Will the marine layer ever relent? Into Crescent City the “jumps” have been lengthened to the 1098S’ maximum safe range, 120 miles, out of necessity. In response, my body is betraying me. That’s making it hard to keep a positive attitude.
Category: Adventures
A Life in 66.6 Mile Increments Part 4 – 80 Miles
I’ve made navigational errors before, tons of them, but this one feels profound. The fog is so dense I can hardly make out the cat’s eye reflectors on the road in the 1098S’s projectors and we’re reduced to near walking pace, down a road with no discernable name cloaked in 10 feet of visibility.
A Life in 66.6 Mile Increments Part 3 – Here There be Turkeys
L.A. … The 1098S slices northwards on the 405 out of Irvine between columns of traffic trudging forwards like workers in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Even with the Ventura luggage, I’m the widest thing on the bike – my shoulders inches from SUV mirrors as we split lanes. The 1098S is due in Portland 3-days from…
A Life in 66.6 Mile Increments Part 2 – The 1098GT
“They took my Allen keys from my at security,” on the phone photographer Kevin Miklossy sounds disgusted, “you need a 6mm and a 3mm. Does the Ducati toolkit have them?” I laugh, “You’re joking right.” The 1098S toolkit philosophy is one of insert gold card and swipe. Kevin is flying to meet me with another…
A Life in 66.6 Mile Increments Part I – The World’s Fastest Sport-Tourer
Sitting long, low and sepia-lit in the evening sun at Alice’s on Skyline Road the 1098S projects sensuality and anticipation of acceleration so pure it borders on erotic; needing only to shed vestigial street fitments to reveal its true track-borne nature.
Return to the Lost Coast
It is September 2003, and the chugging of my new VTEC VFR’s ABS, normally so subtle and elegant as to be unnoticed in all but the direst of conditions, gives me notice that we have taken a wrong turn. I stand up on the pegs, advice given to me by a former BMW stunt rider…
R-Type of Tour: Mapping the RT, ST and GS Provinces – Part II
“It’s going to be the, ‘I rode one of these in the war’ story”, I joke as we watch two elderly gentlemen appraise the three bikes. BMWs it seems are some of the most approachable bikes, in part I think due to the sense of history they imbue. The door opens and the white haired…
R-Type of Tour: Mapping the RT, ST and GS Provinces – Part I
We ascend into Manning Park to the aeronautic thrum of the three horizontally opposed twin engines as the BMW R1200RT, R1200ST and R1200GS Adventure sweep though in single file. April’s rugged meteorological terrain has been washed over with summer’s sheen, with the sun beating the snow back into the trees along British Columbia’s Highway 3. …
Oliver’s Mixed Notes
Tendrils of golden “Dirty Laundry” Gwurtzraminer trail down the glass’s interior. The taste, even to my limited palette, is fruity, clean, and lingering. Looking up at the wine board in the Toasted Oak Wine Bar and Grill it advertises Wine Flight Wednesday. I deliberate over the cost of staying at the Cactus Tree Inn, a…
Silver Dawn
There are rods for our backs and for our eyes, and cones for smoking and seeing. Rods distinguish shapes, cones determine colour. In the hour before dawn the rods rule – there are shapes without colour, silver and shadow, steel and coal. Time for a ride. I cable-tied the broken headlight bracket on the Moto…
OWD Roadshow: Ridge Crest to Las Vegas
130 mph is indicated on the speedo as the bikes shoot arrow-straight across Death Valley’s floor. The road may be linear in direction but the warning signs of dips are not to be disregarded. Over one rise the bars begin to wobble a bit indicating an oncoming tankslapper. The VFR, it seems, was never set…
OWD Roadshow: Buttonwillow to Ridge Crest
It’s 0 Celsius, we’re navigating though the occasional bout of slush and the bikes are now thoroughly coated with sand, gravel, salt and road spray. I haven’t had time to plug in the heated vest, I’ve been too busy working the bike and that’s warmed me up naturally. No, I’m not having flashbacks to a…
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