There’s a magic in the Malibu Canyons. I swear it. You can’t touch it nor can you taste it, but you certainly can feel it. Especially on a day like today when its just you and the road shaking hands through every corner. Maybe it’s a Zen thing, but there’s something incredibly enchanting about riding roads that hug cliffs that look like they’ve fallen out of your imagination. Corner after corner it’s simply hard to ignore how special this place can feel when you least expect it. Its a spiritual exercise for gearheads.
Whoever built these canyon roads clearly must have understood the words ‘fun’ and ‘excitement’ because their very work surely does. There’s a natural thrill when riding here. A visceral sensation that knocks you back because at every corner the world opens up to yet another magnificent vista. And even if you’re like me and you ride these roads rather religiously, they never get old. They never get dull. Because they have a power that’s simply amazing. Especially when the entire coastline is completely devoid of traffic. Its a rare thing when the world feels like your playground. Today was that day.
I expected on a major holiday the roads would be crowded with any number of early morning riders, but just the opposite turned out to be true. Perhaps I just hit the road extrememly early, but I saw perhaps four or five other riders for the first three quarters of my ride. In reality I probably saw more bicyclists.
I suspect its not particularly shocking that since my latest visit to the track is less than seventy-two hours away I found myself riding at a very controlled and comfortable sight seeing pace this morning. This probably explains my rather heightened sense of the canyons, though its hard to ignore their beauty when you’re completely alone in them. Throughout the morning I found it hard to ignore my growing antisipation for Sunday’s Trackdaz trackday. Coming down Encinal Canyon Road I was very aware that most of the canyon roads that I ride are much tighter and slower than the Big Track at Willow. So I have this mixed set of emotions right now. On one hand I’m very excited and ampped up to see what its like to ride a larger, longer, faster track. Yet on the other hand I’m also a bit nervous about trying to push myself to get to that next level. So this should be a very interesting weekend.
As I mentioned the other day, the Trackdaz folks require that you mke several changes to your bike for their tech check. So yesterday I carved out some time and very carefully figured out how to remove the fuses and the mirrors. In all honesty it was a much easier activity than I had expected. Oddly Italians make somethings hard, but prepping your bike for the track isn’t one of them 
. So right now my bike just a tad less than street legal, so this morning I ended up riding MotorMilt’s 999 instead. Normally I’d try to avoid switching bikes this close to a track day because I have this odd sense that this breaks my comfort factor with the bike. But sometimes you gotta break your conventions when it’s a crystal clear stunning Thanksgiving morning…
I’ve often mentioned that I tend to find the clutch on MM’s 999 very strange to deal with when I take his bike for a ride. It engages at a much higher position than the clutch on my bike does and inevitably seems to screw with my comfort level. This morning I had an inspiration and started covering the clutch lever on his bike the same way that I cover the front brake. Two fingers on the lever at all times. I don’t know why or where I thought to try this, but almost instantly this gave me a very simple reference point for where his clutch engages. When I pulled the lever back and it touched my fingers that was it. From that point forward riding MotorMilt’s 999 was a snap and a joy. Amazing how the smallest change can alter so much…
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