SoloBiker.com

“I suck.”

I lost track of how many times I said that in my head on this day.

When it takes 9.5 hours to travel just over 300 miles, you can figure out very quickly that I wasn’t going very fast.

Basically, Day 2 kicked my ass.

The route was full of twisty mountain roads, with lots of tight, technical turns, hairpins and switchbacks. You name it, I saw it today.

The morning started out pleasantly enough…an early morning cruise past Big Bear Lake.

After this, the road tightend up considerably….and so did I.

The frustration mounted as I continually had to pull over to let faster cars go by. I was tight and tense. If I leaned off the seat, I forgot to countersteer. If I countersteered, I was in the wrong gear. I just couldn’t get everything coordinated.

Thanks to being pre-occupied with frustration, I very nearly had my first major “stupid” while leaving this rest area on the Rim of the World Highway.

While turning left onto a steep incline, I overturned the bike. This combined with the sharp incline had me leaned over nearly to the point of dropping the bike. I hit the throttle – hard. Too hard. The bike stood straight up and nearly pitched me off the other side.

Had I not been going so slowly at the time, I would have endured a nasty little highside.

This woke me up, and frustration turned to pondering, as I tried to figure out why I was having so much trouble with the tight turns this morning.

The good news was that, with the frustration gone, I started making fewer technical mistakes.

The bad news is, that when I start pondering, I stop watching both the street signs and my maps.

Oops.

I missed my turn just past Wrightwood, and ended up on Hwy. 2, which has been closed for 3 years due to landslides.

Only a 10 mile backtrack, but now I tried to balance my pondering with paying attention to where I was going….

As I made my way down to Palmdale, I tried to figure it out.

What’s going on? I know what to do. I know the proper technique. I’ve done it in the past. Why can’t I do it now?

Of the handful of corners that you will find in the southern Nevada desert, most of them are higher speed sweepers.

Also, there isn’t anything in the Mojave Desert over four feet tall in any direction for 150 miles.

So I’m a completely different rider when I can…see!!

So why am I a much better rider when I can see what’s in front of me, as opposed to these mountain roads where most of the corners are blind to varying degrees, and there are trees everywhere that potentially block my view of what’s out in front of me?

Trust.

Plain and simple. I don’t trust what I can’t see. As long as I can see through the entire corner and what’s up ahead, I can attack a corner with the full extent of my current ability (such as it is).

When I can’t see what’s ahead, I worry. I tense up. I fight myself. I’m unwilling to trust and believe that everything around that corner is going to be just fine, even though I’m unable to see it in the present moment.

Who knew that riding a motorcycle could become a metaphor for one’s own life?

———-

Sorry, no pictures of Palmdale for the same reason that there were no pictures of Twentynine Palms.

Lake Elizabeth Road provided the one brief stretch of fun I had today. This was more in my comfort zone, and I picked up my speed (for the only time all day) and happily cruised along.

Finally though, all the early morning tenseness caught up to me, and the pain quickly increased. By the time I was 10 miles west of Pine Mountain Club, it was nearly unbearable.

I tried to take a break. Stomper was complaining about being couped up all day, so he hung out and gazed over the smoggy southern Central Valley.

Now, maybe this is just me, but every time I’ve been to Buttonwillow, CA I’ve been overrun by flies – dozens of them everywhere – trying to fly into my mouth, up my nose, or into my ears.

Apparently, being in the hills directly west of them didn’t seem to do anything to stop their assault. Within moments of removing my helmet, I was attacked.

They were driving me nuts. Even Stomper was wilting under their assault.

Finally, even though I was wincing in pain, I decided that I had to keep going. There certainly wasn’t any relief to be found here.

Back on the road I go. About 5 miles later, I had my first truly scary moment of the trip. A large, beautiful bird (I assumed it to be a hawk) swooped down across the road. I suddenly realized that the hawk was about at my eye level, and wasn’t going to make it past me in time.

Apparently the hawk realized it too, as he suddenly made a bee-line for the ground.

He landed on the pavement, only about a foot to the right of the bike. I had no time to make an adjustment, so I lifted my right leg as high as I could…

…and watched in amazement as my foot passed over him.

The blast of adrenaline from this experience kept me going for the next two hours.

Finally, I made it to Hwy 166, which was going to be my first straight, fast run of the day. I figured I’d make up for lost time here, and had visions of quickly reaching my evening’s destination.

It lasted all of 7 miles.

I hit a paving project, which slowed things to a crawl for well over 20 miles. We had to follow a Pilot Car at one point, and since I arrived just as the line was taking off, I really didn’t have the opportunity to get in front of the line. So the next 45 minutes were spent filtering through the slower traffic.

Finally, just as I thought I couldn’t continue, I reached San Luis Obispo. I detoured briefly to San Luis Motorsports to buy a Crampbuster and Throttle Lock, then headed out to Morro Bay, where I found my room, and tucked the bike in safely for the night

I tried to make up for lost pictures by taking several shots, including the view out my balcony, and several sunset shots, trying to get it just right. (I’m not sure I ever really did – but a lot of readers seem to like the last one.)

As sore as I was after this ride, I was really concerned about my ability to cover the distance that I needed to on Day 3. At least I know I’ll have a day off the bike after that.