Took MotorMilt’s ‘04 out for a spin today - he’s been laid up with a knee injury for the past few weeks and I figured it was probably a good idea to run his 9 for a bit just to get the juices flowing. For some reason I have this image in my mind that if you leave a Duc sitting for to long it’ll never kick over again and even though the bike has been sitting on a tender, I just don’t have the greatest confidence in the battery. So I was a definitely relieved when it fired right up this morning.

Riding someone else’s bike is an odd experience. Generally I don’t do it very often which is perhaps the reason I felt a bit strange while I was heading up the coast on MotorMilt’s ride. When he and I have switched bikes in the past, it’s been for brief periods of time and usually because one of us thinks something is out of whack with their bike. One of those ‘does this feel funny to you?’ moments.

Today was an altogether different ride. I was on his bike all morning. Riding it for an extended amount of time for the first time.

I found myself thinking about him and how he’s not able to ride right now. I also was very conscious about being extra careful because the idea of dropping or screwing up your buddies bike somehow seems a great deal worse than fuck’n up your own bike. No idea why that is… Finally I was struck by the realization that even though I’ve been riding a bit more frequently by myself lately, that if I’m out on his bike that means I better get used to the idea of riding solo…

I guess over time I’ve just gotten comfortable with the idea that he’s always back there, riding right behind me. I suppose there’s an illusion of safety involved. Obviously logically when it comes to a potential accident there’s not much that he - or anyone else riding behind you - can do but watch. But emotionally it’s always nice to know he’s back there and today I guess I realized that if I was out on his bike that meant that he wasn’t out there with me nor going to be anytime soon.

On the flipside, riding his bike was a hoot. It’s amazing to me how different his ‘04 feels compared to my ‘05. I’m not talking looks here, but rather how two basically identical motorcycles can physically feel so different. When you go buy a new Honda, they all act and feel the same. Not so much with the Ducati’s as it turns out. I suspect this is because of the differences in how both bikes were set up. I’ve never own anything that required so much fine-tuning. It’s just amazing to me.

The final observation from the ride was temperature. MotorMilt’s got a Sergeant seat on his 999 and I have to say that while I don’t particularly like how I feel seated on it (he loves it fwiw), I found that the seat seriously cuts down on the amount of heat that you feel on your bum from the engine. Today was also one of those days when the difference in temperature between being in the canyons or by the coast was simply amazing. It was 84 degrees in the canyons with clear skies and no breeze while it was 60 degrees according to the temp gauge by the ocean with the kind of cloudy skies that make you think it’s still 5am when it’s noon already. I went from freezing to sweating to freezing in a matter of minutes in places. Amazing how so much can change in such a short period of time and distance.

Here some other picts from the ride…