It's one of those legends among sportbikers, you know, like Deals Gap in Virginia or the Ortega Highway in San Diego or the Mulholland Highway in Malibu. Gaggles of brightly colored sportbikes flow along its curves on nice weekends such as this, jinking and gunning and fighting for lines.
Anyway, today being a nice day, I took a detour on the way back from church and followed the signs to Highway 2, the Angeles Crest Highway. My original intention was to have myself a nice lazy scenic cruise for about 20-30 miles, find a good overlook and curl up with Hegel for an hour, turn around and come back. Sounds idyllic, right? Right.
The original intention was shot all to hell by a red Ducati 99something whose rider obviously was not intent on exploring the limits of his (her?) bike, nonetheless staying tantalizingly out of range of my increasing lean angles. After about five minutes of this unintentional hide and seek I gave up, found fourth gear, and began systematically scrubbing sidewalls. I was steadily catching up, and after a few miles found the pace Ducati was holding and we climbed together to 6000 feet.
Ducati turned around and went back down, but I wasn't quite to my 170-mile point of no return on the fuel gauge. So I went a few more miles and whallah, the most perfect overlook opened before my eyes. I had passed a couple of ski slopes and the conformation of the land here allowed for a few wide open views of L.A. I pulled over, found a fallen tree comfortably balanced on the 45-degree ski slope, sat on it and read for about 10 minutes, then turned myself sideways and fell asleep. (If it weren't for the fact that I was rather precariously lying on a cylindrical shape about 5' off the ground, in the open sunshine getting burned, and with a dinner appointment looming, I would quite happily have not woken up until sunset.)
I struggled myself awake to check my phone messages. I had a voicemail but service was so bad I couldn't connect. It was 2:30 anyway, time to go, time to get someplace where I'd have cell reception.
I held to my plan of lazy cruising till I passed the restaurant place. Wafting restlessly behind a green Ford Excursion, I noted a growing swarm of sportbikes building behind me. A yellow Ducati was in the lead followed by a black CBR and a blue SVS and numerous others.
The truck pulled over to let us pass, and like salmon from an open floodgate we rushed headlong through the open gap. Crap. Now I'm leading this whole pack of rice racers. I hate this. I'm not on a sportbike, so either I pull over or I stay in front. And I can't stay in front long if I choose that option because (1) I don't have big fat tires on a taut little chassis and (2) I don't have a lot of experience running twisties hard.
I resolved to go what was comfortable and if they just had to pass me, well they could go right ahead. I proceeded to go what was comfortable, slicing my lines as precisely as I could and keeping the v-twin spinning at 5000. To my surprise the yellow Duc stayed where it was. Okay, here's another dude not interested in wrapping it out. Obviously. Because there's no way a 417-pound, 62-horsepower 2-cylinder dual purpose commuter is going to smoke a Ducati.
And evidently no one behind him weren't interested in pushing the envelope either because no one passed anyone. I kept doing my thing, wondering if there were more SVS genes in the machine I was riding than I gave it credit for. The thing is, the V-Strom is so planted and predictable it really is very easy to toss around, notwithstanding its heft, lack of power and skinny tires. I ground deeper and deeper into each successive curve, watching the pack disappear behind me...slowed up in the straights and they caught up, took off into the curves again and they fell back. The yellow Duc stubbornly hung on, but he suddenly seemed to feel the need to hang a knee out on some of these curves. Had I really picked up the pace that much?
Apparently I had, because no one was very close behind him anymore. And it stayed that way till we arrived at the more civilized portion of the road, the one with prominently posted speed limits and more traffic, we all slowed to normal riding mode, said mental goodbyes and arced off to each of our individual destinations. I kept going straight hoping to find a convenient gas station before I headed home.
That felt good. Even if the competition wasn't trying, I had to feel a bit of pride in the ol' Strom showing its SV heritage through the daily denim exterior, and at least entertaining a Ducati-led wolfpack for a good half an hour or so. Eh, she can play hard when she feels like it.
(before anyone asks, Ducati is an Italian marque, v-twin with 1000cc displacement, noted for excellent handling and numerous Superbike championships)
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