Silver slivers are splitting the sky as the mist drifts in on a wonderful weekday. It’s strange. And dense. And packed with a lonely laughter that’s hanging just below the surface. The last weeks have been nothing but a blur and the last moment is … Read More →
Category Archives: Rides
The Vivid Vista
There’s a shake… And a shutter… And the slightest side to side maneuver… The engine hums, its bangs, it butts its head up against the limit… A sense of excitement and purpose and pure joy flows… The kind of overt outpouring that makes one take … Read More →
When Fantasy becomes Reality
The bike is roaring. The engine whirling. The tach rising. The fuel tank lowering. The moment at hand… I see it… I feel it.. I am here… I am alive… once again I believe… So many big ‘thoughts’ and so few ‘little’ ones… I am … Read More →
Boxes We Build
There’s a beat… A second that goes by… A moment where what lies forward enters the ‘here & the now’… A smirk, A smile, A sense of life… But then it’s gone… A flash. A bulb going off.. A brilliant beat that’s continuing to move … Read More →
83 Mile Tacos
Shards of golden red light are spreading across the sky as a perfectly turquoise edge of an ocean barks with life. The waves crashing with such force it almost feels like there’s an earthquake looping on the house audio system. But there isn’t. Looking around, … Read More →
2 Tanks of Fuel Fantasy
You know you’re having a kick ass sportbike ride when you find yourself filling up the tank for the second time before noon… And today was that kind of day… I suppose it shouldn’t be all that shocking really, like many things in life, the … Read More →
Mental Drifting
I’m coming through yet another corner — the latest in a series of endless turns and bends — and I find myself wondering when am I going to wake up? When will this dream cease and reality set in? Hopefully never… It’s been less than … Read More →
76 Miles and Noth’n but Curves
I’m absolutely aching for the long slow drag I know I shouldn’t have when a single hand reaches out of the driver-side window from the car directly in front and waves me on. It’s not the sexiest way to pass someone or something but then … Read More →
Rehab for the Soul
I ask where I am and the man says, “the last, best spot in California”… Quick smile to myself and I think you’re more right than you know… Am I really here? Is this real? Am I alive? Is this a dream? I do not … Read More →
Reboot, Reload, Restart
I woke up awhile back… And I stared myself down in the mirror… It was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do… Because what I saw reflecting back at me wasn’t an image of today or tomorrow, but rather an unfolding series of … Read More →
Process
The cloud cover moves fast. Its sense of purpose surprising. Its speed shocking. The wind that moves it less than exciting. And in its wake it leaves great big shadows – over dozens of housing developments and landlocked avenues and bits and pieces of society. … Read More →
A Wicked Ortega Wind
Dark, deceitful clouds were hanging still. The kinds of clouds that chew up a word like ‘foreboding’ and spit it out. Because it’s not mean enough. Not ominous enough. Because it’s not nasty enough to convey the dread that lies ahead… Hesitantly, I twist the … Read More →
Air
It was short and sweet and to the point — The business email of rides — All bullet points, no flowery language, just the road, the bike and and an oh-so-brief chance to let go. To breath. To touch what you can not see… One … Read More →
Montezuma Magic
The asphalt is rushing underneath. A big crestless wave of concrete. Moving with a shocking sense of speed and vitality. It seems elaborate and alive and fresh with that early morning dew-on-the-grass kind of confidence. Yet the route is so inherently dull. Laid out so … Read More →
Ortega Release
Clouds are forming in the distance and my bones are aching for a smoke as I pull off the road. Twisting the key, the bike ceases to breath and for the first time all day I can hear the silence. Because as amazing as it … Read More →
Canyon Cometh
Engines wail. Roads bend. Seasons change. But the dirt, the dirt in the middle of the asphalt, that never seems to go anywhere… Extending the kickstand, I kill the engine and slide off the saddle. Peer out over the reasonably clear San Fernando Valley. And … Read More →
Canyon Love
The light is hard and damn near horizontal when the bike crests the canyon. What had been going up suddenly dives down. The machine whirls forward – oblivious to the change in pitch — with such momentum that there’s little time to breath. Let alone … Read More →
4 Valve Victory in the Canyons
I see the corner coming — the deep bend, the strange camber, the way the road rolls against itself as it tilts right and climbs north. Part of me cringes. Feels out of sorts, as if today isn’t really my day. But the bike doesn’t … Read More →
A Clearing in The Mist
Just a quick snap from a quick ride up and down the Ortega in the rain… Not my favorite ride of the year, but better to be out on the bike than not…
Lucid Revolutions
It’s a vibrant day in-between fall storms when I find myself standing before a saturated ocean and it’s hard charging sea. Beyond me lies one long ruffled sheet of blueness. The crisp squalls mercilessly battering the shoreline over and over. With force. And power. And … Read More →