“The only bike I couldn’t hang with was an Aprilia Falco” was what he boasted, that caught my ears off the bat. Either this guy is really that good or he just rides with lesser riders. Since the situation with the ladies looked bleak that night as it did most nights, common place for a guy who has more than a mild love affair with bikes. So bike talk ensued, and with people whose passion is motorcycles it is always filled with passion, swapping stories of past runs, almost wrecks, real wrecks, the sick modification done to our loves, and general tales of mayhem. People who don’t have any passions in there lives may not understand the pride and lust that goes with bikes, but for those who know, understand what I’m talking about. So anyways as the night was ending, well really the next day was starting to birth we set a time and place to meet.
The next morning I’m waiting in some random parking lot for everyone to arrive, and what do I see pull in but three Ducati Monsters, one 620, and two 800's one of which has the carbon fiber factory race exhaust. So with all of them having almost twice my displacement if not three times as much and thirty years of technology on me I was left thinking “Shit these better be some tight nasty roads.” For even with all the work I had done to my bike she was not a straight line power house, her strength lied in the turns, the tighter and slower the better, for the fact was she still had drum brakes and non-speed rated tires. We left that parking lot to head to the lonely back roads where the cops don’t bother to sit.
When the time came and throttles were ripped open our pack of four split apart with a quickness. Me and the yellow Duc 800 were way out in the front. When we got tired of waiting for a broken yellow to appear a massively illegal ten car pass started the extensive racing of the day. I can’t help but think of what the souls trapped in their cages must have thought when after the first bike blew by them on the wrong side of the road doubling the speed limit, only to see a bike that was technically an antique with me in full race tuck, the two into one megaphone exhaust screaming and the motor was pushing out every last ounce of horse power the motor can produce. I like to think that there were kids looking in awe, maybe searing the image in there minds and changing there prospective and the line that they will walk, sorta like in the Danzig song Mother, “Mother tell your children not to walk my line, what I mean, what I say.” I have no doubts there were the looks of horror and disgust, for we were not playing my the rules, we were breaking the law, we were using their roads as our playground, a mere piece of canvas, but one that would carry many tales and live forever in the minds of these who were there.
In a few blinks of an eye that was over, and we went into the turns. I once heard this from a Moto GP mechanic, “The rider is 90% and the bike is 10%” and that was put to the test on that day, on those roads whose names are lost to me and would mean nothing anyways. On the more open and straight parts my poor bike was screaming to keep up, even with the broken tach I know she was being pushed past redline, for the bike had to be more than a grand into the red before she’d start to lose power, and she did that many times that day. When we hit the tight wooded turns the light 315 lbs wet the she weighed came into play, the big motor of the Duc couldn’t be used to it maximum potential, even with all of the years of racing heritage the weight of the extra power was nothing but a pair of cement slippers. It was pure beauty from where I was sitting, out breaking the Duc into every turn. I did not dare to pass since I had no idea where I was going or where I even was. The only thing that mattered was the sound of my motor and the back tire of the bike in front of me. This went on for about an hour, and when we stopped the smiles were evident even with the full face helmets on our heads.
One turn is forever burnt into my mind. We were in farm country, the road was raised above the surrounding countryside. The two of us were battling it out like this was a race of great importance, both utterly lost in the ride. We were going into this one right hander a bit hot, I was taking the low to high line I had been taking a lot that day. When I had all ready committed to the low part of the line and about to make my transition the high line there was gravel all over the center of the road. This was one of those pucker moments, where if you have to engage your brain into manual mode, it would be too late, you would be going down and finding out what happens then. I got lucky and didn’t think, a tap of the brakes straightened up again for a second, cross the offending gravel, lean back in and hammer the throttle.
When it was all said and done we were sitting at a gas station and one of the most awesome statements of loss and congratulations rolled into one was given to me. “Have you ever ridden a modern sport bike?” My answer was nope. “If you were on a GSXR you would have had me.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him I could have taken him on almost any of the turns. That is the great power of an old ratty sleeper café racer, nothing to lose, but a lot of respect to gain if you lay it all out. I still say I would have rather laid the bike down than cut the gas that day, how true is that, I’ll never know, but I do know that it was pushed as far as it had to be.
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