To: labiker@motohaus.org Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 23:06:20 -0400 From: gayathri Subject: Riding with my fave ducati chick! Well, she's my fave 'cause 1. she'll ride with me 2. she likes having breakfast at the same time I do. Well, no, really, its 'cause after breakfast, she turns into this little bat outta hell on two wheels. First off, great breakfast at DISH, tho the waitress forgot to give us our 10% discount (wah!) and i was too lazy to fix it. I'll tell the owner next time I'm in. We go to get gas at the shell station, where some guy on a cruiser comes up to us (Yamaha vstar? something like that) and sez, "hey, are those comfortable?" and we're both saying, "HUH?" "Are they comfortable?" Me: "Mine's not for long higway use." him: "so its not comfortable." me: "I dont get what you are askin' me!" him: "I just rode this from NY! its the best!" Me: "that's nice. but its a cruiser." He didnt get it. Andrea gave me this LOOK, like, "whatever, weirdo!" and we got on our bikes and headed up the hill. I was listening to POD on the headfones, and enjoying leading. The only problem was everytime I'd speed up and lose MissDrea, some stupid cager would be over the double yellow on the next turn. :( fortunately, I was being good and could avoid them easily. We get up to Upper Big T, and I tell Drea to lead, and suddenly I'm sitting there alone -- she's taken off. I'm sittin' with my mouth open, just as the song "Alive" starts on the CD player -- I take off after her, wacking open the throttle. WHOOPS! Hey, why's the front wheel off the ground?!? ("So I learn from my mistakes is beyond my control, sometimes it's best to let go") Front wheel comes down and the bike does his thing in a straight line well, and I spend the next 9 miles chasing her -- holy crap! wh put nitrous in her bike?! The only way I could catch up was stay on the throttle in the straights. Of course, 'Drea's right turn signal is blinking. "blink blink blink" me, "DAMN ! SLOW DOWN ! I can't catch up, pull up next to ya and go "blink blink blink" with my hands before the next turn." "blink blink blink" so I practiced ignoring her and just riding on her ass. :) Our lines are a little different as she uses the torquey bike to slow down, and I had to tap my brakes a few times to set up for corners. I carry more midcorner speed then her so I was careful to make sure I wasnt catching up there. We still gotta work on left turns tho... ("Sunshine upon my face A new song for me to sing Tell the world how I feel inside") Get to the end of 90 mile, with these HUGE grins on both our faces. I lead the next section and hurrah, there's the little red duc in my rear view... this parts a little tighter, but I was banking into turns just right -- we were ON, baby! get to the turn off for Big T, and head on down to Sunland -- Drea leads again, and its BANG! off we go! we decide we're going to head home from Sunland, and Drea shows me the route via Las Tunas, back past ProItalia and back to rt. 2. All in all, a fairly short morning, but a _perfect_ ride. I'm glad we stopped before either of us lost that good feeling. (Made up for missing the Marc and Judy farewell, due to some personal issues that came up at the last minute.) Gayathri >-------------------------------------------------------------- gayathri@world.std.com Calamari Club #002, WSMC #98 '88 FZR400, "gurlzbike" '98 T595, "Huckleberry Hound" "La tastaw Hishu tareeq el-Haq, min qilit es-sa'ireen fihi" Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it.