Twisting Asphalt - A SoCal Ducati Motorcycle Blog

Sunday MotorMilt & I did a monster 340 mile loop, which took us from LA all the way up the coast to Oxnard, over the southern tip of the San Rafael Mountains, through Santa Barbara and Montecito, over the Southwestern edge of the Santa Ynez Mountains, through Los Olivos and eventually into winery laden backcountry roads of the Western Los Padres National Forest. It was a hell of a ride. Perhaps our first sport-touring experience on sportbikes… I’ve diligently been working on a write up and I had hoped to have it finished this evening, but the sheer breadth of the places, people, vistas and roads that we were able to experience have managed to slow the process down just a bit… A full ride entry is coming shortly…

A teaser from Foxen Canyon in the heart of Santa Barbara Wine Country

While on the ride and while working on the entry afterwards, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time thinking about TwistingAsphalt. Really ever since I realized that I had been doing this for over a year now I’ve been struck by several things; the most important of which is how much fun its been. I’ve also been struck by the sheer volume of posts over the past year. Some are as fun to read now as the day I wrote them. Other however are less stellar. Subsequently I’ve decided to do some spring cleaning and delete some of the less noteworthy posts.

I’ve also upgraded my Wordpress blogging software which necessitated a small site redesign. That of course morphed from a small update into a complete site overhaul. According to the website logs the vast majority of readers use an RSS feed reader so I suspect few of them will notice the change.

For those of you who visit the actual site regularly things have moved around a bit. As you’ll notice I’ve relocated a number of items to a new menu underneath the header image. Hopefully this will make it easier to find the various parts of the blog. You’ll also notice that some of the post categories have changed. From what I can tell from the website logs it doesn’t appear that many people actually use the broken down categories in the blog sidebar – so I thought that perhaps there was a slightly better way to organize them hence the simplification of the various categories. I’ve also added a category called top rides as a way to highlight various rides and posts that I think are the most interesting or enjoyable.

During the past several days I spent sometime re-reading the blog and during that time I came up with a handful of what I consider to the best or more interesting riding posts over the course of the past year… I had started with the idea of a top ten best ride posts… Somehow that list got a bit longer…

May 20th, 2004:The Lost Coast Expedition of 2004.

This was one of the first blog entries about riding that I ever wrote for TwistingAsphalt and whenever I think back about some of my more memorable rides, this particular adventure always rises to the top of the list. I guess 1,200 miles up the California coastline in just under week tends to stick in your mind for quite sometime.

May 27th, 2004:Sunride on a Thursday.

It was during the great Lost Coast trip, after a particularly sporty and engaging day that I first brought up the idea of picking up a liter bike to MotorMilt. Never being the types to shy away from making decisions, it was only a week later that we dove into the world of the Ducatistia. This post was written early in the morning on the day we went to pick up our first pair of Ducs.

July 24th, 2004:The Duc Heads North : Route 33.

Having a weekend to myself, I ventured up past Ojai, California and hit the magical Route 33 on my first decent length adventure on a Ducati Sportbike. 230 miles later I was physically beat up, but one hell of a happy camper. This post was also memorable as it was one of the first really good uses of my Canon SD-10 digital camera. Some really cool picts imho.

July 24th, 2004:Stolen Ducs - Update.

On one of my darkest days the only place I could turn was the blog… This is a point by point chronicle of the first 8 hours after we came home to find that the bikes were missing.

September 18th, 2004:Ikes in The White House & All is well.

After a month of screwing around with State Farm, MotorMilt and I were finally able to settle and get back into a pair of bikes. Along the way I came to realize that I had fallen in love with the Ducati sensibility. On this day I wrote;

My heart simply was no longer in the ‘S’ and it was time to move on. If this is starting to sound all together to similar to a relationship, I suspect that’s because for me that’s what riding and owning a motorcycle has become. In so many ways it has become part of me, my identity, my idle thoughts, my vacations, my relaxation, and my soul. Sometimes I think that might not be such a good thing, but then on days like today I’m reminded that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay profess your admiration to an inanimate object because the minute that I fired over the 999 for the first time the most amazing feeling took a hold of me.

September 25th, 2004:Early Morning Skies and Way Back Memories.

A week later I wrote one of my lengthiest posts which chronicled my evolution through different bikes and about my emotional guilt everytime I handed over the keys from a previous bike.

November 26th, 2004:My Kind of Thanksgiving .

When all of society is hanging out with their families, it’s amazing how empty the roads can be… This is one of my favorite posts and one of my favorite set of pictures of the yellow 999.

December 5th, 2004:What’s An Extra 1,000 RPMs Worth?.

Some of my favorite canyon pictures… And one of my favorite opening to any post;

When I die, I want to be reincarnated as a 999.

Just give me an open road with lots of curves and no traffic and I promise I’ll be a happy camper. The 999 is just that damn special. That amazing, really… At various parts of our ride today I not only stood in awe of what this bike can do but felt simply amazed at the opportunity to ride it.

December 24th, 2004:A Magnificent Morning.

Re-reading this post I’m amazing at how much I enjoyed reliving the ride once again… Some beautiful picts too.

December 26th, 2004:A Glorious Christmas Ride.

The following day, MotorMilt & I went on one of our longest rides up to this point on the Ducs and I got introduced to the amazing Route 23… A fantastic ride, a very enjoyable post (for me anyway) and unequivocally some of the best pictures I’ve ever taken.

March 12th, 2005:A Needed Unwinding.

This was a very normal ride for MotorMilt & I… One that I hate to say had run together with so many others before I went back to re-read my previous entries… It was only then that I saw one of the better things I believe I’ve written in the blog;

While swinging around a rather decent sweeper on Encinal Canyon this morning about halfway through the ride I was struck by the thought that over the course of my life the word ‘relaxation’ has continued to evolve in its meaning. Almost to a point where sometimes I think it seems like an organic concept, not a definition in a book. Originally relaxing seemed like such a simple idea - have a day off, go do something you enjoy and feel refreshed afterwards. Yet these days, as more and more of ‘the real world’ creeps its way into my personal time, I find it harder and harder to just lose myself and feel mellow when I’m not at work. Perhaps thats just growing up, I don’t know. When MotorMilt and I were headed up the PCH this morning at the start of our ride I was having a bitch of a time finding a way to let go of all that other stuff… And of course its funny how a motorcycle picks up on your vibe, if you feel a little bit tense the bike suddently feels that tension and begins to act out which inturn makes you feel even more tense then you were when you started. In many ways it becomes a stackable issue, one thing building on the last. Yet as we got further and further away from the city, the more I found a peaceful groove. By the time we hit the deli for breakfast even though the skies were still covered in a big gray mess of moody clouds, I felt pretty good… Thankfully that carried over to the ride home. I found the journey back an absolute blast. Had you asked me while MotorMilt and I were mounting up on the Ducs at the Agoura Deli in all honesty I probably wouldn’t have thought that a ride back on a cloudy day like today could be so rewarding. For that brief hour or so, everything just felt locked in. Not in a ‘zone’ sort of way, but rather in an at peace with life sort of way.

April 1st, 2005:Trackday : The Adventure Continues.

Of course you knew that I’d put my first track day on a Ducati on the list, right? This is a mixed blessing type of blog entry, it was a hell of a day that I will treasure of quite sometime yet it was also the day that yellow 999 first sprung an oil leak. As you can see from the entry I really had no idea how problematic that would become…

May 11th, 2005:Dawn of A New Ducati.

I thought about placing the blog entry from the day the yellow diva died next, but to be honest that still bums me out a great deal. So I thought I’d just skip ahead to the good part, getting a new duc! One of my favorite posts, hands down. Also some nice picts and one that I especially dig that MotorMilt took from the front seat of the truck while I was riding next to him on the freeway…

May 13h, 2005:Second Ride : A Santa Paula Loop.

A great day of riding which was followed by one of my better posts. Some fun picts too. Oddly I really enjoy the picture of the CalTrans temporary stoplight. Don’t ask me why.

June 20th, 2005:A Day of Days (&Video!).

I have to say that this one is still fresh in my mind, so it’s relatively easy to pick as a great ride and decent entry… Memorable because it was my time out with the helmet camera and frankly because it was just one of those days that just felt endless in both beauty and enjoyment. The kind of day you really want to repeat again and again and again…

June 23th, 2005:A 1 Year Celebration : The Angeles Crest.

I had to put this ride on the list. It was just to amazing not to bring back up. 260 miles of pure bliss on a motorcycle. It had roads I knew, roads I’d never been and scenics that just took your breath away…

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