Ride On

Fifty Rides began as a feeling — partially forgotten scenes of sunsets and curving roads rushing back as I prepared to part with my first motorcycle. So many rides had gone by, most with good stories and personal insights. It seemed a shame they hadn’t been recorded better.

So, I challenged myself to journal fifty rides in fifty weeks.

Over the next year the Fifty Rides blog recorded my rides on motorcycles, bicycles, kitesurf boards and one train, preserving the insights and routes. But it did more than that…

Getting fifty rides was no problem. The challenge was gleaming insights worth sharing, remembering them, and taking time to synthesize them into well-written essays.That struggle forced me to be brutally honest. I couldn’t hide away personal thoughts because I needed material to finish the project. So I confronted addiction, anger, friendship, parenting, questioning the ride and myself.

People connected with that openness and told me so. The material was frightening to release, but readers — friends, family and strangers on the internet — identified with the struggles I revealed. I had tried to share my unique insights but instead was reminded how much we all have in common.

Now the goal is to print Fifty Rides as a book, delivering that honesty to new people, hopefully spurring conversation and informational exchange. While the writing touches on the technical aspects of riding, it also examines how the lessons from a physical discipline radiate out into the rest of life. In this way it is accessible not only to motorcyclists, bicyclists or kitesurfers, but to anyone that enjoys a good ride and is trying to figure this dang life situation out.

The kickstarter campaign “Fifty Rides” can be found at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1166346450/fifty-rides

Printing the book will make it something that can be passed from rider to rider physically, not a website that someone means to read when they get a chance, but something that can be physically gifted. Perhaps they’ll find themselves alone with it at a cafe or a campsite.

So what do you say? Tuck a book in your saddlebag and let’s go on a ride.

One Last Time

What did the snail say while riding the turtle?

                               Weeeeee!

—

Trees are breezing by while old-fashioned calliope music plays. I’m riding a wooden horse in a room that smells like an antique store, musty, dusty and loved. Looking up, giant rafters spin by and bent metal poles crank the horses up and down. My date sits side-saddle (“like a lady should,” she keeps joking) in a white, wide-brimmed hat and a lovely blue sun dress.

I’ve been on worse rides.

We walk over to Haight street in the fog and wait for the bus. And that’s when life springs an unexpected last ride.

The 71 Haight-Noriega comes wheezing down the street. It may seem silly, but this is kind of a big deal. After decades of service, MUNI just recently discontinued the 71 line, replacing it with the 7, 7R and 7X routes.

“Yeah, it hasn’t been programmed yet,” says the bus driver when I tell him how excited I am to be riding a 71 still.

A block later, a MUNI street technician waves and says, “Hey, you know your sign still says 71?”

“Yeah,” sighs our driver. “They need to program it. I’m done at 8 so they’ll do it then.”

It’s sad to think that I’ll never ride the 71 again. It’s odd that I’m filled with the same nostalgia for a bus route that I felt when I sold my first motorcycle. But it’s a part of my life that — though far from perfect — I’ll remember fondly, identify with. The 71 used to wake me up sometimes when I lived on 47th Ave. That was my first apartment in San Francisco and the bus ran right past it.

The 71 took me to work countless times when I bartended in the Tenderloin. I don’t buy that “Mid-Market Corridor” label they’re pushing, by the way. That shit is the Loin, the greasy guts of the city spilling out onto main street. I still remember when they switched the bus stops to the edge of Market street instead of the islands, letting us off in front of Kaplan’s Military Surplus store.

As we approach Market, I notice the route isn’t the same. The 71 used to turn left as it headed downhill, wiggling onto Page street before it crossed Market. If I was transferring to the 49 at Van Ness, I could tell when it was time to stop reading and get my gear together by the turn. It had to be a really good book for the jerking lean of the curve to go unnoticed.

Today the bus just goes straight down Haight. There’s also no homeless dogs slobbering on my shoes, no hustlers running three-card monte scams either. It’s just not the same. The Last 71 gets us downtown faster than usual, though. I guess it really is the 7 now. This leaves time to ride the carousel at the Yerba Buena Center before it closes.

This gleaming white carousel spins faster and has some cool animals, including a blue griffon on the front of a cart that I insist on riding. Instead of the lush vegetation of Golden Gate Park, the scenery outside is glass high-rises and a tech dude filming a podcast. Though it’s housed in a fancy, new steel building, this merry-go-round is actually quite old. Built in Rhode Island in 1906, it moved from various west coast locations, being miraculously spared from fire several times.

Next we ride the F line out to Pier 39 for the third and final spin of the day. This carousel is a two-story plastic monstrosity set in the middle of a tourist trap. But it does have scenes of San Francisco painted on its fancy side. And it does have a panda on the top level. It also wins for music, playing a dramatic score reminiscent of a Star Wars fight scene. Most harrowing merry-go-round ever.

As we discuss our fantastic, three-out-of-three carousel day, the Last 71 keeps coming up. Maybe its the sentimentality, but that bus trip actually felt like a ride. It stirs that sense of life and — like I’ve said before — you just know when you’ve been on a ride.

Maybe a ride is something we decide for ourselves. A carousel ride isn’t really that spectacular when you think about it. You go in a circle a few times. If you’re on one of the moving animals, you go up and down a bit. But so what? Why is it so fun and memorable? Is it the pretty little scenes painted on the side? Is it the lights and sparkles? Or is it a ride simply because we choose to enjoy it?

We let a merry-go-round become more than the sum of its parts. Our imagination turns a wooden horse into a trusty steed, a few circles into an adventure. It helps to have good company, too, someone that laughs, makes funny faces and sits side-saddle — or backwards! When we choose to open our hearts and minds to the fun of it all, it’s then that we really get to go for a ride.

There were little moments I opened up like that on the 71 over the years and they come rushing back. Cold and hungry, returning home with friends after a day in the park. Disgusted by smelly homeless feet, looking away to find an hilariously bad tattoo (yeah sure, dude, it says “LA #1” if you hold your arm up, but most of the time, that shit’s just upside-down). Tired after a day’s work but watching the city breeze by, seeing what wacky weirdos wash in the door. There was always a choice between being stuck on a bus or being on a bus ride. I can see that now — now that the route is gone, now that I can’t take that ride again.

It’s like they say, we just don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone. But we keep getting new chances, new choices. Wherever you’re going, whatever you’re doing, go for a ride.

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.

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

Every Day Big Deal

 The knife had his blood on it when he handed it back.

Wading in the Yuba river, I curse the ground squirrels that stole our leftover pizza. Strangely, this is what upsets me the most. I’m smoking a cigar and trying to climb a large slippery rock. It’s too round and I slip down into the water, struggling to keep my head and the Cohiba dry.

He had flown by when we stopped to check our tire pressure. He downshifted, almost skidding out in his black, backwoods custom truck. I gave him a slight heads up knod, noticed his dog.

Soon ashes would rain down on us outside of Truckee. The smoke would blot out the sun.

We had come around the downhill turn, dust lingering in the turn-out from some fast vehicle in front of us. Something was in the far lane. It spread into our lane. It was a wreck. Stop. Stop now. Don’t skid out. Just use the rear brake once you leave the pavement. The dog, a grey pitbull, standing outside of the upsidedown truck in the middle of the road.

Little fish nip at my leg hair as I sit on a rock and talk with my friend.

“If we hadn’t stopped to check our tire pressure…” I start.

“We never would’ve known that happened,” he finishes. “He almost crashed into us. If he had been going faster then…”

“We wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

I had started to take my helmet off, looking both ways as I stepped into the road. Part of me said,  “Keep it on.” I still couldn’t see the driver. There was a cement truck stopped down the hill.

I ran around and hopped over the guard-rail. “Talk to me, man!”

“I need — I need to get out of here!” Glass was stuck in his shin, legs sticking out of the window.

Engine noises. Was he cranking the engine? Had he just turned it off?

“Stay calm! You’re going to be all right. How do you feel? Are you hurt?”

“I need to cut my seatbelt and get out of here!”

My hand went for my knife but my friend was next to me with an open pocket knife. His was faster, maybe sharper. I handed it up.

I watch the river swell between two large stones. The current forms a V, rippling out into turbulence downstream. I throw in the cigar butt and watch it float over stones and around felled tree trunks.

He crawled out of the truck, blood and glass on his left hand and arm. He seemed shaken up but fine. I ran up the hill and began flagging traffic. My friend went down hill and did the same. A man I never spoke to helped in the middle, stopping cars, letting one side through, then the other. We held our positions for about half an hour. Twice I started getting a little worked up but remembered to go to a good place, mentally. And she is beautiful.

The sun beats down as dragonflies cruise through the canyon. I’m unscratched, even after a silly slip on a rock. I could have skidded out on the doggie kibble and wound up in a meat wagon. But, no, instead I’ll party in South Lake Tahoe that night and in the morning I’ll ride home hungover. I’ll even make it to work just barely on time despite Highway 50’s closure due to fire.

We had left after the fire department and police arrived. No one had asked us anything. “Thanks for helping out,” said one cop. Besides that, it was almost like we weren’t even there. We rode downhill less than five minutes when a large parking lot and sign promised river access.

And here we are amongst the sun-bleached granite, soaking in cool mountain water, fresh as daisies. We are alive and it’s amazing. Incredibly, improbably, amazing.

I’m also pretty hungry and the damned ground squirrels stole our lunch.

Time Travel

Still excited about the new bike, I asked my friend to do a short morning ride before work. He showed up and was still so stoked about the parts on his new bike that he hardly said anything about the orange rocket I was standing next to.

We took off and snuck around Twin Peaks on residential streets through Saint Francis Wood, passing cars whenever we could. We cut over to Geneva from Ocean and rode out to Bayshore, stopping by 7 Mile House for a moment to adjust things and throw out a leaky water bottle.

After that we headed south and turned onto Guadalupe Canyon Parkway. This is a strange road that curves out of the Bayview district, pops up and over the San Bruno mountains, and ends in up Daly City as East Market. It’s a little bit of mountain riding right on the edge of the City. With sweeping banked turns, down hill straightaways, and wide double lanes, it’s a great place to go open up the throttle.

At the bottom we decided to go to Wyatt Earp’s grave, mere minutes away in Colma. Winding past Lucky Chances Casino, we took the long way, looping around the speckled green cemeteries. In the Hills of Eternity, we searched for the final resting place of the famous lawman, card-dealer, gold-miner and pimp. Wyatt Earp was an alcoholic, so we poured a little coffee on his grave once we found it.

Wandering around, we looked at the names on stones from the 1800s. There was more than one man with the first name of “Wolf.” We could see the 280 freeway from the hill we stood on, but our thoughts (at least mine) were in another time. We all get so set in our little day-to-day routines, it’s easy to forget that a little left or right here or there can take us a world away. We can spend an hour going down the same old road. Or that little morning ride can take us through the mountains and back in time.

(The epitaph reads: “…That nothing is so sacred as honor and nothing so loyal as love!”)