It was already 71º outside and it was only 7:20 in the morning when I found myself scoring Schueren Road east to west. In minutes - which felt like fractions of a second - I had intersected Saddlepeak Road and swung inland. Beneath me was one hell of a roaring rocketship of a motorcycle and it felt destined to come out to play today.

Overnight it seemed the 999 found its groove. All on its own. Corners that acted cruel yesterday were suddenly rock solid. The bike simply was gliding from corner to corner in one seamless fluid motion. As I made my way across the Santa Monica Mountains it was as if there was nothing I could do to disturb it. Nothing that was going to hold the bike back. By the time I hit the 180º hairpin corner that begins the downhill portion of Saddlepeak it was clear that today was going to be flat out fantastic.

Among the early morning motionless confines of these spectacular canyon walls the bike felt firmly planted in the here and the now. I wish it always felt like this. It was living for one particular moment in time. Today. And it was building it’s own foundation for my personal riding fantasyland. With clear roads and stunning skies this was the day that made up for all the extracurricular non-riding crap that walks among us on a daily basis. For the first time this year I felt in control of where I was headed and more importantly where I wanted to go.

It was simply beautiful.

By the time I hit The Rockstore just before 8 AM the hard early morning sunrise built shadows were just about gone and the world felt like one gigantic playground. I haven’t felt this kind of glory in quite some time. It’s a magical experience when all the various components that make up our riding landscape converge. The kind of fantasy that makes you believe that you can manipulate the bike in any which way and get it to go. And by go I mean, go…

Sometimes I wonder what it is about speed that holds such a mass appeal. Is it the danger? The excess? The illegality? The wind shooting over and around the windscreen? What’s the rush? What part of core humanity does it speak to?

Getting on the bike after breakfast I continued to mull it over as I headed west and took Mulholland to Encinal Canyon Road. In my opinion Encinal is the best of the westside SoCal canyons to truly let a bike out on. With a collection of wide open sweepers that cascade from one to another it’s far less technical than Decker or the various segments of Mulholland and in a mere 5 miles it elevates 1,410 feet while showcasing the Pacific Coast in all its grandeur. In many ways it is the motorcycle equivalent of a slalom course.

Hitting the coast for the first time in several hours I found myself incapable of heading home. It was still way to early to leave so like a ten year old at a video arcade I just kept hanging out.

Just down the road from Encinal is Decker Canyon and it’s a wickedly tight jutting cross-section of curvature. It’s impossible to get on the throttle hard, instead it’s all about leaning the bike and holding your line. The road and the area are named after the Decker clan who claimed the land under the 1862 Homestead Act. Originally they held over 160 acres and were one of the few local inhabitants at the turn of the century to withstand the first wave of millionaire money. Starting in the mid-1890s some folks called the Rindge family started buying up various pieces of real estate in the area and eventually nearly owned all of Malibu. But the Deckers held out and thanks to that the most western portion of California Route 23 is now called Decker Canyon Road.

Today this glorious road was beyond magnificent. With my heart pounding and the bike built up on belief, each turn became a singular battle for supremacy. It didn’t take long to ditch the rush for speed and instead focus on finding each individual corners soul. That place hidden deep within a curve that tells you how far you can push it. How far you can lean. It’s the part of the corner that looks you in the eye and fights back. The part that so often makes you back down – because you know if you take it to defcon the corner will win and you won’t make it. Yet today normally resounding feeling was completely elusive. It was scattered among thousands of revolutions that growled back. If any one of these tiny battles had been a streetfight the 9 was acting like the guy who throws down first.

As I headed outbound on the western portion of Mulholland and then eventually took the coast home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that today was the perfect ride. It was an early morning fantasy. I imagine that everyone who rides yearns for a perfect ride and I suspect that for most folks this desire requires a thousand mile plus journey or a trackday or perhaps a deeply meaningful rational or reason to go from one place to another. Yet today was the perfect ride and had nothing to do with all of these assorted trappings. Somehow the combination of the weather, the roads, the bike and the unique personal space I found myself inhabiting all managed to align and it was without a doubt the best ride of the year thus far.

Some more picts of the ride;