[ST] RIDING!! (longish)

["Marc Danziger" <marc@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As in I actually got to go on one!!

As many of you know, Vixen has been in pieces in the garage while Strumpet has been...well, strumpeting around with another rider for the month (he's vehicle-less and I'm a soft touch for a friend). So I've been among the frustrated and four-wheeled in my daily sojourn on the 405.

Finally blocked Friday to reassemble Vixen and just get the hell out of town. Tenacious G was sweet enough to let me go, I made a reservation at a B & B in Morro Bay (close to both 58 and 166), and as soon as the bookkeeper cut me loose Friday, started bolting Vixen back together.

As a reminder...was installing horns & trying to fix heated grips when I ran out of time, wound up losing one of the H4 clips from a headlight...

Steve K from the ST list was kind enough to offer to send me a headlight clip; it hadn't arrived Friday morning, so I stole the one from Grace's GS500...with some tweaking, it worked. One problem down.

Replaced all the connectors and rationalized the wiring for the horns, then mounted the horn on the cylinder head/frame mounts as suggested by Mr. Serlick (note: need to get longer straps to get the horns out of the cooling airflow), gave up on the heated grips, bolted the bodywork on, took off the battery tender, and hey, presto, fires right up.

I had planned a shakedown, but who had the time?? (note: breaking a cardinal rule: never take a long trip in a vehicle you have just reassembled -- got away with it this time)

To the bank and on the road at one p.m.

Followed the Toad route up to Santa Barbara, and then started up Camino Cielo (one of my fave roads - a one-lane, two-way, pothole-infested, blind-turn laded, sandy and dirty trip to the sky); get about five miles into it and then came to a big "road closed" sign. Decisions, decisions...

...I wussed. Any locals know if the sign was serious?? What's going on up there??

Back down to the slab, and north I go.

Picked up a largish pack of Harley riders near Santa Maria...they were running pretty quickly. I'm always amazed when I see them in open-face helmets, t-shirts, and shorts or jeans rolling along at 80+mph. Plus it was getting chilly (I was in shorts and a t-shirt inside a zipped-up Aerostich and was thinking about stopping and layering up). I am mildly ashamed to note that I looked closely as I passed the last (female) rider, and confirmed that yes, she was cold...

Quick trip over 227 (short but nice) and over into Morro Bay. Nice B & B, snacks and good wine at the bar, some time to chew on this challenging book I'm rereading after 20 years (Schumpeter), and up the next morning.

Saturday: Lazy start, more reading and eating, then north on 1 to the beginning of Big Sur (tempting!!) finally south on 101 and then north on 227 again just for the heck of it, and over Cuesta Grade to 58.

California route 58 is conclusive proof that if God doesn't ride motorcycles, he at least drives sportscars. I used to commute over that road about twice a month driving between college in Santa Cruz and Los Angeles (5 to Buttonwillow, 58 to the 101 and away). Haven't been on it for a year or two, but gosh, it was still great. Great road surfaces, perfect mix of tight and sweepers, some straights.

I picked up 4 guys in Porsches not too far from the beginning in some of the tighter stuff.

While I think they are neat cars, their social baggage is kinda high, and I'm always amused when we pass them in our Honda minivan...almost no one seems to drive them in any kind of challenging way.

Well, these guys (from what I saw, all appeared to be guys) were definitely the exception to the rule. Wowie; they were good, even sensible (they would back way down anywhere they saw a crossroad or driveway; they never once blew the centerline, took the blind corners slower) and waaay quick. I tucked in back, and found that I would reel them in on the tighter parts, they would move away on the sweepers, and they were perfectly willing to bury the speedo on the straight bits. At the second burst of straight-line speed, I looked at my speedo and decided that a) they were more willing to play at silly speeds than I was, b) my reputation as the Safety Nazi was in serious jeopardy, and c) no one _ever_ needs to know how fast we were going. I backed out and let them go with a honk and a wave, hoping to see them later and find out why they are different than all the other Porsche drivers here in CA.

Interesting note on the ST; I find it OK in windy situations, but really sensitive to "dirty air" (the cone of turbulence behind a truck, for example). At speed, the dirty air for the cars ahead was really noticeable. I wonder if folks with more racetrack experience than me have noticed the same thing with other bikes at high speed?? The last Porsche had a whale tail (don't know if it was a real Turbo or not, no logo on the back) and I was definitely getting buffeted.

Saw a (big!!) group of sportbikes coming the other way toward the end of 58...stopped counting at 20. No other bikes on 58...

Picked up 33, which was amazingly dirty on top; saw some solo bikes and a small group of sportbikes (yellow VFR) pulled to the side of the road. Just paced down to the Deer Creek Inn, looked at all the power cruisers, had a snack, and headed down to 101, then 1.

Picked up a back of bikes blocking both lanes and backing cars up...BMW's, at least one Ducati and a newer GSXR...couldn't figure out what they were doing except pissing off all the car drivers. Decided I wasn't up for Yerba Buena (already over 300 miles that day), so worked past them, and turned up Mulholland...where I tried to imagine how the hell Jeff Gronert does it...<g>...

Mulholland to the Rock Store, where I saw the bike of one of our board members, so we visited a bit (back to work!!) and home on the slab from Topanga...

TG and Luc were home, all happy to see me (nice to be missed!!) and then we got to go eat with friends of TG's at Yujean Kang's (yum!!)...

All in all, maybe 500 - 550 miles, a pretty darn good start to the weekend, and yes, it's nice to be back on a bike again...


MarcD


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