50 miles into the Sunday ride there was just general dampness. Around 75 miles in tiny bits of moisture began locking together. And then when the trip meter hit 100, I felt the first bead of sweat roll out of my helmet, down the back of my neck and go straight into the top of the leathers. Perspiration had began in earnest just as the temperature gauge on the bike began to reach its upper limits. Looking down the long straight away towards the horizon line, where the road and the mountains became one, I could see waves of heat rising off the tarmac. What had been a cool, overcast and nearly coastline like morning was gone.

I thought, ‘Welcome to the Summer riding season in SoCal’.

Feeling more then a tad bit dehydrated at that point and with a not so youthful ache emanating from my wrists, I dialed the throttle back and began searching for a place to pull over. Between the heat and the amount of time spent on the bike this morning, I needed to take a break.

And as I tossed the 1098S up on its sidestand, it occurred to me that I was just about to do something that I haven’t been able to do in quite sometime - just take a moment to enjoy ‘being somewhere’ instead of ‘doing something’. I’m sure that this seems like a small, nearly negligible difference and frankly I’m not even sure if it makes a great deal of sense, but the reality is that there has been so much motion in my life lately that the idea of standing on the side of the road and just existing seemed nearly incomprehensible.

So I pulled over and just stood there… and waited… and watched. Had a few smokes, took some pictures, and just listened to the nothingness that sits in the middle of The Cleveland National Forrest. Every so often the sound of a bike or a car or a few birds announced their eventual arrival, but for the better part of fifteen to twenty minutes the vacuum of movement played a wind swept song of solitude. And it was great. Because there I was taking in the classic California scenery, watching life go by and marveling at the beauty and performance of the 1098S.

Having now put just about 600 miles on the bike (300+ this weekend), I feel like I’m finally starting to get to know the machine. From the outside it’s pure magic and when you first fire it up, it acts contemporary but not unruly. Yet deep inside the machine lurks something that’s down right evil. Something nasty. It is not like the 999 at all. There is a danger with this bike that goes beyond normal riding concerns. Everything about it demands total focus and control. From the front brake to the throttle, everything is faster and more powerful and conversely can get you into trouble quicker if you’re not on top of your game.

Initially, when I first threw down a deposit on the 1098S, I thought of it not as a revolution, but rather an evolution of the Ducati Superbike. It seemed to inherit the great genes of the past, from Taglioni to Tamburini to Terblanche and now Domenicali and Fabbro. But I was completely wrong. It is a revolution in every way, offering those who ride it a target locked fixation on the absolute threshold of the performance envelope. And I couldn’t be happier to have picked one up…

More Picts after the jump…