Allllllrighty then...
Sorry for the delay folks, shit's been happenin' and it's all rollin' downhill! Yee-haw... an' shit.
So... in picking up where I left off...
It was a humid and dreary morning...
Wait... not it wasn't. It was sunny and crisp. As most everyone made their way out the door to the dragon, I wound up leaving with the last group. Pucksdown, Mattel, and a couple of the other folks were rolling out around the same time but someone had an issue with the chain slack on the bimmer. As soon as we were out of the Driveway of Doom, everyone was pulling over. I only heard Charlie say something about a chain and at first I thought he was talking about me. "Seriously?" I thought abruptly "What is it with me and loaner bikes and chain malfunctions?!" But before I could finish the thought, he was gesturing back at the BMW. "Oh..." I nodded. He was going to keep going so I just rode along behind him, since this was my first stint on these roads. If you haven't had the joy of riding along with Charlie, he's a really cool guy and a very mature rider to follow. He reminds me a LOT of one of my riding coaches back here in Cali, Phil.
Charlie led the way through the twisties at a nice pace. There was a pretty decent amount of rocks in the road on some corners so I was reluctant. Honestly, as soon as I threw my leg over the R6 I cracked a bit of a grin, sure it ain't a kawi but I guess if I'm gonna be on a loner bike, cosmic humor would have it that I wind up on an R6 (refer to my plethora of previous diatribes outlining my frustration with my own R6). Ninja's bike was definitely an R6, high strung, twitchy and a little glitchy in the throttle. The latter of which became my only annoyance, and only really on the dragon where smooth inputs are essential given the nature of how tight and technical it is.
Still his bike felt different, and I forget now what he said he did to it but it was something along the way of putting the motor of an 09 into the chassis of an 07; which is almost exactly what I had been considering doing with mine. As we plugged along, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mattel and Mounty50. I waved them by since I was undoubtedly going to putter along by comparison. We made it up to the dragon resort (read also; the main portal to the tail of the dragon) and everyone else was already working on their third lap.
I took a minute to take in the scene: LOADS of bikes, lots of chrome, leather fringe and some tassels. I sauntered inside for a Red Bull and a biscuit and gravy to pad my stomach and hung out briefly before following Charlie up and down the dragon on a sight lap. It's definitely a lovely road, smooth ribbons of asphalt seductively winding their way through the mountain of thick green trees. The road instantly brought a smile to my face and reminded me of home. The flow of the tail is one of those that it takes a few tries to sync yourself up to. I imagine this would become a lot easier for someone who had been up it a few thousand times... someone like Charlie.
He was doing a great job of leading the way at a respectable pace and behind me I could hear the hum of OND's bike as he tried to get as close as possible to my... uh... exhaust canister. Although, I'm sure that he was just trying not to hold up Ray, who was riding Drums' bike.
We rode up to the lookout point, then down the other side of the dragon before turning around and doing the ride back in the other direction. Camera dudes were poised at three different corners and there was some traffic... more than I am used to but not abnormal for a national hotspot.
***
I don't remember where in the itinerary this occurred but at some point I had mentioned to Charlie that I wanted to do a two up ride with someone who knew the road. Part of it was for sheer adventure value and part of it was because it is always fun to learn someone else's lines. It's been a while since I've done a two up ride on a sportbike but I figured I could handle a few corners. Charlie paused to inform me that he wouldn't be doing away with the stuffed Roadrunner that he had on his pillion seat and I agreed to give the ol' bird a little... snuggle. So I hopped on and positioned the roadrunner in such a way that he might ACTUALLY be discernable as a giant stuffed dildo should any photographs capture the kodak moment, and at some point he leaned back and said something to the effect of: "I kinda wanna get a picture with my knee on the ground in front of the photographers, but I don't want to scare you." I believe I responded with something to the effect of: "Do what ya gotta do, man I'll give ya a tap if you're pushin' my limits."
Now... the pain in the ass part of riding as a passenger on any sportbike is the rider position for a passenger. If you're riding around at a meager pace where the pilot isn't too aggressive, this usually isn't too challenging. Add to it that Charlie is bigger than me (read also: of healthy proportional size) so resting my hands on the gas tank was a little more work than I'm used to. My ex was considerably scrawny and tall, and my best friend is about the same height as me. Still, I hooked my heels up under the tail section and braced my arms to reduce my weight from shifting forward under braking. A few turns in and I knew this was gonna be a workout as Charlie took it easy on the first few corners and then quickly found his comfort zone with the new handling dynamics of the bike with my additional weight.
I stretched to see over his shoulder in order to anticipate shifts in weight for each corner. I won't lie, I let out a giggle as we came around a corner and my head was out for enough to almost catch a tree limb in the face (the road is pretty narrow). My mind briefly flashed with thoughts of me returning from the ride with leaves and twigs in my teeth and a shit-eating grin.
On the way back down the pace was considerably faster. Roadrunner had disappeared into the oblivion of my nether-regions as I held on with all of my might and balance. At one point, unexpectedly, Charlie shifted his ass off the seat and broke the seal of my right hand on the gas tank. I quickly pressed with my right foot to offset the weight slip and as we sailed around a corner, I managed to keep myself on the bike with nothing more than my right foot hooked under the tail with my weight resting on the ball of my foot, my elbow pressed up on my knee, and the upper portion of my weight resting on three fingers that were pressed up against the gas tank with only the traction of my leather glove holding a seal under the weight of my trembling arm. It was some tantric yogic shit that I couldn't help but laugh my ass off at as I felt something scrape the ground at the exact moment that I looked the camera guy square in the face.
Betcha didn't know all of THAT was goin' on on the back of your bike, did ya Charlie?!
I am not sure what I was more impressed with at that point: the fact that it didn't scare the shit out of me, or the fact that I had the reflexes and feline prowess to save that shit without (presumably) disrupting the bike as it navigated a corner.
When we finally got to our destination, my arms were burning and shaky from the workout but it was an absolute riot. Charlie hopped off the bike: "I think you're the best passenger I've ever taken, I didn't even know you were back there after a while!" I laughed... in my mind I laughed even longer. I don't even think I had the time to share with Charlie what an epic moment that really was and I still have no idea if it was his knee that he scraped or what.
We had some lunch and tooled around for a bit before the crew gathered up for a ride down to the Fugitive Dam to take the infamous group photos, and then we did a few more laps before calling it a day. I took a moment to switch off the R6 with Drums' 636 so technically, somewhere, I did ride a zx6r at the official ZX6R TOTD Meet... and I have to say that it was a pretty awesome bike. Well done, Drums.
This is one of my favorites...