An omnipresent blue tint hangs over the sky as the world surrounding me sleeps-in and a single engine churns. Each mechanical revolution revealing lonely, desperate rays of light that are rising fast in the far-flung distance. Glints and beams of light that sneak peeks over the tops of the mountains and through the slim earthquake created crevasses that lie somewhere in-between the here and the there. Eventually they will rise for good - but for now they only exist on the edges of a stark and empty swatch of time. A kind of brief pause in the activity of life that I know can’t last forever but wish would.
In truth it’s been awhile since I was awake this early in the morning and already out on the bike. The rabid mind bending heat of the past several weeks forcing my hand and yet I can’t complain. I’d forgotten how enjoyable the world can feel when it’s this empty, this early.
Forty miles later what was blue burns off and becomes bright orange. Quickly the world as I know it has returned and now there’s hell to pay. With a burst, the heat comes pouring down. Cascading over everything until it feels ten degrees hotter and I swear that I can see the asphalt starting to melt before my eyes. Had I felt more ‘awake’ when I woke up this morning I probably would have left the house on top of the 10, but instead I picked up the keys to the ST3 and hit the road. Now I’m truly thankful I did. Undoubtedly by now the 10 would be hitting 210º and I’d be burning up on the inside, but instead the 3 rolls along without hesitation, without burden. Never creeping above 190º. I shake my head. It’s amazing what a 20º difference can do…
As the light continues to brighten and the heat ramps itself up, I hit the beginning of Palomar Mountain and start cracking open up the throttle in big, nasty chunks. The kind that stamps bits of rubber into the concrete. Instantly the concept of heat slides to the edges, an idea superseded by a sole focus on the road that lies ahead.
And what a magnificent whiplash inducing road it is, offering a wonderfully engaging back and forth battle that last from start to finish. The kind of road that puts new and different smiles on your face after every single corner, until you feel like you simply can’t grin anymore.
Up until now I never would have thought I’d ever write that about Palomar – which only goes to show you that people and roads change and sometimes you have to be open and willing to allow yourself to let that happen on its own.
What had been an unfamiliar bending and twisting section of asphalt suddenly feels like a very, very different beast. As if I vaguely know it now by more then name alone. It’s as if overnight corner by corner I’ve begun to hear the faint whispers from the road. A continual conversation that begs and asks to be tamed. Each successful attack on a turn making me feel that much more excited to ride it again and again. That much more passionate about the route and the road and the way one corner flows into another with ungodly sin. I certainly don’t have the road memorized inside-out the way I know Stunt or Mulholland, but it’s clear that it’s getting there, bit by bit. And that has me excited like teenager at their first keg party. Suddenly the world seems entirely new again.
It’s a remarkable change to be sure. For quite awhile I’ve mentally fought this road and all the others around here, and yet now something has dramatically shifted. I can feel it. I can sense it. I can almost taste it. It’s a palpable sensation that hangs in the air everywhere I go.
Bending the ST into the next series of corners, it’s clear to me that up until now I’ve simply been unwilling to let go of the past and some part of me felt unable to commit to the future. A future of riding here, on this mountain and in this neck of the woods. By the time I start heading down S7 on the east side it’s obvious that I’ve made a jump of some kind and this is more then merely a place to ride – it has to be for me - in order exist as a weekend by weekend destination. It’s something else, something more, something deeper, something different. I feel like I’ve begun to actually enter into a relationship with these roads. In their corners I find comfort and on their straights I see where it is that I want to go in life. They offer both the continuity that I need and the release that I crave on a day by day basis. I didn’t or couldn’t see it before, and perhaps I didn’t allow myself to recognize it, but somewhere in this asphalt lies another, albeit different, love affair.
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