Ducati: A Photographic Tribute by Phil Aynsley

Phil Aynsley, who’s one of my favorite Ducatista photographers, just dropped a quick line to say that he’s released a brand new masterpiece, ‘Ducati: A Photographic Tribute‘. I haven’t seen the book in person yet, but from the looks of the photos that Phil has posted on his personal website, it sure looks like a must-have for diehard Ducatista everywhere… Certainly makes my mouth water just looking at some of these incredible vintage machines… Well, that and emotionally long to hit the ‘ol road on the Monster, because let’s face it there’s nothing more soul stirring than beautiful vintage machines captured in all their glory

Here’s a bit from the publisher on the book;

Phil Aynsley has only ever owned Ducatis. Since buying his first, a 250 Desmo, in 1972 he has been a passionate devotee of the Italian marque. As a professional photographer whose work has appeared in books and magazines in Europe, the US and his native Australia he has has the opportunity to photograph a great number of Ducatis over a period of 30 years. This includes rarely seen parts of the Ducati factory to intimate views from inside the pits at many MotoGP and World Superbike rounds to inside private collections to road tests. The images in this book are his personal favorites. The photographs also come with a foreward by World Champion Troy Bayliss and words by internationally known Ducati expert Ian Gowanloch.

More Picts here;

http://www.philaphoto.com/images/TheBook

Congrats Phil!

Anza Borrego at the end of Montezuma Valley Road

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 straight-as-an-arrow that I find myself wondering where the pavement thinks it might actually be going?

For all the movement around me, all the cars and the trucks and the traffic, I don’t actually feel like I’m going anywhere at the moment…

At it’s core, I have to believe that the road knows it has better places to be than this treadmill of traffic… This stillborn conduit of everyday life…

But freeways are freeways…

They move people from Point A to Point B. They’re routes of progression. Routes of advancement. They go forward. Day in and day out… Yet in some ways they never really seem to advance…

Much like my life at the moment…

Tugging in the clutch lever ever so slightly, I knock the bike down the gear and the engine revs its awesomely torquey head off — The turn signals click, the traffic dives towards the right lane, the route of regularity exits… The road begins to get fun…

It’s 1 pm and there’s a loud, vibrant, noisy commotion whirling around me.

Ahhhhh, this feels good…

Days of work have lead me to this… To this singular movement and moment and belief…

And just a few miles later I’m filling up the gas tank, perusing a map, and wondering where in the hell I’m headed…

Just thirty minutes ago, I hit the garage door clicker and asked myself if I even felt like I riding — But today is too perfect, to beautiful, to crystal-clear to let go of…

Moments of potential magic only come around so often in this life….For last year I’m not really sure if I’ve really taken advantage of them… These days I find myself wondering how many days we get in this life and how many we actually embrace?

And then there’s a boom… A boom-shack-a-lacka… The engine wailing…

The uncluttered mass of an engine’s explosion shuttering its excess waste out the block and down through the exhaust, until there’s this unburned shuttered pulse riveting up my spine. A slight kickback. The bike wiggles… And then it’s ready to thrust again…

Like it never happened…

And it feels so damn good… And so damn strange… All of which is so out of character for what it seems my character has been as of late…

Over the past chunk of time, I find myself feeling this odd sense of excitement about the future — Because things have never seemed this good or looked this positive… On all fronts… I have so much to be thankful for and even though I’m not the most religious of folks, so much seems downright blessed right now…

Yet I can’t help finding fault in the greatness — The world is bouncing back from the edge of a near global abyss and in my darkest moments I find myself wondering just how ‘real’ that bounce might be… And what that means for me?

And then I’m also bouncing off the walls…

I feel like a fucking hamster…

Amazingly it was just six days ago when the latest show that I’ve worked on, ‘Man Made: Bugatti Super Car‘, premiered on the National Geographic Channel — And yet if I’m really, really honest with myself (and that means you too dear blog reader) that feels like a thousand miles ago on the journey of life…

As if it never computed. As if it never mattered. As if it never happened…

And I find myself wondering, how is it possible that the thing that kept you awake all those many nights in damn-near daydream stupor suddenly seems, well, darn I say meaningless? How did I move on so quickly?

Have I lost the ability to appreciate the moment?

Have I become too jaded?

Does anything matter anymore?

For all the excitement, for the all success, for the very culmination in the idea that the dream is actually alive and kicking — perhaps more so than ever before — It oddly feels as if it never even happened…

Is all of this an illusion? Is life?

At the moment, I’m left wondering when did it all begin to accelerate this quickly? When did I loose the ability to cherish the very moment I’ve worked so hard for?

I just don’t know…

That’s a different way of saying that I used to bemoan the fact that I didn’t know who I was — But then at some point I found myself — And it felt ‘right’, it felt ‘real’, I was who I wanted to be and it was all moving forward with a certain purpose and drive and vision — And yet now I’ve done, gone, and lost whatever magic that was…

I feel driven and split and confused and conflicted and so out of sorts that I think I need my own engine ‘tuned’…

Every day there are moments which feel familiar, moments which seem real and intrinsic to who I am, moments which give me joy… And yet there are also moments which feel so strange, so different, so out of place, so against the texture of me, that I’m left emotionally bouncing back and forth between who I think I am, who I want to be, who I think I have the ability to become…

What dreams are real and justified and which are jaded illusions, and which are so far-off in never-neverland that they’re just pipedreams…

And maybe most importantly, when did dreams become qualified?

What happened to excess belief and that gnawing, deep-down self-confidence where you know — just know in your gut — that while you don’t exactly know where you are headed, you know where you’ll end up?

Tonight, I’m left wondering if that’s a real attribute or just merely a product of age? Can you only experience that in your teens and twenties? Does the real-world always eventually catch up with you? Do credit cards and car payments start you down a path of no return?

Ultimately does the money matter more than the humanity or the product?

In today’s post-economic-apocalyptic world, how do we measure success?

These days are we all supposed to be Huxtables, and Keatons, and Tanners?

Is the drive the family? The ego? The business of business? The product?… Or is it still the dream?

Ten or twenty minutes later — Maybe an hour, maybe two — I’m flying through Ranchita, California… A speck of a town that’s a dot on a map in a guidebook that nobody buys…

And it is so fucking fantastic…

The road is open, to say the traffic is light is foolish — There isn’t any — And a heartbeat later I have the opportunity to grind one of the great roads in California…

CA S-22… Better know as Montezuma Valley Road…

If there is motorcycle-magic in this world, this is ground-zero…

A flick of the wrist, the pull of a clutch lever, going gear-up, then a gear-down, and more twisting of the wrist… And I’m there… I’m alive.. I’m in fantasyland… This doesn’t feel real and yet I know it is…

Perfect pavement bends in beautiful corners designed to accentuate the majesty of the dessert’s mountainous cliffs… And the road just twists… Back and forth and back and forth… It’s seasickness for asphalt… And the views… The Salton Sea never looked this good (ok, I’m not exactly sure it ever looked good, but maybe that’s a generational thing)… If you’re a gearhead this is paradise… There’s no two-ways about it… The snakey-snarky road surface flicks around with such relentless abandon that it’s hard to believe that there’s something better in this world… Most roads have one 180º corner, this road has dozens… And that’s if you just count the ‘big ones’…

As the heat of the engine builds and the outside temperature conversely drops, I pilot the bike into a succession of endless corners and smirk…

It’s the perfect golf-shot moment… The reason we come back ride after ride… Because every now and then, it can really be this good…

After many months of hard work, long days and sometimes even longer nights, I’ve finally got some fantastic news to share — The Bugatti Veyron documentary that I produced and directed finally has an air-date!

‘Man Made: Bugatti Super Car’ will make it cable television debut this coming Thursday, February 11th, at 8 pm on The National Geographic Channel.

It is a project that I am immensely proud of and am eager to share. The film looks and sounds fantastic, as I briefly wrote about before, and it would be my hope that everyone in the audience enjoys the watch.

The folks at Bugatti were extraordinary in terms of the access they granted us and frankly we were able to capture some tremendous things on tape – Sometimes for the very first time. Even though I’ve had the distinct privilege to go inside of a lot of factories, design studios and engineering departments in the past, I don’t know if there’s any one group of people that I have more respect for then the VW engineering staff, given what they have successfully accomplished with this machinel.

People can knock the Veyron for the price or ask whether the world needs a 1,001 horsepower machine that can break the 250 mph barrier, but it unquestionably one of the most amazing engineering exercises ever undertaken and successfully completed in the automotive world. If you’re lucky enough to sit in the car and pull 1.9 G’s while braking from top speed, I guarantee you’ll agree with me. The Veyron is just an amazing thrill ride…

All told, this has been a wonderfully inspiring project to work on and to be a part of, and now it’s time to let it go… Time for you the audience to enjoy it and to get ready for the next great moto-adventure…

'Man Made: Bugatti Super Car' premieres this week on National Geographic

From the National Geographic Website:

The Bugatti Veyron is a “super” super car - part automobile and part airplane. And with a base price of $1,750,000, it is the most expensive production car in the world. Designed with materials and construction techniques normally found in the aerospace industry, this remarkable engineering achievement is one of the fastest street-legal cars ever built. Now, NGC takes an insider look at the Bugatti factory to see how this modern engineering masterpiece is built.

There’s also some video from the show available on their website, along with other info & air-date times;

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/man-made/4237/Overview#tab-Overview

The Monster on CA-74

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 sounds, I’m actually alone — Even though I’m standing on one of the busiest canyon roads in California.

As it turns out it’s been months since I last road the Ortega Highway. The combination of work and life and well, a sever desire to stay away from this particular stretch of asphalt has kept me away. That might sound harsh, but over the past two or three years each and every time I’ve ridden the Ortega I’ve managed to witness such a constant level of moto-chaos that it almost defeated the purpose of riding. It’s hard to relax and get away from it all when you’re constantly fighting it all and wondering when the next bit of crazy is about to enter your life.

Yet today it feels so damn different and I don’t know why.

The road is smooth, and slick, and fast and fluid. The canyon walls seem eager to open up and I’ve spent the last forty minutes smirking to myself. Because this is fun. This is why we ride. And the traffic is perfectly behaved. There’s excess speed in appropriate places but nobody is running three wide in a blind corner. Nobody is making me feel like death is a downshift away.

Looking out at the water, I scan the thousands of suburban homes and I find myself wondering why it is that roads continue to ebb and flow in our psyche? How is that they change and why do they?

Or is it me? Am I the one who’s changed?

I wonder… I truly wonder…

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 it slowly crosses my mind that this isn’t just a ride — It’s an anniversary.

Of my very first motorcycle accident.

And I chuckle to myself.

Not because I’m fearless. I’m not. Because I can’t believe its been only a year. And yet I can.

Amazing how fast time flies… And amazing how conflicted one can feel at the same time.

On one hand the low-side that happened that day remains remarkably vivid in my mind. I can see it. I can feel it. I remember the sensations, the dread that crossed me while standing above a downed bike. The sense of mourning when the tow-truck arrived. The relief when the adrenaline subsided and I felt alright.

But I was lucky and I know it.

Without a doubt both how I ride and why I ride changed that day. A touch of gravel redefined my life. As much as I might try to hide it, that collection of small pebbles altered the paradigm through with I view riding on the street. What didn’t seem like it could happen to me, suddenly did. And I think that was a good thing in the end.

Yet on the other hand, today I felt so totally in control of the bike, so able to do what I wished, that the thought of crashing seemed nebulous at best. Matter of fact I don’t even know if it crossed my mind while I was actually riding. I roared through the canyons with pep and perk and zippiness that felt fantastic and probably was illegal. There were no dark clouds hanging here, just bright skies and open roads ahead. The image of disaster was elusive and ineffectual and almost meaningless.

Until I stopped that is… What an odd round trip of a year…

Flashing back a couple of months, I remember perusing some leather jackets in a local cycle shop, when a sales gal popped in out of nowhere, saw my scuffed up jacket, and rather matter of factly said, “Looks like you were due”.

And maybe I was… Maybe that’s just the cost of doing business when you ride. I don’t know.

Canyon Love: The Top of Saddlepeak

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 sightsee.

In a fraction of a revolution, the bike leans forward. The suspension pushes rider and chassis on to the front wheel with such force that the handlebars instantaneously feel six inches closer to the ground. And with it my courage. But the engine booms away. Screaming nastily at the low-lying canyon walls. And just like that my wrists feel the effects of their terror.

Yet the canyon cries out.

It wants to be heard and it wants to be seen.

Because it’s empty and awesome and just so blatantly beautiful that it’s hard not to take in its grandeur — Even if it’s only momentary… Because moments like this go by way to fast, even when you’re going slowly.

But that’s life and all you can do is take it in as quickly as you can, process it the best you can, and hope to hold on to it…

Eyes dart from scene to scene as my mental shutter clicks shut. But almost before the images can be processed and saved, the road surface begins to glide its way sideways. Swooping to its right as it descends towards the masses. A return to the real world encased in one all mighty awe-inspiring vista… That goes on forever and ever and ever…

Quickly a lever comes in and the engine flips out.

Gears change. The engine howls. But the clutch plates press on. And the motor gets back at it… Thousands of revolutions at a time… Add a touch of counter-steering and it’s a remarkable recipe for emotional exuberance.

The bike planted so firmly in its line that it feels flawless. The tires gripping the asphalt with such conviction that it seems as if I can do no harm.

The result is a spirited sprint around one hundred and eighty degree of whiplashing greatness… A corner of corners… And a testament to civil engineering.

How and why roads like this exist has always fascinated me, but today it’s even more profound. Because on the other side of this marvelous adventure isn’t a ditch, but a NASA descent. This isn’t bin it and bust, it’s bin it and bungee. Only without the cord.

Hitting the apex, I whip back the throttle and the bike bursts as the harsh sunlight returns. Yet even though it’s hard to see, the engine roars as the combustion transforms into sheer, heart thumping excess and the exhaust notes endlessly echo on and on and on.

Catching the gears, the bike feels so very alive as it flashes down the asphalt. It feels so good. So powerful… The acceleration hitting, in big, gulping mouthfuls of muscle that act as if they’re tearing the road surface apart bit by bit. It hits so damn hard and yet its so damn easy to make happen. And so unlike the 4-valve Ducati engines. Nothing about this machine feels fluid; This is all ugly, nasty, mean torque-tweaked anger coming out to play. Yet the bike feeling so light and nimble, that it’s just inspiring…

This is one of those perfect days… Because the Monster is just a marvelous machine… And because suddenly I have total confidence in it… In a way that I’ve never had before…

Isn’t it amazing what a set of new brakes can do for you?

The Monster's new Brembo Forged Radial Brake Master Cylinder

My, oh, my, how I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole… After nearly nine-months with the Monster it felt like it was time to take care of my biggest issue with the bike – The OEM Brakes…

Repeatedly, when either the old man or I have returned from a ride on the Monster, our most common post-ride talking point has been how poorly the machine seems to stop compared to a full-blown, fully-faired sportbike.

There’s nothing worse then having to do an emergency stop, pulling the front brake lever back and feeling as if there’s nothing happening.

What has been missing is a sense of immediate action and reaction on the lever and in the calipers. That’s what gives me confidence when I ride and the Monster, as it came from the factory, simply didn’t instill that sense of faith. Instead I found myself constantly thinking, ‘this is a different bike, ride slower, be safer, don’t trail-brake, be conscious of the limits’… These are not exactly the most enjoyable or pleasurable thoughts to have while riding…

Of course, I’m not exactly sure my assessment of the Monster’s stock OEM brake system is fair because I’m fairly certain that MotorMilt and I exist in a really warped place when it comes to brakes. After you’ve see the top of the line systems being built, tested and then put through their paces, it’s hard in the back of your head not to acknowledge that whatever the bike shipped with from the factory is not nearly the same or as good as what gets put on fully-blown sportbikes.

The solution was what amounted to an entirely new brake set-up for the bike, starting with a new Brembo Forged Radial Brake Master Cylinder (along with a new Radial Clutch Master Cylinder to match), new brake lines, new brake pads, and the left over Brembo Calipers from the 999 (which were replaced with a set of Brembo monoblock calipers last year). As with previous installs, Alex White and his team at Motorcycle Performance Services on La Brea Ave. in LA got everything up and running with minimal issue. Many props to them.

The result is absolutely awesome – The Monster is quickly becoming my favorite bike. It’s just so damn light and nimble, and now that it has awesome stopping capabilities, it is so much more exciting to ride. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so in control on a motorcycle in my life. It is just a hoot to attack the canyons with!

In the end, the Monster is so much more than just a mechanical object – It’s unquestionably an art form, a clean canvas that you get to mold in any way you see fit. It has a character that eschews traditional sportbike aesthetics yet it also supports them because at its core the Monster is nothing but sport. A full fledged, unadulterated, blast of performance and passion – only you get to uniquely tailor it to your own tastes, adding performance to a platform that rocks…

Alcohol: Stronger Than You Think

As a riders we face thousands of obstacles whenever we throw our legs over our bikes; from the scientific, such as the size of the contact patch in a given corner, to ordinary distractions in life, like drivers who are playing with their cell phones while crossing an intersection. The vast majority of these obstacles we can’t control - but what we can control is ourselves…

These images from the “Alcohol: Stronger Than You Think” ad campaign are a stark reminder of just how deadly drinking and riding can be.

They’re not as gritty as the Vietnam Helmet Ads that I’ve written about previously, but they still make an incredibly graphic point. Riding and Drinking don’t mix.

The prints were created by Fisher Portugal for an anti drunk driving campaign led by for The Salvador Association, a Portuguese disability education and awareness organization. I give them major props - these are well done, in your face ads and frankly, I personally feel like we could use more advertisements like these here in the States.

I write that knowing that I’m not a saint. I’ve made the mistake of combining alcohol with motorized activities once before, having had a single beer during a lunch break on a ride. At the time it seems like a good idea — it was a warm sunny day, with good friends, and good conversation. It felt like it was ‘beer-time’ moment — Yet combining the two was one of the worst ideas I’ve ever acted on while riding. Physically, the one drink didn’t seem to do anything to me and there was plenty of time for the ‘effects’ to wear off since it was a very long lunch, but on an emotional level it freaked the bejesus out of me. On the ride back, I kept becoming tenser and tenser as I ‘waited’ for the effects and then when they didn’t arrive, I what had me annoyed was that I had broken one of my personal cardinal rules of riding. I had be untrue to my personal ‘belief system’ — Was a beer really worth that?

Not at all.

[Via Design Crave and Fubiz.net]

Alcohol: Stronger Than You Think

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 flinch. It never backs down. It never echos my personal conundrum.

Instead it just settles down.

Then the tires grip. And the chain spins. And before I know it the little bit of lean angle that remains disappears as the throttle rips backwards with vengeance…

Instantly valves open, the heart flutters, and the engine revs… Wildly revs…

And for all the worry in the world, now there is nothing to do but hang on…

Effortlessly, the bike fires — forward — Imposes its own will on the asphalt. Claws its ways up the hill as it rips big, heady chunks of asphalt out of its way. The road surface has no choice but to let go. To surrender. To give in.

The push is incredible. The drive out of the turns sublime. The self-created forward momentum astounding.

Beneath me a battalion of horsepower is on the attack and I can feel its every move. The bike hunkering down, the revs increasing, the exhaust bellowing and by the time I reach the top of the lonely canyon wall, it’s clear that the roadway has been forced into a unique form of submission.

It hasn’t just been defeated, it’s been conquered.

In world where nothing seems secure, and so much suddenly seems fluid, I find myself smirking at the thought that for this one moment in time, on this one particular day, a 4-Valve L-Twin engine seems to have the power to defeat anything and everything in its path. Forward momentum never felt this good.

Installing the Speedymoto Rearsets on the 1098S

With the rain rolling in, Sunday seemed like a great day to install the new Speedymoto Rearsets, that I picked up from Desmoworks, on the 1098S .

When you open the Speedymoto box, the very first thing you see is a set of instructions - This gave me great confidence to wrench myself - And after reading the included instructions through and through several times, I thought what the hell, what do I have to lose? Everything seemed relatively simple - unscrew this, put on that, torque to this - but perhaps all of that was a rather naive assumption, as somehow in the space between the reading and the first wrenching, the installation of the rearsets got a heck of a lot more complicated than I had anticipated.

Originally I had thought to myself how hard can swapping out two pegs you put your feet on be?

As it turns out, not as simple as one thinks…

What I had so cleverly ignored was the linkage — both the shifting and the braking — neither of which replicated the pieces they replaced nor was as simple as you’d think to install — Granted, I’m the first to admit I’m a rider and a not a mechanic.

However, even with a few hiccups here and there, tonight I find a beautiful satisfaction in the wrenching — There’s truly something magnificent when you put new parts on your own bike. All the bolts might fall off tomorrow, but for right now I keep thinking about the twisting and turning of the bits done with my own hands and it seems so much more meaningful and so much more profound, as if the machine and I have become even closer, if that were possible, thanks to the hardening of a little bit of loctite.

Audio Mixing for Bugatti Super Car

Every now and then, the various bits of life come together in truly remarkable ways — Today I got the chance to hear the 5.1 surround sound mix of Bugatti Super Car, our latest documentary for The National Geographic Channel, for the very first time. As much as I love the visuals of the show, there’s nothing quite as exciting as hearing a brand new 5.1 mix for a doc that you’ve been working on for months and months. It’s truly awe-inspiring as it brings new life to something you’ve seen a thousand times. Amazing how sounds has such a remarkable ability to impact the soul.

It’s one thing to be in the field filming for a doc, another to put the show together and yet something even better and more profound to hear it for the very first time… As always the final result will be up to you the audience to judge, but right now I’m very, very excited about it…

Many thanks to Salami Studios in Burbank…

Ho Ho Ho the Holidays are here! Boy have they snuck up or what? Seriously, it feels like just yesterday it was June or July… Yet here we are, lickedy-split fast… LA is freezing and the wet weather season is about to begin and everywhere you look there’s a red and white Starbucks cup…

What’s a Moto-nut to do?… Buy parts of course!

Being someone who fully subscribes to acquisition therapy, after wrapping up holiday shopping for friends and family, I decided it was time to treat the bikes to something nifty too… So I dialed in the website of Desmoworks, the parts-supplier where earlier this year I picked up a Bitubo steering dampener for the Monster. Their proprietor, Anthony Creek, had provided such killer service the last time I went moto-mod-shopping, it just seemed like the place to go this time around too…

Of course when it comes to bikes, sometimes there’s an odd sense of cosmic-karma coming back around — Anthony’s blog happened to be where I’d first spied some picts of SpeedyMoto’s beautiful rearsets. Ever since, on every ride I’ve taken on the 1098S, I’ve felt this lingering “you know you’re going to do it eventually, so why haven’t you done it already” sentiment cross my mind… Fait Accompli…

The final straw… Anthony happened to have one last discounted set available — in the perfect color combo… Seriously, sometimes it I even wonder if I’m actually making decisions or the decisions make themselves…

So this weekend, when the rain comes, it’s gonna be time to do a little wrenching

Misty Morning on the Ortega Highway

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…

In the Canyons with Trevor

Top of Stunt during Fire Season

Few quick picts from a sweet ride through the canyons with Trevor Navarra, a rather accomplished still photographer…

The S2R Outside of Lake Skinner

The sky is bleeding clouds on a dark, dank day as the engine disengages. One quick kick of the kickstand — and it dies completely.
Then all that’s left is the silence. And the ritual.

Letting the clutch out, I lean the bike over, twist the key and slide off and out of the saddle. Seconds later, I’m un-velcroing the gloves, loosening the helmet and unzipping my jacket.

It’s a combination of connected movements that I’ve now done thousands of times, on a whole mess of different machinery, all over the country and the world, without thinking about and yet today, I’m conscious of each and every step.

The order and the process. The A that gets to the B that takes you to C. And so on.

It’s a well-worn practice – a part of the riding experience that happens each and every ride, even on trackdays, and in a strange way there’s almost a comfort to the rhythm. To the execution.

And yet today there is something missing.

Mentally, I start checking and re-checking that internal to-do list that every rider has when they climb off of their bike during a ride.

Taking a breath, I stare out to the East; through the weeds in the fields, above the rolling hills that almost shimmer in the light breeze, and up and over the not-so-distant mountains, which look decidedly muted under such a dark, black, virtueless sky.

The menacing color palette feels haunting. It looks evil and nasty and so damn turbulent.

Yet the shitty weather on the horizon that’s quickly approaching doesn’t even faze me… Instead, my mind seems stuck on what’s been forgotten.

Swinging my head around, I glance westward, expecting to see something brighter, but it’s just a lighter shade of gloomy.

Looking back at the bike, my hands start to fidget just a bit as a thought crosses my mind and I shutter.

This coming Monday will start my 11th week without a smoke.

Unlike previous attempts to quit, this time around has been surprisingly easy with the exception of a few crazed days.

Expect for right now.

In my book, few things in life pair as well as smokes and sportbikes. They are remarkably complimentary if not opposed activities — The long, slow introspective drag of a smoke perfectly counter-balancing the heart-pounding core-human enthusiasm you feel after a jaunt down a decidedly curvy road that you just conquered. For practically the last decade, the combination of these two elements has been the means by which I’ve experienced life.

But not anymore.

Now, I find myself standing next to the bike, looking out at the foul weather that’s coming my way and thinking, it’s time to get back on the road.

Introspection will have to wait. It’s time to ride.