Wow, I’ve been waiting for a weekend like this for what seems like forever. With picture perfect weather and fantastic road conditions, I hit the canyons for some much needed R&R. Only as it turns out while everything seemed set up for a perfect day of riding - I wasn’t up to the task. For some reason even though I felt very proficient in my riding, I just could stop thinking about non-riding stuff. From time to time this happens to me, but rarely. Usually the second I get on the bike the rest of life just magically fades away. Not today as it turns out. So even though I was able to rack up another hundred and twenty plus miles on the ‘05, it all went by in a blur. By the time I got home I felt exhausted, but not chilled out.

The dubious highlight of my lack of focus occurred just past the intersection of Kanan-Dune and the PCH when I was on my way back home. I was rolling along in the fast lane, doing around 57 mph in a 50 mph zone at the head of a small wave of traffic. There were probably ten cars behind me and as the group of us passed Geoffrey’s (a rather overpriced restaurant with a beach view imho) I was so lost in my thoughts that I never even saw the cop sitting on his motorcycle in the shadows. Suddenly I hear the sirens and look in my rear view mirrors. Damn it. I’m nailed. So I carefully make my way over to the shoulder and pull off. Kill the bike, start to unstrap my helmet. When I look up and watch the copy pass by me and pull over one of those non-descriptive super miniaturized sub-compacts. Quickly I start looking around. This really can’t be happening. At this point I’m pretty sure that the cop is going to tell the sub-compact to head on their way and walk back to me so he can write me up. But then he starts pulling out his ticket book for the sub-compact. Not being one to argue I quickly get back on the road, feeling like by virtue of getting off on the shoulder I’ve implied that I knew I broke the speed limit. With Even though my wrist and lower back feel shot at this point, I knew that Latigo Canyon was coming up on my left. So I quickly turn off and get on the gas and get the hell out of dodge figuring that if that the cop was going to come after me he wouldn’t follow me up into the canyons.

The good news from this little escapade is that I ended up breaking 1,900 miles on the bike. So that’s pretty cool. Downside is that I was clearly not dialed in and that scares the shit out of me. I’m always harping about how much focus you need to ride and clearly today I didn’t have it. Worse I don’t even feel like the angst of the week ever got worked out. I feel just as ampped up right now as when I left and that sucks.

Here some picts from the Ride: