I did some serious supermoto riding over the last couple of days. For those of you not familiar with this check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermoto.
On Sunday there was a large gathering of supermoto's at Alice's, a frequent motorcycle destination in the Santa Cruz Mts. People where starting at designated meeting points, and riding to Alice's together. I hosted the SF meeting at Farley's coffee house in Potrero Hill. The number of bikes that showed up at Alice's was impressive. When I first got my supermoto bike in March of 2002 it was unique and got a lot of attention, but times have changed. There must have been 50 bikes on Sunday representing most of the manufacturers. In the city I had met up with a guy name Carl, and when we saw the large group we decided it best to cut out early, and go riding as riding with a large group can have disastrous results. We had a great time riping around the hills. Carl is a very skilled rider, and he's better in some places than me, and I better than him in others. So it was a lot of back and forth with nothing stupid happening just hard riding. We met up with another group that had broken away and, I was a little leery. To bad my suspicions turned out to be true. The group decided to stop on a long straight and practice wheelies. I pulled over, and mentioned to Carl that this was not a good idea. It took 5 minutes for someone to crash, and crash big time. When we got to the guy he was pretty beat up, and had a dislocated finger. I give the guy credit as he was tough. He had somebody hold on to his finger, and yank it back into place. Then he rode back up to Alice's. Not to bright but tough. Carl and I decided to ditch this group, and went back to thrashing about the mountains. By the time I got home I was exhausted. I felt like I had been at the track all day.
On Monday my friend Craig called me and asked If I wanted to go ride supermotos at the track. I was a little hesitant, but he had both his bikes prepped, and on the trailer. How can I pass that up? I went home, and threw my riding gear into my Pathfinder, and went over to Craig's. Since he was providing the bikes I offered to tow the trailer. A supermoto track day is very different from a sport bike track day. The track is a go-kart track which is small, tight, and twisty. It only costs $20, and the track stays open 'til 8pm. I started the day by riding his Honda CRF150. A little bike meant for as a transition bike for large kids or small adults. It doesn't make much in the way of horsepower but the brakes are good, and it's fun to ride. Craig was riding his new to him Kawasaki KLX300 which is a full sized bike, but still smaller than most other supermotos. For example by CCM is 600cc's and weighs 350lbs, where as the KLX is 300cc's, and weighs around 260lbs. By my third session I was turning laps faster than Craig had on this little bike, and I think that was frustrating for him, as I had not been on that track since 2003, and I had never ridden this bike before. We switched, and I got to ride the KLX, and I immediately got into the groove. The larger bike fit me better, and the extra power made it more challenging. Withing a couple of laps I was cutting times way faster than I did on the little CRF. We switched back, and I went out and seriously thrashed that little bike. I just kept going around and around. Eventually it got dark and they turned the lights on. It's so much fun to ride fast at night! I kept riding, and found myself alone on the track. Most everyone else had left already. Ultimately the organizers declared the track open to anyone as it's normally broken into session base on the size of bike, so Craig came and joined my on the track. He chased me for awhile but he couldn't close the gap. I really rode the snot out of that little bike. I must have rode for an hour continuously. I guess that gym training is paying off.
It's been three years since I was the Stockton kart track. I am a completely different rider. I have three years of road racing under my belt with thousands of miles, and hundreds of hours throwing a bike around at race speed. I was really nervous about going to Stockton. Those fears where melted away by lap two as I learned the lines, and started pushing harder. That's the real difference. I have such a better concept of what it takes to go fast, and what if feels like when a motorcycle is at it's limit. I almost crashed several times, but I was always able to recover, having found a new limit I set out to change something to as not to crash again, but never slowing down. It was damn fun.
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