motoski

So while the shortest way between two points in California includes at a least a couple nice sweepers... the fastest way between any two points is on a motorcycle.  Lane sharing, to the uninitiated, is the ability to legally share a lane with other vehicles.  To the initiated, it's lane splitting, and it makes a daily commute lots of fun...

Enter: Berkeley Waterski Club.  Now that i finally had my own wheels out here it was time to find a place to satiate my waterski habit.  Leave it to a fellow waterski teammate to find a ski lake on Google Maps for me.  A couple emails later and i was reunited with yet another former teammate who had already found the club.  Of course getting would be half the fun... a quick trip across the Bay Bridge and i was in (salt)waterski heaven.  Anything to get wet, right?  Next problem: how to get my waterski there.

The solution came via my snowboard bag with a few modifications.  Of course, above 60mph a slalom ski becomes more like a jump ski and wants to fly.  But in 10mph bumper to bumper traffic it's just fine... especially when you're slicing your way through it...

slicing up the mountains

In California, mountains jut up from the waters of the Pacific and create two things: a pain the a$$ place to build and curvy roads wherever you look.  Head north and you're across the Golden Gate bridge and into mountainous Marin County.  Head south down the coast and it's more of the same.  Curvy roads along the coast.  Curvy roads up in the mountains.  One trip to Alice's and you're hooked.  It's like this state never learned that the shortest route between two points is a straight line.  Good for them.

the next step in GNAR

A couple months ago i finally found something that i had been searching for for a few years.  A new bike.  I always said i was over the days of crotch rockets and breakneck speeds, but i never got over the freedom and fresh air of riding a motorcycle.  Now with my new surroundings and perfect weather of northern California, the time had come to find a new ride.  After an exhaustive search, a couple close calls, and impromptu cross-country flight, i was the owner of a black 2006 Ducati Sport 1000. 

I came to learn about the Ducati SportClassic line a couple years ago while watching Tron.  Ever since i last sold my Honda CBR i knew i had wanted my next bike to be a naked v-twin, classic looking, but with modern technology and components.  As soon as i saw that opening scene in the new Tron movie, i knew that was the bike i wanted.  Unfortunately, so did every other person that saw the movie.  The irony of it all is that the same year the movie came out was the last year that Ducati made this bike.  Clearly they were ahead of their time.  But in economic terms, the supply of these bikes became very finite while the demand for them grew exponentially.  Bikes that dealer couldn't give away a year prior were now commanding prices thousands in excess of their blue book value.  This could get complicated.  And expensive.

Enter the Google Alert.  After setting up Google Alerts for just about every permutation of Ducati SportClassic i could think of, they began to ding my email on a daily basis.  Once while visiting my sister in Richmond, VA, i received an alert for a bike back in SF.  Seriously.  It was a mile from my place.  I, however, was a few thousand miles away from that.  A quick exchange of emails and i was 2nd in line for the bike.  But as i'd come to find out, 2nd in line for a SportClassic is the first one to lose out.  These bikes were selling in a matter of minutes, not days.

Then it happened.  One day while working from home, about to shut down shop for the day, a new alert came across.  More irony, the bike was back in VA and the owner was 'thinking' of selling.  A quick email followed by an anxious call and i had dibs on the bike.  I had replied within a half hour of him posting the listing, and only minutes after i replied so did others.  Finally i won the game.  A few calls with the bank, shipping companies, and my sister, and a few clicks of a mouse, and i was booked on a flight to Norfolk, VA.

It was an excruciating couple weeks of waiting while i waited for the day to come.  Although it went relatively quick as i wasn't flying until after my trip home for the 4th of July.  So the night finally came where i boarded a redeye flight to VA with only a backpack and my helmet.  I could hardly sleep.  A quick call to Ian, the seller, when i landed in Norfolk and he and i were headed to his place.  Ian was in the middle of a move to DC and i was 'helping' him by relieving him of one less bike to move.  Haha... sucker.  Maybe it's me, but motorcycles have a way of making complete strangers friends.  If i lived anywhere near DC i'm sure we could be riding buddies.  Now with the deal done and drizzling rain on the east coast, i began my trek back to the west coast.

A quick ride up to Richmond and the bike was packed away and ready to ship out.  A missed connection by the shipping company in Chicago and the bike finally arrived in the Bay Area 2 weeks later.  I finally had a motorcycle in California...