Within two minutes of riding the first signs that today would be a special day on the bike started appearing. As I pulled onto the freeway a guy on a BMW K1200? passed me wearing the exact same jacket and helmet as me! How cool is that! Scott was confused there for a second, but the guy had panniers, so he was able to sort us out!
It's 85 miles from San Clemente to the bottom of the Angeles Crest Highway in La Canada-Flintridge, so there were plenty of freeway miles today. After the encounter with the ultra stylish BMW rider we stumbled upon a fat guy riding a Ducati 1098. What a disaster! The guy was rolling squid style (no motorcycle jacket) and his huge gut was splayed out across the fuel tank like gravy on meatballs. And to top it off, his drag inducing riding position basically consisted of pointing his knees straight out in both directions... as in "I'm dragging both knees at the same time."
This may be the all-time mismatch between rider and motorcycle recorded in history!
And then it happened...
You can never prepare for moments like this in your life. They just happen. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a Ferrari 250 GTO heading south on the 57 Freeway.
I've loved cars and motorcycles my entire life. I've never been rich, and I may never be. But I've always loved Ferraris. I've even driven a few. But really my love for Ferraris is basically Ferrari watching. I've seen some amazing cars in my lifetime. I saw Michael Schumacher's championship winning F1 car running at Willow Springs. I've seen Schumacher himself at Spa. I've seen nearly all of the McLaren F1 GTRs running at Laguna Seca, plus three of the road going McLaren F1s. I've seen F40s, F50s, and Enzos.
But today I saw the daddy. The king. The single greatest sports car ever built. The greatest Ferrari ever made.
I wasn't prepared. And maybe I overreacted. But I went NUTS in my helmet. I was just shouting "Oh my God!" (probably about a hundred times).
The 250 GTO was built between 1962 and 1964. There were 36 models built, and all 36 are still on the road... well in existence. Being the most expensive car in the world, with an estimated value of 18 million dollars, these 36 cars rarely venture beyond the safe confines of their climate controlled garages. It's the pinnacle of Ferrari coachbuilding and widely regarded as the greatest sportscar of all time, if not the greatest car of all time.
I was completely unprepared and it's a moment I'll never forget.
Today's ride up the mountain was a beautiful one. My R1200R is decidedly less sport oriented than my Boxer Cup, so I've been working on modifying my riding style to best suit the bike. For a while I was not hanging off and keeping my butt planted in the seat. But today I started riding the bike more "sportbike" style, sliding my arse from side to side and taking advantage of more weight shift. I wasn't hanging off like a crotch rocket monkey, but the weight shift definitely made huge differences in how the bike corners (which by the way, is brilliant).
On the street a naked streetfighter bike is the ultimate. There's just no justification that I can think of (except for vanity) for riding a full blow race replica on the street. You can only tap a tiny percentage of the bike's overall performance safely on the street. To my mind, a bike like the BMW R1200R, MV Agusta Brutale or a Ducati Monster - in whatever guise you choose - makes the ideal sport/street bike.
I have to say, the R1200R is a spectacular bike. I once joked about passing a Ducati Monster on Mulholland Drive saying "He'd have to be riding the Ducati Monster Carl Fogarty Edition... with Carl Fogarty actually at the controls if he wanted to catch me!" That quip actually got me thinking philosophically about the bike so I decided to look up the specs on the Carl Fogarty Monster and surprisingly it has the same horsepower (110 bhp) as my R1200R. Hmmmm... I thought it was more. Guess not. But I have to remember my boxer is 1200cc. So it's a pretty big engine. Most importantly though is the Telelever front suspension. It just works brilliantly. There's no brake dive. No speed wobbles. It's just ultra stable and confidence inspiring mid corner.
The R1200R is a brilliant sports bike. In the right hands, in the canyons, you can keep pace with any sportbike. Period. You would literally have to carry racetrack cornering speeds (which is completely unsafe on the road) before you would ever notice a difference between a pure sports bike and the R1200R. But more importantly, most pure sport machines are built to a specific formula (like superbike or superstock) which means that in many ways a race replica bike is limited in it's capacity to perform against a bike like the R1200R. The 12R isn't limited to 600cc or even a 1000cc in the motor. The R1200R has linked brakes and ABS which are not allowed on race bikes. It was designed specifically to perform as the ultimate expression of what a "street bike" should be. Limited only by the imagination of the designer. Which in some ways is actually to it's advantage. And unlike a race replica, you can do 400 miles in a day in complete comfort.
This brings me to another completely different topic which I've been thinking about lately. The aesthetic of the motorcycle. My feelings with most machines, and specifically with motorcycles, is that they should be as simple and free of excess as possible. If you don't need it... take it off. I think the ultimate aesthetic in motorcycling would be a pure bike; motor, wheels, seat, handlebars, gas tank and a frame to tie it all together.
Bikes should be completely free of any excess. Period.
But... now I'm going to contradict myself.
There is one trend in naked bikes that I don't like. Taking a cue from the latest generation of MotoGP bikes, streetfighters have become extremely short. I'm not talking about wheelbase. I'm talking about the tail section of the bike. It's gone. Where is it? OK, so removing the tail fits perfectly into my excess free ideology, and aesthetically on the showroom floor it looks terrific. But in practice, if the pilot is taller than 5'6" he looks like (a) a circus bear on a mini cycle or (b) a monkey fucking a football. It just looks wrong!
To date the major offenders have been the Buell Streetfighters and the Triumph Speed Triple.
The greatest macho-man testosterone bike of all time - the Ducati Monster - may have stumbled down this minimalist path with the latest generation due to be introduced this month in the form of the new 696. Time will only tell how well this new bike is received. I saw a Monster S4Rs Tricolor on the way down the mountain and I can't imagine a more aesthetically pleasing motorbike on the planet. So the new bike has a lot to live up to.
Back to the ride...
It's great riding with Scott. When I ride with Pierce or Mitch we ride faster. Much faster. Scott rides at the "Goldilocks" speed. Not too fast, not too slow. Juuust right. Because it was his first ride up ACH I led on the way up. On the way down I happily followed. Scott uses a little more brakes than I do going into the corners, and I'll attribute that to the stronger engine braking in the R1200R and maybe a little more trust in my front tire. I could just roll off the throttle and glide up behind him mid corner. For a street bike, his Katana works beautifully. However, I think the OEM tire choice is a poor one. They're REALLY touring oriented tires and when he tips it into the corner there's not much contact patch left. I think once Scott replaces the tires, with say Metzler Z6s, he'll be much faster and a fair bit safer.
All in all, I'd say that I finally feel like I'm dialed into my bike both in the touring guise and as a sport bike. It's a brilliant bike and I'm reinvigorated with the idea of doing some sport riding. I also think that my last round of karting, two weeks ago in Phoenix with Pierce, has really helped me improve my motorcycling. Not from drawing lines in the corners, but rather the slipping and gripping of tires. You can really toss a kart around, sliding and hopping, and it really gives you a feel for limitations in cornering. And what I realized is this:
Motorcycle racers ride on the limit like I kart on the limit, and it's light years faster than typical canyon carving speeds. So I'm learning to trust my tires more.
I'm also looking forward to doing some more sport riding before I leave on my trip. Maybe I'll pass you in a canyon somewhere.
