Subject: some days, or a long friday ride... (long) Date: Fri, 04 Dec 1998 13:24:26 -0500 From: gayathri Some days are better then others. We all know that, but its been some rather tiring weeks of me just being pissed off. Pissed off at my relationships, pissed off at work, at the boss, you know, the holiday blues. My riding has been suffering. I've noticed that the stress distracts me on the street - tho going into the mind-set of what I need to actually lane split home has been the only time I've just stopped thinking about anything else and just rode. How depressing that was to think about - I'm riding on the highway, usualy in second gear, and usually at about 40 miles an hour. I needed a real ride. Friday after thanksgiving, the LA Bikers decided to meet at 0800, until I said, "No way, I'll see you all at Newcomb's Ranch, I'll be there at 0900." hey, guess they wanted to see me, since they all showed up after me. No one had checked to see if Newcombs was open after thanksgiving and their fone messages said closed until 11 am. Tony, a guy who is semi retired and spends alot of time riding one of his 8 bikes around (he has aTriumph Adventurer, as well as an africa twin, and I havent seen the rest of his bikes.) had offered to show us some new roads. We started out with an old favorite of mine, Sand Canyon - aptly named. Since I've been having trouble with being distracted while riding, I let everyone go on ahead. This road is all about about late apexing - it is very technical, and all the right turns going my way were decreasing radius. I 'screwed up' a couple of times - meaning I got way too close to the yellow line coming out of the turn as I didnt flick the bike over hard enough, but I never went over the yellow, and would just slow down some more for the next turn. I gave up trying to get better at these turns as it just wasnt coming, and that made me angry. Remember, I was pissed off? Turns out riding was doing the same thing...pissing me off because I felt as if I wasnt getting better fast enough, or that I couldn't concentrate enough to ride better. Nothing is worse to get into this sort of vicious cycle, as the more angry I got at myself, the worse I would ride, since I couldnt concentrate. We got off of Sand Canyon and ended up on Vasquez Canyon, which leads to Bouquet Canyon, which was, I thought, going to be one of the better roads of the day, tho Tony had something else to show me. Bouquet Canyon has some reasonable elevation changes, so in some places, there were trees overhanging the road, with leaves that had changed colour and dropped on the road, and some sections low in the desert area, with the brown arid look - it was distracting sometimes to come around a turn, since I wouldnt know what the scenry would look like. The views were pretty nice, and the road was 'simple' enough that I could really enjoy them. We ended up on a road called Spunky Canyon - which the rest of the LaBikers didn't enjoy, due to the fact the road looked like it had been repaired with only tar sealant, but the road stuck, and I really enjoyed the fact it wasnt in good repair, and I needed to concentrate again - everytime I had some time to think on Bouquet Canyon, I'd start thinking about work or relationships and I would have this horrible fear I'd end up off the side of the mountain due to my own inability to concentrate or my own utter stupidity on being on this ride in the first place. Everytime this happened, I'd slow down, a lot, and the scenery would distract me back into riding the road... Tough roads like Spunky Canyon would put me back into the 'zone', where while I knew I wasnt riding 'great', I was so concentrating on what my body and the bike and the road were doing, that it all narrowed down into something Very Simple. This was the sort of riding I needed. Work and all of that - its just a way of making money and being comfortable enough to be able to get to THIS place. Spunky Canyon led onto San Francisquito Canyon road - lots of open sweepers with about three sections of 'tight' stuff. I managed to be ahead of Squidboy on his zx-6r with a passenger on the back, and my other friend Brian on his BMW r100 - and thought to myself, "Ya know, these are open sweepers, and these guys could go faster, but, f*ck it, I'm ahead..." and started to really Just Go. Suddenly, I was back into the zone - and I realized that making myself concentrate on riding, just riding, was getting me out of the vicious circle of getting angry at my own lack of ability to keep up with the rest of the group, or even get better enough that anyone else noticed... I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone else, but I was in a place where I had sort of 'warmed up' by concentrating on Spunky Canyon at lower speeds (40-45 mph), and suddenly jumped onto this road that was fine, for me, at about 65-75 mph. look, ma, no brakes! Hey, have I mentioned I love my Daytona? Engine braking RULES! I could never get the 'f3 or the zx-6r to this, but the superhawk and the daytona are so easy to just roll off the throttle, bank the bike over, and point and shoot right out, keeping the revs up, and laughing inside. I re-remembered how good it felt to smile, to laugh, to feel as if the bike and I were just dancing along this long and winding road...about 15 miles in, the road got a lot tighter, so I pulled over and let Brian and Squidboy get by me. I ended up being able to keep up with them and not feeling like I was pushing at all - squidboy gave me a compliment that felt really good during lunch - "Hey, why'd you pull over on that road? Your pace was PERFECT!" Brian was sad I stopped too. We were on the highway for a little while, and get back onto a road called Lake Hughes Road... which was the most perfect road of the day. No oncoming traffic, and just about 20 miles of twisties in the canyons - it reminded me of the Kancamangus, a little bit - with cliffs, waterfalls, trees losing leaves in bursts of colour, a river running along it, a road that stuck like glue. That's when I started losing the zone again, and I was sad all over - I knew that stress was winning, and I made a promise to myself that I would work out whatever it was that was bothering me, and then move ahead, no matter what. Lake Hughes Road deserves that much, and so do I. The next set of roads were high speed sweepers and I lost the gang again (look, I know the daytona can do 150. I dont need to go over 85-90 on two lane roads, tho one long straight saw DoD nominal). I started getting lost in feeling sorry for myself, that no one noticed I was not behind them, and that they wouldnt slow down to let me keep up. A little voice said, "Fu*k them. Life in a helmet, on a bike, is a lot like life in general. You can be in a group, but you are still in your head like you are in a helmet, in your skin, like your leathers and that distance is something you don't get beyond. So get used to it." We got home around 4 pm, after doing about 220 miles of mostly twisties and hard riding. My legs and thighs were sore and kept cramping - must remember to do more yoga and stretch those leg muscles (ski season is coming up as well...). it was a good day, and a bad day, but even a bad day riding is better then no riding at all. I was still trying to work thru feeling as if perhaps I ought to put the bike away for a while, while I worked thru whatever stress my life was having, until I realized that the only time I do concentrate and stay streesless... has been on the bike. So I'll keep slowing down when I need to, stop and smell the roses when I need to, and figure out the rest as I go along. Gayathri ------------------------------------------------------------------------ gayathri@world.std.com Calamari Club #002, SquidWannaBe '98 T595, Huckleberry Hound