Twisting Asphalt - A SoCal Ducati Motorcycle Blog

Saturday evening I did the near unthinkable. I rode a motorcycle for pleasure at night. It was an experience that seems so out of character for me and yet it was both exhilarating and crazy at the same time. Quite possibly it was as close as I’ve ever come to a living-on-the edge rush. Swooping up and the down the Crest in the dark was mind blowing on many levels and yet I can’t escape the completely neurotic but real feeling of total unabashed fear that still resides. I’ve never felt closer to becoming James Dean in my life. The phrase ‘full-blown lunatic’ keeps coming to mind.

The prudent and practical side keeps commenting that this was without a doubt the craziest – and maybe even stupidest - thing I’ve done. For a number of years I’ve considered the act of riding in the dark a borderline insane proposition, a position that I’m not one hundred percent ready to write off.

However while I continue to feel thankful just to be alive, I’ve been wired with a strange, almost alter ego sensation of adrenaline since I got back. It’s a bizarre and yet beautiful contradiction. I can’t quite say that I understand it, but perhaps you’re not supposed to. If I had ever written down a checklist for the things I wanted to accomplish in life I never would have thought put this activity on the list – and yet right now I feel fairly certain that what I just lived through is worthy of being in the top five.

No matter how much logic I try to apply, I keep finding myself coming back to the basic thought that this was a religious experience of sorts only on a motorcycle. Sweeping through conifer-lined corners with nothing more than your headlight and the white glow of a full moon evokes such a different kind of emotional sensation. Such a different kind of feeling. It takes what normally is a fastly furious event and transforms it into something much more magical. Almost sacred. In the dark all your sense are heightened and yet it’s completely unlike riding during the daytime.


I suppose part of my hesitation and fear of the ride came from the fact that it was completely unexpected. I never set out to do it – on reflection I feel fairly certain that had I thought about it in advance it never would have happened. But Stazz and I were in Downtown LA after having just wrapped up the photo shoot for my next bike review (an ST3S and it’s coming soon…) and we started talking about places to eat. At some point the conversation drifted towards heading up the Crest to Newcombs and the evening sort of just organically evolved from there. Not all lapses in judgment start from innocent beginnings, but this one did. For some reason it never occurred to me that we would be flying around The Crest in the dark.

By the time we hit Glendale, dusk was in full effect and it was now officially getting dark out. Once we got off the freeway on to California Route-2, I found myself being forced to flip my dark colored tinted face shield up in order to just see the road. I suppose this was the first true hint of the ensuing mixed emotional sensations that would chase each other around on this particular evening. At my core I knew this ride was going to scare the shit out me. Somehow knowing it was scary made it even more fearful. In many respects it was a circle of fear that continued to build on itself. I kept thinking about how little practice I’ve had riding at night on a straight road let alone a curvy mountain one. Now we were heading up one of the most dangerous roads in all of California far later than I should have been out riding. Additionally with the face shield locked in the upright position, I was now feeling the elements briskly blasting away at my face. This was yet another radical departure from my normal riding and it was hard to ignore.

With a warm LA breeze waffling around, we headed up The Crest and I very quickly became aware of just how spectacular nighttime riding can look. From beneath my helmet the visuals were absolutely mind blowing. Riding a curvy road in the dark with just your headlight to illuminate the asphalt ahead of you feels like a living, breathing car commercial come to life. It’s like being trapped in an ad campaign. Each corner seems remarkably similar to the last one and yet you’re so connected and so focused that it’s hard to think about much else besides the act of living. Or perhaps more realistically, the act of continuing to live. This constant state of concern and what appears to be a much more noticeably narrow edge for survival both freaks you out and yet at the same time becomes quite intoxicating on its own. It’s has to be a direct descendant of the fear or flight response. You have no option other than to continue on and you know it. There’s nowhere to stop, no place to stay, no other way back home, all you can do is just keep on going forward. Constant motion amongst quiet.

Once you lock into your basic survival concerns, the more practical issues come to mind. Riding at night is fundamental a visibility issue. Everything happens faster in the dark. You don’t have nearly the reaction time you think you do. You see the corner and then it’s on top of you. Just like that. In an instant. With little warning. The sight lines and markers in the road that you normally look for completely vanish. In some ways this feeds the ‘rush’ and yet makes the ride extremely intensive. You have no time to look away. It’s all about what’s directly ahead.

Mentally, I kept thinking about that old MSF adage, ‘never out ride your headlights’. Until Saturday evening I didn’t realize just how true that statement was. Bumps and rocks that you normally see and then process and then react to with ease, instantly become difficult to handle. The speed of life almost overwhelms you and yet there’s an odd pleasure in that. An odd challenge. You do it right and under your lid you’re grinning in surprise and joy. In an ‘I almost can’t believe I just did that’ sort of way.

As we got closer to Newcombs the air significantly cooled down and the next reality of the night unfolded. At six thousand feet it gets cold. Fast. Surprisingly fast. So fast I didn’t feel it coming until I was freezing. What had been a remarkably enjoyable warm weather route quickly switched gears and became a rabid desire to get inside. Dinner had suddenly became more than just food. It was transient lodging and my only hope for heat. If ever there was a time for the underseat exhaust to heat up, this was it. But the damn Duc didn’t comply.

Several miles later when we arrived at Newcombs, I was far more ready for heat than I would have anticipated. I was also just happy to have arrived safely. Luckily the folks at Newcombs were still open and we were able to spend an hour warming up and chilling out. Yet by the time we left at close to eleven o’clock the silence of the mountaintop was so utterly calming that it felt like we were camping out in the wilderness by ourselves. A thousand pine trees, a fly zapper and complete nothingness surrounded us. It was so stark and so silent that it felt like society had just simply stopped. We were now working on frozen time. While everyone else was asleep down in the valley below, we were standing in the middle of a vacancy. Listening to nothing but air as it blew by. Seldom have I ever felt quite so connected to the environment. So trapped in nature and yet so peaceful. It was a bedtime story for a sportbike rider.

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