There’ve been some great moments this year's riding, and I’d
have to say the absolute peak of the season to date (and probably will be for the whole year)
occurred on the last day of four while riding with Manfred to the Venedig region
of Italy. We happened to arrived at a construction light at the foot of the Jaufen Pass
in far northern Italy
at the same time as three racer-types in full leathers astride brand new Kawasaki
Z-1000 naked bikes, who all jockeyed for position and revved their motors waiting for
the light to change.
Naturally, when the light went green it turned into the Jaufen
Grand Prix, as everybody put their heads down, pinned the throttles, and
started tearing up the mountain. By being first off the line -- and given that
there was no place to pass on such a small, windy road -- at the first hairpin it
was Manfred in the lead and yours truly, followed closely by the first of
the three Kwakkers, a persistent fellow who kept showing me a front wheel as he
tried to find a way around me.
He and I went at it hammer-and-tongs for the
next ten or so minutes, with me gradually pulling away. My technique goes
something like this: haul ass WFO*, brake late and hard going into the corner, turn
quickly at a relatively slow speed (it’s a big, top-heavy machine, remember),
and then start rolling on the throttle about halfway through the turn so that the
motor’s delivering full cheese to rear hoop by the completion of the turn.
This technique seemed to work well against my faster-in-a-straight-line young adversary, and resulted
in me gaining a few seconds advantage at every hairpin, and I eventually opened
up some distance between us. It helped that there were a few cars to pass which
made it impossible for Zedboy to use the straights to pass me. I also timed a couple of passes on cars so that he would have to wait through the next corner to make his pass. Sneaky!
In the end I took
the second podium position, rolling up to the tourist kiosk at the pass only
about ten seconds behind Mamfie.
From the curb I was able to look straight down the
mountainside at the switchbacks to see the closest Zed. He was, I’d say, about 1500 meters behind me, or three tiers below the top if you count that way, with
six hairpins to go. Maybe a minute. Well, that was a spry bit of fun for a
couple of middle-aged blokes on their old sport-touring machines to put over on
the youngsters with their big shiny horsepower factories and their
fancy-schmancy leathers. Old age and treachery, like the saying goes.
Manfred signaled
a question to me at the pass asking if I wanted to stop for photos, but I waved
him on. Better not, I figured. We might find our Zed-boy chums in a state of
discontent with our riding style. Or, rather, their own. Or who knows, maybe they
would have wanted to buy us a round. I thought, let’s just leave it a mystery.
More interesting that way.
*Throttle Wide-Freaking-Open
