This afternoon I was able to steal a few of hours and get a ride in during the late afternoon and early evening. Heading up the PCH, I was only a few miles into the ride when I started to notice what a difference a few hours can make. On a normal weekend ride I tend to hit the road by 8 am at the latest, but today was unusual because I had to work for a bit during the early morning and I didn’t get to hit the road until around 3 pm.
Immediately it was apparent that the level of traffic was seriously increased at this hour of the day. With more automotive traffic of course comes more people kicking it at the beach. And more beach goers means more cops. Police seemed to be around every corner on the way up the coast. Just about every fifteen to twenty miles it felt like someone was being pulled over on one side of the road or the other. With so many extra bodies hanging around the coast and the increased police attention, it seemed like a pretty good idea to get off the main north-south traffic route and up into the canyons.
So I hit Las Floras as quickly as possible and then shot up and over the mountains on Piuma. I was going at a pretty good clip until I hit Las Virgines on the otherside of the hill. Suddenly people were popping out of all sorts of usually empty driveways and just generally making rather stupid driving decisions.
Hanging a left on Mullhulland, I just got this sense that today was not the day to push it - at least at this hour. There just seemed to be to much crazyiness for me. It was right around then that I noticed a blue blur in my left rear view mirror. Hitting the first right hand sweeper on Mullhulland I wasn’t quite sure if the bike behind me was going that fast or my mirror was just shaking a lot. So at first I didn’t pay much attention to it figuring that if the guy really wanted to go fast he’d pass me on the short straight away before the 180º left hand radius corner that basically begins the fun part of the Mullhulland Highway ( sometimes referred to as ‘The Playground’ ). Seemed like a logical enough thought process. Only the guy didn’t pass me, he just moved into a tailgating position.
At this point the straight away was getting shorter and I just didn’t feel like having him on my rear the whole way up to The Rockstore. So I waved him along and pulled over to the extreme right hand side of the lane. Most of the time this sort of action on my part results in a rather predictable outcome, yet this particular time it seemed to illicit a rather perplexing response from the guy behind me - as if he either didn’t know what to do or he simply never expected me to do this. Perhaps he never expected some guy riding a sportbike to let him get ahead of them. After a brief hesitation and another hand guesture by me the guy finally seemed to get the message and finally, right before the corner he over took me.
When we hit the 180º bowl I watch the guy fight his way around the corner and then really let it out on the exiting straight away. I took the corner rather spirited, but really dialed it down on the exit. Figuring that I wanted to try and keep the day dialed down. Eventually he had a pretty good lead on me. Which in all honesty was just fine by me, I’ve got no ego about how fast I need to be.
A couple of corners later I caught up to the guy because he was now stuck behind an old Ford Pickup Truck that was slowly swooping it’s way through the canyons. I wasn’t very excited about this development, but whatever… We both followed the truck in tandem for about a mile before the guy ahead of me (on what appeared to be a Yamaha Sport Tourer… an FJR maybe?) tucked underneath the truck in a left hand corner with limited visability and made the pass in the on-coming traffic lane. I held back and a couple of corners later the truck pulled over on the shoulder and let me pass. About three minutes later I pulled up at the intersection of Mullhulland and Cornell only to find bright blue Yamaha guy pulled over by the local county sherif.
Here’s a few picts from the day…. All from Piuma Canyon
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