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saturday night ride. been looking forward to riding all last week and friday night was a good ride but got cut short due to rain. got a few buddies together for a group ride saturday evening. the ride started good, and the good stuff only lasted all of 10 minutes. barely into our first leg a friends throttle cable snapped, on a Lightning... go figure. so we chilled with him on the side of the interstate for a couple hours until his sister made it out with his truck to pick him up.
anyways thats beside the point, just a little forshadowing of how craptastic the night was about to get. it wasnt that horrible though, nobody dumped it. now I'm a lot of a squid myself, so it takes a bunch for me to get heated up if someones being squidly. or, rather squirrely and/or wreckless.
so as the night goes on, and our numbers were now down to 4... we made some calls and had a plan to meet up with some others on the other side of town. sometimes this is cool, but you always wind up with *one of those guys* in the pack when you get in a group with people you've never ridden with before. we rode out to that one road everyone stunts on (every city has one, right?) and there must have been 40 bikes rolling out. I guess we got there right when the spot turned into a bust. we catch a group of guys we recognized and roll down to the Plaza. our 4 some turned into about 20 bikes.
on our way there we had our usual sprints and random wheelies, everyone seemed to be keeping an eye out and maintained space. life was good. that is right until one of the very last stoplights before we got to the Plaza to chill.
this is where our already somewhat crappy night turned into runny poo for me. now I'm paqrtly at fault for what happened, I accept that. but the other guy was a total douche about it, not to mention an outta control newbie rider. typically the guys I ride with all make it point to signal in someway when they're about to squid it up. this guy never got the memo. mid pack at a stop light, I'm coming in behind him. I spot up ahead there a good 15-20 still to roll on before putting my feet down. I kept about 6-8 feet between me and the asshat in front of me. next thing I know the distance is half that and his front tire is lifting. by the time I could stop, without dumping it (I was 2 up), his bike is coming down on mine.
not knowing the guy and not really being a confrontational person myself, I didnt make a big scene of it. there are some light scratches on my upper, a nick and scatch in my low beam lens, and some paint scrapped off my front fender. nothing cracked or broken, enough to piss a guy off though. I should have been keeping better distance, especially since I'd never ridden with the guy before. sad thing is we were both on zx6r's, although his was a 99.
after chillen out for a while we went to meet up with a few more people, then went back to wheelie road. between the Plaza and wheelie road, we managed to lose the guy that endo'd in front of me somehow. rode out my best wheelie and 2 up wheelie that night, helped to make up for the bump and grind earlier in the night.
then last night I got a call. couple buddies wanting to meet up and ride. not having anything better to do, I was in. we met at the eastside Sonic. turns out there was a bunch of people out at Sonic on Sunday night. the crazy guy that weaves through traffic in a stand up was out, a few couples riding 2 up were out, a buncha guys that I know their faces but not their names were out, and the douche bag on the yellow 99 zx6r that hit me the night before was out. my buddies hadnt gotten there yet. i went for gas, got back and my friends had arrived. again, we numbered in the 20s rolling out to hit some curvy roads. since we were with a group that either didnt know the roads, werent very experienced riders, and the squid on the yellow zixxer, I hung out at the back of the pack for most of the ride to the 1st spot.
we managed to make it through the first spot without any incidents, good fun paced clean run. we went out to one of the other curvy roads, the one you can really open 'er up on. on the way out there my friend gets cut off by the jack ass on the yellow zixxer in highway traffic. he never checked before making a lane change and nearly caused an accident. so we get to the curvy road you can really open 'er up on and hit it up at a good clip. the slower and some of the smarter riders fell back and rode at their own pace. the last corner on this road is broad sweeping wide radius approached from a steeeep downhill, I'm comfy hitting it around 60-80. I kept it conservative since I was watching out for some of the slower guys. we get to our turnaround stop sign where we either head off to another spot or turnaround and hit the same road backwards.
last night we decide to hit it backwards. this is where the squid on the yellow zixxer scared the piss out of me. I talked up one of the other guys in the group into toning it down and hanging with the slower people cause my girlfriend has a particular fondness for going fast on this very road we were on. we got a good staggered start and everyone did awsome at maintaining a comfy distance. coming onto that first broad sweeper, the last turn from the previous run. I was hoping on hitting it pretty hot, get some lean going. coming into it I notice the guy on the yellow zixxer is in the distance, shit he's in front of me. instinct kicked in and I rolled off throttle a bit. I kept watch on the yellow zixxer, he was approaching the curve really hot. I saw a half assed attempt at a lean just as the guy must have grabbed a fist full of brake. his bike went straight up and he went over the curb. I kept slowing, getting myself ready to pull off and help out at an accident scene. miraculously the dude managed to keep it upright in the grass and get it back on the road. I rolled back on throttle and caught back up with the first bunch of guys at the next stop. my buddy he cut off earlier was behind me and saw the whole thing go down.
from there we went to the office park that has a bit of straight and a bit of curves to have some fun. the guy on the yellow zixxer managed to turn off along the way. my buddies and I are trying to figure out how to approach him next time we see him out.
anyways thats beside the point, just a little forshadowing of how craptastic the night was about to get. it wasnt that horrible though, nobody dumped it. now I'm a lot of a squid myself, so it takes a bunch for me to get heated up if someones being squidly. or, rather squirrely and/or wreckless.
so as the night goes on, and our numbers were now down to 4... we made some calls and had a plan to meet up with some others on the other side of town. sometimes this is cool, but you always wind up with *one of those guys* in the pack when you get in a group with people you've never ridden with before. we rode out to that one road everyone stunts on (every city has one, right?) and there must have been 40 bikes rolling out. I guess we got there right when the spot turned into a bust. we catch a group of guys we recognized and roll down to the Plaza. our 4 some turned into about 20 bikes.
on our way there we had our usual sprints and random wheelies, everyone seemed to be keeping an eye out and maintained space. life was good. that is right until one of the very last stoplights before we got to the Plaza to chill.
this is where our already somewhat crappy night turned into runny poo for me. now I'm paqrtly at fault for what happened, I accept that. but the other guy was a total douche about it, not to mention an outta control newbie rider. typically the guys I ride with all make it point to signal in someway when they're about to squid it up. this guy never got the memo. mid pack at a stop light, I'm coming in behind him. I spot up ahead there a good 15-20 still to roll on before putting my feet down. I kept about 6-8 feet between me and the asshat in front of me. next thing I know the distance is half that and his front tire is lifting. by the time I could stop, without dumping it (I was 2 up), his bike is coming down on mine.
not knowing the guy and not really being a confrontational person myself, I didnt make a big scene of it. there are some light scratches on my upper, a nick and scatch in my low beam lens, and some paint scrapped off my front fender. nothing cracked or broken, enough to piss a guy off though. I should have been keeping better distance, especially since I'd never ridden with the guy before. sad thing is we were both on zx6r's, although his was a 99.
after chillen out for a while we went to meet up with a few more people, then went back to wheelie road. between the Plaza and wheelie road, we managed to lose the guy that endo'd in front of me somehow. rode out my best wheelie and 2 up wheelie that night, helped to make up for the bump and grind earlier in the night.
then last night I got a call. couple buddies wanting to meet up and ride. not having anything better to do, I was in. we met at the eastside Sonic. turns out there was a bunch of people out at Sonic on Sunday night. the crazy guy that weaves through traffic in a stand up was out, a few couples riding 2 up were out, a buncha guys that I know their faces but not their names were out, and the douche bag on the yellow 99 zx6r that hit me the night before was out. my buddies hadnt gotten there yet. i went for gas, got back and my friends had arrived. again, we numbered in the 20s rolling out to hit some curvy roads. since we were with a group that either didnt know the roads, werent very experienced riders, and the squid on the yellow zixxer, I hung out at the back of the pack for most of the ride to the 1st spot.
we managed to make it through the first spot without any incidents, good fun paced clean run. we went out to one of the other curvy roads, the one you can really open 'er up on. on the way out there my friend gets cut off by the jack ass on the yellow zixxer in highway traffic. he never checked before making a lane change and nearly caused an accident. so we get to the curvy road you can really open 'er up on and hit it up at a good clip. the slower and some of the smarter riders fell back and rode at their own pace. the last corner on this road is broad sweeping wide radius approached from a steeeep downhill, I'm comfy hitting it around 60-80. I kept it conservative since I was watching out for some of the slower guys. we get to our turnaround stop sign where we either head off to another spot or turnaround and hit the same road backwards.
last night we decide to hit it backwards. this is where the squid on the yellow zixxer scared the piss out of me. I talked up one of the other guys in the group into toning it down and hanging with the slower people cause my girlfriend has a particular fondness for going fast on this very road we were on. we got a good staggered start and everyone did awsome at maintaining a comfy distance. coming onto that first broad sweeper, the last turn from the previous run. I was hoping on hitting it pretty hot, get some lean going. coming into it I notice the guy on the yellow zixxer is in the distance, shit he's in front of me. instinct kicked in and I rolled off throttle a bit. I kept watch on the yellow zixxer, he was approaching the curve really hot. I saw a half assed attempt at a lean just as the guy must have grabbed a fist full of brake. his bike went straight up and he went over the curb. I kept slowing, getting myself ready to pull off and help out at an accident scene. miraculously the dude managed to keep it upright in the grass and get it back on the road. I rolled back on throttle and caught back up with the first bunch of guys at the next stop. my buddy he cut off earlier was behind me and saw the whole thing go down.
from there we went to the office park that has a bit of straight and a bit of curves to have some fun. the guy on the yellow zixxer managed to turn off along the way. my buddies and I are trying to figure out how to approach him next time we see him out.
