I experienced a perfect piece of road today in the Sierra foothills,
3 hours of heaven on two wheels, door to door from my house,
introduced to me by a long-time local, who calls it "technical", and
this from a serious track guy and licensed racer! My first time on
it, I thought "WHOA, whoever built this road MUST be a rider!".
Ten minutes from home, I hit the start of this great road. It's
unassuming enough at first, a straight shot through stone fruit
orchards, vineyards, citrus, and the occasional yuppie McMansion-Plus
plopped onto a 5 acre "ranch". Since it's April, the citrus is
blooming like 18-yr-old kids in heat, and the scent is almost
overwhelming...it's as though someone put an air freshener in my
helmet, although no man-made smell can match the tropical
lusciousness of the orange blossoms.
Another ten minutes, and I get my first tantalizing appetizer, a bit
of a bend here, a view of the King's River there. People are out
fishing and camping, but traffic is light.
Then *WHAM*!! I'm into the technical stuff! A moment's inattention
(and it's easy to do considering the species of wildflowers I'm
ticking off in my head, still remembered from biology classes I took
in the Late Pleistocene) let's just say if you don't stay alert,
your whole day can be fubar.
It takes a while today... hell, it always seems to take me a while to
warm up these days. And doing the same road with a different
bike...*is* this the same road?
I've always taken the R65 to the local hills and mountains, but
today I tried the R1150R - which took some adjustment. I'm still not
sure which bike is better for the twisties, the oily is of course
more of a handful (extra poundage), but OTOH it's got
power/brakes/suspension advantages. It would be interesting to race
myself vs. me on the two bikes. My hunch is that I'm faster on the R65.
90 min into my brief foray into rider heaven, I approach a campsite,
and see colorful rafts full of folks finishing their trip down the
Kings River...and looking cold. The river looks pretty tame here, I
hope it was a better ride upstream...certainly there are parts of the
Kings that this time of year look unraftable to me, and I've been on
the Colorado taking on 10-foot-high standing waves when I worked with
the USGS (really, a horrible job...honest...you don't want it...).
Too soon it's time to turn about, and then that magic happens that
probably needs no explanation...I'm *on*. My "technical" road has
suddenly become child's play in my hands...I'm a living goddess on a
bike (never mind that any competent rider on a Vespa could have
surely blown by me - but it's the subjective experience that counts
here, folks), surely I'll be scraping bits soon! (Uh, didn't happen
today - I'm still not sure what the first thing to scrape on an
oilhead might be). And...you know the rest...the silly grin, the
occasional giggle in the helmet....oops, the big steer in the road, let's
hear it for good brakes...finally a wind-down into the flatter areas
and a quick final run home.
I'm home alone tonight, so I treat myself with a nice run (on feet,
not wheels) followed by a junk food dinner: a can of chili, a big
pile of jalapenos and a bottle of beer. Yeah, I know: yuck...just be
glad you're not here to savor the aftermath...
Arla
