my neck to see his enraged face, talking him out of steamrolling this interloper, who — it’s becoming clear — is really quite drunk, sluring his words and swaying around.

Staff from the bar take the inebriate by the elbows and guide him to the front exit. Our large friend is taken by his girlfriend and they go slowly down the grassy garden path of the public shoreline, presumably to a cab.

I talk to bystanders and members of our group, getting the skinny on how the fight started. The drunk-ass had come over and imposed himself on the birthday party. Our big friend told him to get away — probably not very nicely. Drunk-ass suddenly slapped our friend and then threw a wild punch that accidentally clocked a lady in the eyebrow.

Dumb.

As I’m leaving, the drunkard is still trying to get back into the bar.

I warm up the bike and roll over to one of the security guards. Stopping, I say: “Hey man, tell me to use some self-control right now.”

“What’s up?” he replies.

“That’s the dude that started a fight with my friend,” I say, pointing at dopey. “And it’s got me wanting to do some stupid shit.”

The security guard smiles and says, “Hey man, just ride your bike.”

That, I can do.

It’s a ride now, a carrot to pull this stubborn donkey away from the helmeted head-butt the instigator so richly deserves. I give him the stink eye as I roll past, but he’s too busy futilely attempting to blend in with the entrance line to notice.

As I pull onto the street, I feel the adrenaline making my left leg shake, the same way it does when I’ve taken a corner too hot. I remember the time I was riding out to Boonville and miss-read an uphill right that left me hugging the double-yellow and staring towards a downhill-moving produce truck. I corrected and rode on unscathed, but my left leg did an uncontrollable jackhammer impression for the next few miles. A little bit of adrenaline is a good thing. But a lot of it blinds you with rage and sets your muscles on a hair trigger.

We’ve examined in previous posts how there’s a thin line between being assertive and being a jerk. Too much rage will rob you of your ability to tell the difference. I’m proud of my friend for letting us talk him down. He could have pushed us aside and bull-dozed that guy. But, though the drunk seemed to deserve a pounding (or head-butt from me), my big friend didn’t deserve the consequences that would follow. Just like in the mobster movies when they say, “Tony! Tony! He’s not worth it!”

I certainly wasn’t about to trade a sunny afternoon motorbike ride through the hills of San Francisco for a conversation with a police officer. The sloppy slapper at the front entrance would get what was coming to him sooner or later. Or maybe not. Either way: fuck him — not worth my time.

The bike rolls through the the City and the world flows by like paper in the wind, pulling the rage away in layers that land next to the trash on the roadside. As I get to Haight street, I’m calm and collected again. I stop and talk with two friends outside of Aub Zam Zam, smiling, then meet up with folks at Murios. I get a hug from two gorgeous blondes that buy me a beer and give me a goat cheese BLT sandwich.

“I made the right choice,” I think, laughing to myself…

The back of the drunk’s shirt read: “Drink like you mean it!”

77.01

There’s a guy in a red polo shirt and radio headphones standing in front of a line of bikes. The jitters are creeping up. “Stay calm, stay calm,” I think, but I’m definitely not calm. People are watching, engines are roaring and I’m about to try going as fast as I can — at least it’s just in a straight line.

“The gas is on. The gas is on,” I tell myself as the mind runs over every checklist point again and again.

Three of us had ridden up earlier that day. Confused by the racing requirements, I’d worn a full leather suit and looked a little over dressed on my small cruiser. To get the best performance out of my little bike, I’d tightened and greased my chain, topped off the oil and checked my tire pressure. I’d removed the ammo-box-saddlebag from the side and purposefully ran low on gas during the ride up. After fueling up at the racetrack with about half a gallon of 100-octane racing fuel, I was ready to go. I just needed to know how to get in line. “Can you just lanesplit to the front?” Asks one of our group.

Looking at a line of cars, I ride over to a primer grey station wagon that was covered in stickers and asked  what the deal was.

“Well, this is technical, where they check us out,” says the driver. “It’s kind of a cluster fuck. It’s supposed to be one line but there’s too many of us. So, you know, wherever…”

Turns out the lanesplitting idea was more or less correct. I’m still waiting behind the station wagon when a group of bikes slips past. Once I get a little closer, the race tech waves me in with the other two-wheelers and gives me a form to fill out. The inspection consists of checking for a Snell sticker on my helmet and making sure the motorcycle has two wheels. After almost no talking, he takes out a white grease marker, draws the number 79 on my headlight and walks away.

Pulling around into the paddock, there are several lines of cars. I pull in behind the group of bikes. It’s mostly sportbikes and a few Harley’s. Amongst them: a Bandit, a GSX R, a CBR F4, a Harley Dyna Lowrider, and a souped-up Harley Sportser with a nylon strap holding down its front suspension.

My bike has less horsepower than anyone else. But at least I have more teeth than most…

I talk with the Dyna owner about what time he hopes to pull. Turns out my cute little dreams of hitting a hundred were pretty far-fetched. I had figured that if I could get to 50 mph on a single city block, I should be able to pull a bill in the quarter mile (the average reader will think, “Seems reasonable,” while the gear-heads are laughing). Telling the Dyna rider my aspirations, he points to the GSX R and says, “I don’t know man, he barely breaks a hundred.”

Checking out the different bikes, I walk up to the track staff standing in front of our group.

“Hey, sorry to bug you, but it’s my first time here,” I say. “How’s this work?”

“Well,” says an elderly and obviously bothered man. “You’ve got your different groups, there’s the sport, the uh, comp rods, the gear jammers — that’s the stick-shift cars — and the high-schoolers who’ll race the highway patrols.”

“Ok, but, I mean, when will we go?” I reply, pointing to the group of bikers.

“Hmm. Not sure,” he said. “But first, do you know what type of christmas tree you’ll be on?”

“Is this guy fucking with me?” I think (again, seems reasonable but the gear-heads are laughing). “Perhaps it’s some photo of every dragster they put together each December.” I imagine grainy photos glued to red construction paper, held to a large fake tree by pipe cleaners. “Nice.” But all I say in response is, “Nope.”

“See,” he says, pointing to the row of lights by two revving hotrods about to tear ass down the strip. “Well, it doesn’t help for you to watch this group because the lights are different for motorcycles. But, you see how there are two lights up top? That’s for positioning. You’ll see it when you get up there.

“With the cars, there are three yellows and then the green, see? But the motorcycles it’s just: yellow then go. All three yellow light up, then the green one.”

A few minutes later and we’re suited back up and the lights are blinking for motorcycles. “Stay calm,” I tell myself. “The gas is on.” I watch for the single yellow and then the green and… And then the guy on the Sportster drpps his bike. “Whew,” I think. “That really took the pressure off. I won’t be the biggest jerk out here today…probably.”

The 2005 Dyna Lowrider gets paired up against my 1987 Honda Rebel 450. We pull up to the line. First one positioning light comes on, then the next. A race attendant slaps down my visor. The Dyna pulls up and the positioning lights are all lit.

Yellows…Green!!!

The throttle twists. I see him fade back for a moment. Time to shift. Where’s the lever?! Looking…Looking down?! Ok, right, foot in place now. He’s still just to the left. I’ve got him! Tuck! Tuck! Shift! Twist! Throttle! The speedometer wobbles, springing around 80 as the wind screams and green hills streak by. He pulls away…

The race is over. We engine-brake up the hill and curve past the red and white striping of the curving race track. I’m actually on the same asphalt I once watched the superbike racers wheely down the hill. I lean hard, scraping a foot pet as I take the right turn and we zoom back down towards the paddock.

“All right, both of yah!” yells the lady in the little booth behind the track where we stop to get out times. “The speed limit on the return road is FIFTEEN!”

“Sorry,” I say as she hands over the print outs of our times. “Nobody told me anything. It’s my first time.” And then to the guy on the Harley, I ask: “Did you know?”

He just sort of grunts, passes over my time slip and rides away. I stuff the print-out into my glove as she waves an oversize fly swatter at me in warning, smiling, saying, “Do you see this?”

Riding back towards the line, the freedom of release after the nervous concentration washes over like a cool breeze. There hadn’t been time for much thought, it was just act, act, act. Looking back, I’m not even sure what had happened, what I had done. Had I really turned the throttle all the way? Why wouldn’t I have? Like an accident, only a few details remain.

When things move quick, we only get a couple memories. But sometimes we get a second try.

I let my right leg swing loose while I roll back to the line up…

Photo above by Jonathan Costello

Left: 2005 Harley Dyna Lowrider.  Right: 1987 Honda Rebel 450

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn…

On day three, one of the four riders packs up and high-tails it back to work.

The remaining three discuss a route home, say goodbyes to their gracious host, and head out. The stretch of Old Priest/Coulterville Road squiggles down the hills, narrowing to a single, but manageable lane.

Coulterville is adorable, a rusted iron and brick anachronism from the mining days.

Three riders head north… towards a burger stand in Jackson.

Here they find the best roads of the trip. Green rolling hills line a reservoir where Roger Rabbit had taken out his paint brush and drawn a curving road towards Toon Town, smooth as chocolate running down a hot spoon.

They pull onto the access road atop the dam. The water glistens and an old iron control house rusts on its pier.

Then things get cold, and trafficked… The bikes rumble behind slow cars and big rigs.

One rider pulls over to pick wild flowers for his nieces. Another grumbles.

At the intersection of Highways 4 and 88, the flower picker pulls over, offering to call the burger stand, make sure they’re open. The grumbling rider insists on moving forward.

Twenty minutes down the road, the burger stand is closed, but at least their bathroom is unlocked.

“I’m just going to say this once: I told you so,” says the flower plucker, laughing. “There, it’s out of my system.”

“I don’t really think that really qualifies as an ‘I told you so,’” says the grumbling rider.

Two people smile. One scowls.

“You guys wanna go back to that burger place in Pine Grove?” Asks your narrator.

And into the cold wind they ride again, back the way they came to a little burger stand with a few Harleys parked outside.

The little burger shack is warm and busy. It takes a while, but the burgers are delicious, and the fries are crunchy with a tasty, salt and pepper seasoning. If I’ve had a tastier burger, I don’t know when.

It occurs to me that a group ride is like a turn – it’s a compromise. A solo ride is like an open parking lot; you can go in any direction you choose. Or perhaps riding alone is like a straight away – you don’t have to discuss any decisions, just move forward. A turn restricts your options just like compromising with a group or a partner. A turn controls where you’re going. But you can still take the turn however you want: loose, bold, reserved, easy, hard, wide, tight, slow, fast – whatever works for you. Hell you can even high-side or low-side it if you really think you want to.

We take turns…leading, following.

Sometimes we do a good turn for others.

Sometimes we intentionally run off into a field, briars and barbed wire be damned.

Just before our planned stop in Sacramento, the grumbling biker breaks away. As the last two of us head home, I try signaling towards the Golden Gate rather than the Bay Bridge. The gesture results in a fist bump and, as I take the exit towards 37 West, I realize all too late it means we’re parting ways.

Sometimes we misread the situation and wind up cooking the corner accidentally.

Fighting the wind across the marshes, I stop to explore the sporadic exits off of highway 37, none of which lead anywhere unless you have an authorized vehicle (I swear one of these days I’m going to make a bunch of big stickers that say: “AUTHORIZED VEHICLE” and see where I can saunter…). The most heavily-blockaded road leads to Skaggs Island, a deserted army post from WWII I’ve been wanting to check out. I don’t feel comfortable going past this gate, but there’s supposedly a back entrance, too…

As the sun sets, I push on through the wind, eager to return home and go back to work. It’ll be nice to see everyone, to sleep in my own bed. Have to compromise in those situations, too…

“The world is a curve,” I think. You can go through it however you want, but you’re going to go through it. Turns out, if you’re generally  uptight, you’re probably uptight in the turns, too. So we try to loosen up and go with the flow, hoping the best for everyone, and we try to have fun in turns.

It’s your turn.

Take A Step Back

We woke up hungover the next day after two of us shivered in tents and two slept inside. We had talked about maybe going to Yosemite, maybe camping some place new, maybe going to Reno, maybe Thunder Valley. Now we were standing in a circle, debating our destination.

When the trip was initially proposed, we were going to spend a night camping outside Groveland and then ride backroads to Thunder Valley casino where a complimentary suite had been promised. Now one of the folks that got to sleep on a mattress the night before was saying that if we decided to go gambling, he would likely go home.

There was mumbling and grumbling, routes were proposed, then shot down. I was generally pushing for the casino — since that was the trip I had signed up for — but mostly I just wanted to get some riding in and stay somewhere new that night. Our friend had been really hospitable, letting us stay on his land, and he’s awesome to hang out with, but I wanted to see more, something new, wanted to round the trip out. I wanted to keep moving and wake up someplace different the next day.

We finally settled on riding down into Yosemite Valley, mostly because that’s what no one was vocally opposed to. I floated cruising through Yosemite and then continuing on to Reno or Thunder Valley. This idea was dismissed as too much riding for one day, especially since Tioga Pass was closed. I had trouble empathizing with that. I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut how long the ride is. I’ll ride all damn day. I’ll ride well into the night if I know there’s a hot shower waiting for me. Add a cheap steak, a free room and a chance to roll those laughing bones to win some chips, and that still sounds like a right fine time to me.

We had broken down our tents and now it seemed likely we would get to set them back up again later. Oh, joy. I hustled to pack my bike, but I was definitely wound up in my head, grumping around and probably visibly upset. Seems I’d forgotten all about my vedge-out-and-go-plant-mode insight from the night before.

Yeah, now I was very un-plant-like, searching frantically for alcohol wipes to take a back-woods mini-shower with. But there was nothing in my brand-new first-aid kit but burn cream. Jesus! I’ve taken an active interest in first-aid since my teens and I’m still amazed that burn cream keeps showing up! Every first-aid instructor I’ve had has said to ignore that stuff and just wrap burns in a sterile bandage, and yet every damn first-aid kit is stuffed with that shit like a spawning salmon full of roe while my dumb, hungover, under-rested ass fishes around for an alcohol wipe, just dreaming of taking a whore’s bath next to a bucket full of poop and sawdust in a homesteader’s makeshift toilet area, while I wonder where all this damn burn cream keeps coming from and why there’s no goddam alcohol wipes and why someone came along on a casino-bound motorcycling trip trip only to complain about gambling and riding too far!!!

Then I saw the baby wipes sitting next to the outdoor toilet.

Man, those little alcohol-soaked cotton napkins sure can be a game changer. A few minutes later I had wiped myself down and changed my socks and drawers. After throwing a little baby powder downstairs and brushing my teeth, I was feeling fresh as a daisy.

Now, feeling at least physically content, I could acknowledge a more rational part of myself that said, “Hey man, what’s the real problem here? You’re getting upset that you’re about to go ride motorcycles with friends in Yosemite? Really? Dude, take a step back. It’s going to be fine. In fact it’s probably going to be great.”

So we rode into the Yosemite Valley. I thought I had maybe been there before, but as soon as we got to the first Half Dome overlook, I knew that I hadn’t. I would have remembered that. That is one breath-taking, majestic valley, well deserving of preservation. In fact, we’re lucky to even get to ride through it, lucky it isn’t restricted to foot traffic only.

We swept down into the valley, booming through amazing tunnels hewn from the living rock. We were forced to stop several times for road work, but were serendipitously blessed with colossal views of granite and pine trees — so many far away pines trees, each like a needle, covering a mountain like it was a tree. As we rode through the valley and past Yosemite Falls, I couldn’t help but stare at the water floating down from the cliff, colliding at different angles on the sheer stone face, framed in my view by lodgepole pines and lush, blooming wild flowers. Suddenly a motion ahead — DEER!

A young animal bounced across the road in front of the Range Rover ahead. I was suddenly on alert, tense and scanning. There to my right were two more deer pondering a jaunt over the asphalt. I locked eyes with the closest one. His facial expression seemed to say: “What?”

We parked near the Yosemite Village and strolled out to the falls. It was almost a hike, but the paved foot path prevents me from calling it that, exactly. Families and tourists were everywhere, climbing on felled trees, bickering, laughing, pedaling rental bikes, crying, yelling, burping, standing around confused. If I go back, it will most likely be in the winter…

But it was worth it — all the grumbling over which route to take, all the waiting in traffic, all the screaming children in the gift store. After climbing over and onto the boulders at the base of the falls, sweating, hot in the California sunshine, shirtless, the mist of the falls tingled on the skin. I was just an animal again, content and lucky to be in such a remarkable setting.

And again, tomorrow was far, far away.

Be Fluid, Bird

A student wanted a lesson on his own scooter, so I rode my sport bike down to the large parking lot we teach in. After the lesson, I took my bike through the same exercises I have students do. Trying to “walking the walk” as well as advance my control of a “hard-to-ride-it-slow” race rocket.

It was tough, especially the circle exercises, which revealed where I wasn’t really engaging the bike. I’ve done it on our student bikes — a 250 Nighthawk, scooter, a KLX 250 — plenty of times. I’ve never dropped any of the aforementioned bikes, but this time I had the pleasure of picking up a 400 lb sport bike…twice.

When trying to balance all the controls, there’s a point when the sensory input becomes overwhelming. You’re trying to balance, trying to stay loose but firm, work the clutch and the throttle, maintain a steady speed, look through the pattern and (perhaps most importantly) remember to breathe.

And that’s about where we tend to naturally freeze up. The signals get crossed in the brain and, though you think you’re slipping the clutch and revving the throttle, all you’re really doing is holding your breath tighter and tighter. And then you get to pick up the bike.

In between the exercises, I ripped around the parking lot, experimenting with acceleration and aggressive braking. I got the front wheel in the air a little bit and had a lot of fun skidding out the rear (surprisingly easy). It’s important to unwind, get the breathing back. You can’t just bang your head against a wall and expect to improve. Understanding is attained like a coat of paint: you can’t lay it on too thick and it needs time to dry. Wipe the sweat from your brow, relax, and let it sink in.

After enough was enough, I took Market Street home, cruising up Twin Peaks on the way, hitting the turns fluidly, though perhaps too fast for the other traffic. (One of the great things about this blog is that I’m able to look back and see the ways I’ve been reckless. We get worked up in the actual moment, making poor decisions seem totally reasonable at the time. Hopefully I’ll learn to ride like less of an inconsiderate jerk and maybe even get to live a little longer.)

As I rode around freely, I could feel how the hard focus of the exercises had really loaded my mind into a riding-motorcycles mentality. I was “in the zone” as they say. I thought of the moments when had I clamped up. The fact is, with riding, you’re always steering, always responsible for where you’re going and how you get there — whether you’re in control or not. The same is true of other motorsports, as well as kiting and boardsports. I sometimes call these all “flow sports.”

And I thought: “How fluid is a bird? It doesn’t stop flying momentarily because it was thinking about something. It doesn’t clamp up and forget to breath. It just keeps flying.” That’s how really good riding feels. Like walking or running — or like a bird in flight — the actions are so ingrained that you don’t even think about them. You stay focused on where you’re going and how you’ll get there. The rest just follows, thought turning into action without delay.

In that sort of a mind set, you’re fluid, like a bird. And that, after all, is how Charlie Parker got his nickname…

Stay Calm

Sometimes you just need a ride to keep yourself sane. Like the sticker says: “For some there’s therapy. For the rest of us there’s motorcycles.”

Riding clears the mind, kind of like a forced meditation. You’re too busy facing to the challenge of riding, and riding well, to let your thoughts be occupied by the trivialities of life. Bills, significant others, work, health, hopes, dreams all fall to the back of consciousness. The ride takes over.

When its done right, there aren’t words scrolling through your head, there’s just the imagination of the next lean, the next throttle adjustment. You not worried about what’s for dinner or where you’re going to stop for gas. You’re just a part of the wind, rolling above the road or gliding across the sea.

When things go wrong, there’s surprisingly little thought that happens. The proper path is simply clear and the response flows out of you like a breadth. It’s no so much that you don’t freak out or stay calm as much as you do what needs to be done, you ride. If you do it it right, you’ll narrowly escape death and it won’t even raise your pulse until afterwards.

On Saturday I needed a ride but didn’t have much time, so I pointed the cmx450 Rebel towards Muir Beach. After passing through Mill Valley, I began winding my way to Highway 1. I was leaning through the “15 mph” hairpin turn at Loring Ave, doing about 25 mph, really into it and feeling the curve, when a young buck trotted out right in front of me.

I would tell you what my thought process was, but there weren’t really any thoughts. The throttle rolled off, the lean relaxed and the deer clopped by. I know that it was me that slowed and straightened the bike, but my most conscious recollection is watching the fluffy white posterior bounce down into the creek and thinking: “Whew, that was close.”

I rode down to Muir Beach and when I can back, I found the same deer, fuzzy young antlers and all, munching creekside. Kids today…