It was warm out but I was already determined to hit the road. After a weeklong engagement with triple digit temperatures, and no place to go, I was itching to get out for a ride. The only problem I was facing was deciding which direction to point myself in. After a five second pause, that problem was resolved. I am fortunate enough to live only a few short miles from some of the best roads on the planet with which to test ones riding mettle. Highway 190 in particular, is one of the toughest and most rewarding stretches of pavement I’ve ever been on. With what seems to be hundreds of linked turns of varying degrees (several exhibiting enough negative camber to send you right outside your line), the forty-five mile stretch of roadway I selected, can be a daunting challenge even for the most experienced rider.
With my jacket, gloves, and helmet on (pants too of course), the duke and I made a break for it. The first fifteen miles or so were really nothing to get overly excited about as I was just making my way toward the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice trek sans the twisties and it passes the local lake bearing an ill-conceived name given to it by someone that had either been wearing rose colored glasses or had never visited the area. Albeit somewhat entertaining, it isn’t until exiting the small town of Springville that things quickly get twisted. The highway tracks the Tule river for many miles upstream and you shoot up from 457 feet above sea level to just over 7000 feet in little more than 20 miles. The scenery is really breath taking; not that you’re paying much attention to it due to the spanking the road is giving you, but there are several vista points cut out along the way should you choose to stop and take it all in.
One of the things I most love about riding is the sound of the machine beneath me. Many of my friends ride with ear plugs or ear buds listening to their favorite music but I’m just content to hear the thrum of the engine and smell the fragrance of the earth as I ride through it. For me, riding is often about being in my own space with no one else there to bother me. There is a certain Zen-like feeling of complete peace and solitude when I’m riding and all too often in today’s fast paced world, transporting oneself to that place of solitude is a must in order to remain relatively sane. The best part of Highway 190 (aside from the turns) is the varying elevation. You start in the valley floor where you find yourself surrounded by citrus farms and the sweet smell of orange blossoms. Mind you, this is only a month or two out of the year but it’s fantastic. Rising up as you make your way toward Springville, you can smell all manner of wild flowers in the spring. Riding farther yet, you begin to make out hints of rushing water until you quickly find yourself face to face with the Tule River as it carves its way down through the mountain gorges alongside the highway. The rest of the journey is filled with aromas of sage and pine and air so crisp it seems foreign.
But enough about the scenery. I had recently done a search for articles on cornering technique and came across a really good find where the writer described things in such a way that I could literally envision myself applying the principles in my head a few days prior to this ride. The article found at http://www.lazymotorbike.eu/tips/corners/ is a read I’d recommend to any rider if for no other reason than a brush up. As I set out on my journey I was going over all of the ideas presented to me and testing the ones I could prior to reaching the challenging section of the roadway. Things came easy to me and I immediately began to feel more confident. Something I should mention is that the week prior to this ride, I made nearly the same trip with far less desirable results. In fact I was doing so poorly that I cut my ride short in frustration over how rusty I’d allowed myself to get. Fast forward back to the present and I was quickly making my way toward the base of the mighty Sierra Nevada range. One of the things I’ve mentioned in previous posts is that it has taken me awhile to get reacquainted with chain slack especially when coupled with the on/off action of the Superduke’s throttle response. It can be quite scary coming out of a corner and has really thrown me off balance on more than a few occasions. It’s especially bad when I haven’t chosen the correct entry speed when going into a corner. Bearing this in mind, two things I found extraordinarily helpful were the ideas of using your left thigh to press in on the tank to help tip the bike to the right (visa-versa for left turns), and using the rear brake (very lightly mind you) to assist with turns where one’s entry speed was too high. The other piece of information no one had ever explained to me in all my years of riding were the effects of positive and negative camber in cornering. Most turns have what is known as positive camber. In other words, the turn banks to the inside. For example, if you are making a right turn, a positive camber corner will slope with the high side of the road being on your left. In contrast, a negative camber corner will slope from the right meaning you are turning into the high side of the road. No problem right? Sure, if you know what the effects are and are prepared for them in advance. In a corner that has negative camber, one has to lean much farther in order to make the turn and if you don’t know this ahead of time, you’re going to swing wide which as you can imagine, on a blind corner, can be a very bad thing.
The ride up the hill was going very smoothly. I had not encountered any corner I couldn’t handle and was making great time which is something I was not able to do during my previous ride. It was a lot more work scanning the corners ahead and making the right adjustments but I knew this was all going to become second nature in the months ahead so I didn’t let that get me down. Just before I reached Camp Nelson, I decided to stop at the Pierpoint Springs Café and grab a bite to eat. The place was nearly empty when I arrived save for a couple and their newborn, and the waitress and cook. Walking in, I was greeted by the smell of eggs, bacon, and fresh coffee. Instantly my stomach woke up and demanded it’s customary morning intake. I sat in a booth closest to the door and took in the local flavor. While waiting to have my order taken, I snapped a few pictures through the windows and caught a Doe walking down the hillside across the street from where I sat. The area holds quite a lot of fond memories for me from my early teens and I was temporarily transported back to that time and was enjoying the memories as my waitress arrived. I ordered a bowl of oatmeal, wheat toast, and coffee. While waiting for my food, I attempted to connect to the local wireless hotspot but was informed the service was down. Looking at my phone, I also noticed I had no cell service and resigned myself to utilizing what now seems to be a prehistoric form of communication; chatting up the locals.
Striking up a conversation with the young couple, I was informed their newborn was barely a month old and had been delivered two weeks early. Being a new father myself, we found some common ground rather quickly and began discussing the more mysterious points of being a new parent. Having gotten off to a rather late start in the parenting game, I wondered what they might be thinking about while talking to this relatively old guy but the conversation went well and it was clear they were every bit as enamored with their little one as I am with mine. Shortly after downing my last bit of strawberry jellied toast, I walked up the register, paid for my meal and bid my new friends farewell.
Back on the bike, I rode with renewed confidence and was putting my new skill set to good use. I was really amazed at how well the rear brake can assist on a tight turn but was sure to use it judiciously as the last thing I wanted to do was lock up the rear wheel on a corner which is something the aforementioned article warns of. Things were going far better than expected until I was about halfway down the mountain. There is one turn in particular that I had trouble on the previous week but I couldn’t quite remember which one it was. It didn’t take much longer to find it. Once again, I was surprised by it and entered at too high a velocity. Prior to entering, I noticed something that I hadn’t previously. It was very clear now that this turn exhibited a lot of negative camber and sloped hard from the inside out. I made a critical mistake here and I write about this with blatant honesty in hopes that it might help others avoid what became a stupid mistake. As I hit the corner knowing what I had just figured out, my body tensed as I went to lean to the right. Just at that moment, a car became visible coming toward me around the corner. I felt myself tense up even further as I witnessed the look on the drivers face. There was shock and fear in his eyes and I became instantly aware I was not going to make this turn the way I should. Probably the only thing I did right was to avoid locking up my brakes in a futile attempt at missing the car. Instead, I lightly applied pressure to the rear brake which kept me from crossing the double yellow line until after the car was safely past me.
Thereafter began a flurry of four letter expletives I’ll save you from having to read. I was livid! How could I have allowed that to happen for the second week in a row? It was a complete rookie mistake and I clearly knew better. What I realize now that I didn’t then is that these skills don’t just magically develop as a result of reading about them. Knowing something and applying it are two vastly different things which bring me to my point. Practice, practice, practice! If you want to get better at doing anything in life, you’ve got to practice and that ladies and gentlemen is exactly what I was doing. I feel great knowing I am honing my skills as a rider but will never take for granted the fact that there is always more to learn and apply. Being an avid firearms enthusiast, there is something I’ve learned over the years, when all hell breaks loose, you always revert to what you know best; that my friends, is what you practice day in and day out. You have to be able to do something practically in your sleep to know you’ll do it well under pressure. Riding is one of the most rewarding things I do, but it will be even more so once I get to the place where my skills are such that my subconscious mind can pilot me through a dangerous situation while my conscious mind is busy screaming “Oh CRAP!”
Ride safe.
