Today’s ride was absolutely glorious. For much of the morning I felt like I was perpetually stuck in that wonderful moment when you’re slowly waking up after sleeping in on a quiet morning. Strange analogy I know, principally because it sounds greatly unsafe. Yet this morning ebbed and flowed in the most unlikely of manors. I started out feeling rather unsure of myself since I’ve been under the weather for the past few days. It’s funny how when you’ve had a head cold just getting back to normal can feel out of whack.
Unlike most days when MotorMilt & I go for a ride I didn’t feel like pushing it early in the ride. Instead we took a rather roundabout way to breakfast, ambling up the coast much farther then we normally do and then cutting over the Santa Monica Mountains at Latigo Canyon Road. I’ve written a number of times about Latigo before, but almost exclusively from a downhill perspective. That is we rarely take it west to east. The vast majority of our time we’re going in the opposite direction. Yet this morning, by taking going uphill it felt completely new and fresh. It has always fascinated me how a road that you know and love can alter so much simply by turning around and on no day has that been more true then this morning. It simply felt unknown and I don’t know if there’s a better feeling in the world for a motorcyclist.
As we headed up Latigo, I found myself still working my way into the morning. I didn’t feel tired, but I also didn’t feel jazzed. I was simply there on the bike, being proficient but also not out of this world either. Throw in what seemed like a high percentage of bicycle riders swaying into the middle of the lane coupled with an excess of debris and if you had asked at that point whether or not I was going to enjoy the ride, I would have told you that this felt more like a ‘get through it safely’ ride.
Then MotorMilt and I stopped for a break.
After getting off the bike and turning around it was impossible not to see what a glorious day it was. Just what a magnificent morning we had in store for us. The temperature was perfect, not to hot and not to cold. The normally hot running 999 wasn’t making me sweat to death, but rather adding just enough warmth to the ride to make me feel like a BMW heated hand grip was wrapping around my entire body. The sky was brilliantly clear. Not a cloud in the sky. The sun, which at times during Southern California winters can seem to hit at very low angles, for some reason seemed higher. Or atleast less noticable. There just seemed to be to many great elements to not have a wonderful ride.
After we finished our smokes and got back on the bikes, we headed down the rest of Latigo and popped on to Kanan on our way to the Agoura Deli. As most of you know, it’s one of our usual hang outs on the weekends. A couple of cups of coffe later and by the time we got back outside after breakfast I felt like a new person. I drink so much damn coffee on an average day I rarely feel a caffeine kick. Yet from that point forward through the rest of the ride I felt like I was on a riding rush. Don’t know if it was the caffeine or not, but I liked it.
There really aren’t adjective to describe the second half of the ride. Both MotorMilt & I seemed energized in a much different way. We took Kanan over to Encinal where the traffic was extremely light and it felt like we had the entire canyon to ourselves. At the ‘T’ stop sign around the halfway point on Encinal we shoot over to Decker Canyon and took that down to the coast. As the roads kept going and going, we kept riding and riding. I was suddenly becoming more and more intune with the bike. Suddenly shifts were getting smoother, braking was becoming more synchronous with the rest of my actions and the momentum of the ride was picking up. When we got to coast for some reason I just knew that the ride wasn’t over. Normally once we hit the PCH we tend to head back towards LA. However this morning without saying a word, just by looking at MotorMilt I knew that we had to keep riding. Again, there just seemed to be to much good karma to ignore. So in a highly unusual move for us, we then didn’t stick to the PCH, but rather shoot back up the adjacent dogleg part of Encinal. Thus ending up back at the ‘T’ intersection. Peeling off to the right we headed south once again. Right about then I was starting to feel the effects of canyon carving on my right hand wrist. Sportbikes put you in a rather leaned over position after all. So as we were flying down Mullhulland, past the big look out point and through the curvey sections above The Rockstore I realized that since we were heading by it we may as well stop. In all the years that I’ve been riding with Milt, I don’t think we’ve ever stopped at both the Deli and The Rockstore on the same day. Maybe it’s the holiday nature of this weekend or just the fact that we were both warming up, but it almost felt like we were riding our normal canyon speeds at a vaccation pace. I don’t know if that makes any sense or not, but I simply didn’t feel any of the normal time constraints or work related issues at that point. It was all about the ride.
Pulling over at The Rockstore, we picked up another cup of joe (surprising I know) and just hung out for a bit. I suspect they ran out of Bud Light since the six person RUB Harley gang that was drinking in the parking lot bounced pretty quickly after we arrived. Five minutes later the first of about a half dozen Ducati motorcycles showed up for the morning. It didn’t seem like a group, but rather a bunch of small batches of riders. The first one rolled up on a brand new 999R Fila edition - had the whole racing sticker set and the matching leathers. Was quite a bike to see up close. The Fila guy was quickly followed by another race oriented group of two riders. One had a 999S in racing trim with a Ducati Austin sticker set. I’m sorry I didn’t get a pict of the bike because the Ducati Austin racing trim was much cooler looking. Whoever’s bike it was had done a number of mods - new clutch cover, rear sets, mirrors, carbon fibre everywhere, etc. - but the best part was that he had a black coat of paint (or sticker set, I don’t know which) running down the underside of the fairing. Seriously cool with the Ducati Red paint scheme. This of course got me thinking about sticker sets for my bike, but that’s for another blog entry.
After The Rockstore, the rest of Mullhulland was an absolute blast. I feel like I’m repeating myself here, but it really felt like we had the entire canyon to ourselves. There were a few motorcycles heading in the opposite direction, but the roads were basically clear of traffic and very few mountain climbers or hikers walking down the side of the road. It was just so damn empty that at times it felt like we were lost when I knew exactly where we were. Crossing over Las Virgines we continued going on Mullhulland until we hit Old Topanga and then Topanga which we took to the coast.
Once we hit the coast we were ten or at the most fifteen miles from home and yet I couldn’t stop feeling like there was more riding to do. Seldom do we spend almost five hours whipping around in the canyons and shooting the shit at breakfast to end up feeling like the ride has just begun. It was simply one of those days magnificent and glorious days when it all comes together at it’s own pace, in it’s own time. What a wonderful way to spend the holidays.
Here’s some picts from the ride:
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