The Ride Report

Today, the last day of the year, is deep in the heart of winter, which for much of the country means snow and ice and cold and no more riding. Not so here in Southern California; here it’s always riding season. So I closed out the year with a couple of rides.

Yesterday I rode up to the Rock Inn for lunch again, this time with my friend Greg, who keeps his Heritage Softail in my garage, and two club brothers. We retraced my favorite route that I followed last time, with the difference being that this time around our club’s road captain was leading and he got us lost at
the end — as usual. I’m still trying to figure out why he’s a road captain — that guy gets lost every single time he leads us anywhere. But like I said at the stoplight when he turned and asked us, “Did I fuck up?” — there are no wrong turns when you’re just going for a ride.

I let the club guys take the lead and I rode behind them with Greg, and as usual we set a pretty brisk pace on the way up to the restaurant. Greg’s other bike is a Hayabusa, so I was expecting him to be right there with us, but he surprised me by riding really conservatively. The other guys left us far behind, and I eventually tired of holding back to stick with Greg and I ended up leaving him behind too. I held back enough to keep him in my mirrors, but I just couldn’t make myself ride as slowly as he was going. I don’t know if it was because his bike couldn’t keep up (unlikely) or because he was riding his own ride and didn’t want to get sucked into going fast (as he claimed, but I don’t buy it) or if he really couldn’t ride that fast (doubtful — I hope), whatever it was I ended up being a little disappointed in him. This was his unofficial introduction to the club and the guys were not impressed.

But what the hell. We had a good lunch, had a great ride, and I got to hang out with three of my buddies. How can any of that be bad? That day put 113 miles on the clock.

Today, New Year’s Eve, I decided to go the other way and head down to the beach. It was a beautiful Southern California day: sunny and clear at 68 degrees with nary a snowflake in sight. In short: perfect riding weather. And look, I know it sounds like I’m gloating about how great it is to have year-round riding, but… well… Okay, I am gloating, but you would be too. At least you snowbound riders don’t have to pay for gas to ride year-round. When you think about it that way, I’m actually paying a penalty to be able to ride whenever I feel like it, so cut me some slack already.

Anyway… I rode down along Pacific Coast Highway up to Malibu Seafood, where I stopped and had a shrimp and crab cocktail and a Buckler non-alcoholic beer. I’m not that big a fan of Malibu Seafood, but it fit my mood for a seafood snack and it was in the right place. Greg’s a big fan, but I prefer Neptune’s Net further up the coast. I think their food is better and it’s one of my favorite beach rides — but I didn’t feel like going that far today. So I made do with my good but overpriced shrimp cocktail and then I hit the road again.

A few miles up I decided to pull over and try to get a Happy New Year picture to post here. (Yes, it’s more SoCal weather gloating in action.) Here’s the results:

After that, I mounted up again and rolled for home and pulled into the driveway just as the sun was setting. 58 miles on the odometer closed out the year.

Happy New Year, everyone. Keep the shiny up, the rubber down, and the wind in your face.