[twistingasphalt.com] - 2 Tanks of Fuel Fantasy

[Ninjette Newsbot]

You know you’re having a kick ass sportbike ride when you find yourself filling up the tank for the second time before noon…

And today was that kind of day…

I suppose it shouldn’t be all that shocking really, like many things in life, the more repetitions you get at something or with something the more comfortable you being to feel doing it — Today was the most confident I have felt on the 1098S in eons.

Every corner felt so spectacularly solid, so firm and planted, and so secure that nothing felt remotely risky. Nothing felt hard. Nothing felt even slightly out of control.

Instead everything just happened. Like magic…

It is a feeling that I have so sorely missed and yet suddenly, without warning, here it was again…

The belief that I could do anything on a sportbike — and while I know that’s logically not true, as I am not Mat Mladin or Troy Bayliss or anything remotely resembling a professional roadracer, it sure felt that way… And that’s just an awesome feeling to behold (even if it is not 100% logically correct)… That sense of total immersion and connection with the machine. Where it almost seems like you can feel the pulse of the motor. It’s excitement. It’s anger. It’s vivid vitality and sense of purpose and dedication to the task at hand.

Just as I’ve been working my way back to confident riding, so too with writing about it… This is one of those blog posts that I fear doesn’t do justice to the experience of wicking the throttle back on a central coast canyon straight-away and feeling that rush that comes when the bike launches from 40 to 100 in a fraction of a split second whirlwind… And as you hang on you think this is bloody fast… And then you’re getting on the brakes, a finger at a time, scuffing off speed before the next kink in the roadway, and you feel that sense of moto-isolation, where it’s just you, the bike and the road surrounded by an empty cali-canyon…

For awhile now I’ve wondered if I’d ever get back to this spot — Back to that mental paradise where riding wasn’t a series of commands but a reactive, free-flowing, existence and the wonder wasn’t in being able to manipulate the machine proficiently with thoughts but rather the ability to find that nearly mystical place where it all just happened by itself. When and where you were free to not think about how to do it. Where thought became thoughtless… And amazingly it is… How awesome…









Click here for full story...