The Adventures of Dusty, Belle and Rusty!: June 2009

Just over three years ago this month was when I first started riding. I was 24 then and actually just met Belle not too long prior. She was with me when I walked into East Bay Motorsports in Hayward, CA and sat through the deal to purchase my then first bike, a 2006 Kawasaki EX500. That was the first and last time I would probably purchase a motorcycle brand new, but regardless, that bike - technically - is still the only bike I ever had that I kept the longest (two years).

In the spirit of looking back, I wanted to create a timeline of sorts to mark down milestones of my riding life so far.

May 2006
I had signed up for the MSF earlier that year, which included a night in a classroom, and two half-days of riding instruction the weekend following. After the classroom session and just before the first day of field instruction, Belle and I walked into the dealership, and walked out with me owning my first bike, the EX500.

I didn't want to ride it home without a license and still being relatively inexperienced with riding motorcycles (I was familiar with the concept and have ridden 6-speed mini-bikes, but never really ridden a real bike). So I paid one the dealer's employees $20 to put it on the back of his truck and deliver it to my house. After the first half-day of field instruction from the MSF, I went home and immediately rode my bike, feeling like a pro. I finished the MSF, passed it, and earned my M1.

From that point on, riding was the only other thing I did the most. I started to ride whenever and if I could, recreationally and even for daily commuting. Rain or shine.

June 2006
I became a member of Bay Area Riders Forum ("BARF") the month prior, and joined their Annual Newbie Group Ride in June - my first real (and HUGE) group ride.

I was officially a BARFer then, and I still am to date. I've met a lot of very cool people (not just riders) through that forum, and gained a lot of off-the-bike experience and knowledge thanks to the other members. Nowadays I just try to give back to the forum like I received when I first started riding.

July 2006
My first street crash occurred on July 4th. Feeling very confident as a rider with over a month's worth of experience under my belt, I finally took Belle as a passenger on the back of my bike and rode through Palomares Rd., a road that I felt very familiar and confident in. That over-confidence bit me when I took one corner too fast, ended up laying the bike on its side going over 40 mph, and Belle and I slid off the road, but luckily without colliding with anything. I made sure Belle was alright, then I looked over at my bike. First (and only) crash on the first bike. I remember looking at it then and writing it off as I did not fully insure the bike - that was that for that bike. Got it home, and with a closer look and words of encouragement from BARFers, I decided to fix the bike. That alone started my desire to work on my own machines, and not handing it over to a shop unless it was something beyond my current ability. In the meantime, while the EX500 was out of commission, I couldn't stay off the bike long enough, so I bought my 2nd bike. A 1995 Yamaha YZF600 - a blue and purple abomination that I thought was the most badass thing I've owned at the time.

August 2006
Less than a month after the crash I got the Ex500 back on the road. Because the EX500 was virtually unchanged for over a decade, its parts were abundant in the used marked and can be used between different year models. Though the extent of the damage was to replace the entire front end sans the front wheel and rotors, I managed to find the parts and put it all together for less than the cost of buying brand new forks. What an elating experience that was. Also, despite telling myself that the YZF600 was only temporary while the EX500 was being fixed, I ended up keeping the YZF altogether. I'm sure that because of this, I've never had less than two bikes in my garage ever since.

June 2007
I decided to finally sell the YZF600, cause at that time I "rationalized" and realized that there was no reason I couldn't just use the EX500 for all my riding needs. I managed to unload the YZF600 without taking any loss from what I paid for it. It wasn't long after that when I stumbled across a 1996 Kawasaki ZX7R - my first chance at owning a real supersport bike with racing pedigree.

As soon as I hopped on top of it, it was evident to me that I had never ridden anything like it before; the ergos were aggressive, launching my upper body forward over the tank. It was an ugly bike, so I aptly named it The Beast. Despite my relative inexperience in buying bikes, I managed to talk the seller down to $1800 from his asking price of $2500 (!).

October 2007
Trackdays. This was the start to end all. I don't exactly remember why I finally came around to trying trackdays, but I wanted to right then and there and nothing was going to stop. Not even the fact that I had no truck or trailer to tow my bike, or that the next trackday available will be held all the way in Reno-Fernley, 200+ miles away from me. It didn't matter that the ZX7's alternator decided to give out on me a couple of weeks prior, and that despite fixing that, that the bike would not start a week prior. This was the first time I call Rob at his shop and begged him to take my bike in immediately so I can make it to my track day. He did, without hesitation, and thus he became the only other man I trusted to fix my bikes other than myself. I called in a favor to my cousin Jeff who lived in Reno to pick up my bike with his truck a week prior to my trackday (after Rob fixed it), and I was going to head over the weekend of my trackday. It was freezing temps the morning of my trackday, but it didn't matter. I finally got my first taste of track riding, and the rest was history.

Not long after I had a tow-hitch installed on my car, and bought a two-bike trailer from a fellow BARFer that is now one of my many riding friends.

January 2008
For the first (and perhaps only?) time in my life, I had a 2000 Aprilia RSV Mille in my garage along with the ZX7R and EX500. For me, this was the bike. THE bike. It was the only "dream" bike I ever dreamed of. To this day, I still have never designated any other as a dream bike. This one was it, and I really couldn't believe I had one, let alone one that cost me over $2000 less than it's actual market value, in MINT condition. It was really too good to be true, and the bike rode like one as well. Have you ever dreamed for something, have it, then realize it wasn't much of a dream after all? Not this one. My Mille was a bike that really rode every bit like how I dreamed it would. It's really silly that the first time I ever saw this bike was in the film Torque. That hardly seemed like an appropriate reason to want something, and yet that really was how it worked for me. I just got lucky that the bike wasn't just good for show - it was an example of exquisite Italian machinery. In all the bikes I had prior and will have after that, the Mille was the only one that actually made me come down to my garage during random hours of the day, just to look at it.

May 2008
At this point I had already done a handful of trackdays. It was becoming serious, the addiction, that I decided to buy a designated trackbike. I sold the EX500 and the ZX7R to make room. I found a couple of new riders to buy my EX500, both of which were starting out. They were cousins who decided to split use of the bike until they were both more experienced. I wanted to give back to the riding community, so I sold my bike to them at a steal of a price, and also provided them with a helmet and riding jacket from my riding closet to further save them money. The ZX7R, on the other hand, gave me a profit of $1100 when I sold it, finding a buyer that paid $2900 for it. A week later I get a letter from Sonoma County PD that my bike was brought to a tow yard after a crash. I specifically told the buyer a week prior that the ZX7R is not an easy bike to ride, and needed to be ridden with respect. As far as my first official trackbike? It was a 2002 Kawasaki ZX6R. This was the first that finally allowed me to go faster, and to attain one of the most coveted phenomenon of motorcycle riding: drag knee.

Later in this month was also an unfortunate event. After selling the EX500 and the ZX7R, I had to use the Aprilia to commute in as I always commute on a bike. It was fine until one morning when I was a bit careless just yards away from home. In the very first corner I took after leaving my garage, I asked too much grip from a barely warmed up front tire. The front tire gives out from under me and down goes the bike and I. The Aprilia was fully insured, but I didn't want the insurance to salvage the bike so i decided to fix the minimal damage myself. Much like the EX500, I decided to leave it blemished to remind me of my own carelessness.

In riding, the margin of error is so thin that diligence must always be practiced in riding discipline. There is never any room for complacency.

August 2008
Another one of my "rationalizations" passed over me and I got to thinking about getting rid of my track ZX6R and just using the Aprilia for everything. Why not, right? So I put the ZX6R up for sale, found some track fairings for the Aprilia, and for the first time ever, rode the Aprilia on the track at Thunderhill Raceway. After that track day, I was dead convinced that there's no reason the Aprilia can't be used for street and track riding.

September 2008
My first time in Buttonwillow. The Track Club held a special Labor-Day weekend at Buttonwillow that I couldn't pass up. So I truck the Aprilia 200 miles down South to finally ride Buttonwillow Raceway. On the first day, at the second session, starting my second lap, a rider moves from the center line of the straightaway and into my path of travel abrupt enough, me already at a higher speed of travel than he, throttle pinned down at 4th gear in over 10,000 RPMS. We collide and down I go. Despite the gravity of the incident, I got up with a gash on my left knee, and was able to truck the bike back home immediately on the same day.

Pretty lucky for an unlucky guy.

Fortunately, my insurance covered the incident and deems me at no-fault. I also pulled the ZX6R off the market as I wasn't going to stop riding the track, and would thus need it.

Later that month I decided to shop for a replacement, but I couldn't bring myself to buy another Mille. In some ways, I didn't want or perhaps wasn't ready to re-live my total lust for the bike. I wanted to go back to basics and just have a motorcycle to ride, not completely love.

That's when I found my 2002 Yamaha R1, previously set up to go racing by a racer that never got around to race it. So it sat ready to go fast, but never went anywhere. I didn't have any urges to hug the bike, so I knew it was going to be a suitable replacement. I just knew that I wanted to ride it for the sake of getting back to riding.

November 2008
Following my return to the track in October after my crash on the Aprilia, the ZX6R inexplicably developed a bog while I was using it. Suffice it to say, I was ready to also move on from the ZX6R and into a bike fitted with more modern technology. In came the 2005 Yamaha R6. I couldn't see myself riding the bike on the street, but it made every bit of sense on the track. I had never ridden anything like it on the track prior, and couldn't fathom using anything else from that point on. Everything about the R6 made sense on the track. Everything. So I sold the ZX6R, and my garage inadvertently became and all-Yamaha garage.

At that point, I was convinced that I needed to stop the "revolving door" of motorcycles and settle for what I had. While my stable wasn't the best of the best, it was the best I ever had even today.

April 2009
This was when I realized that I either couldn't have anything too pretty, or anything too "red," cause I otherwise just fuck them up. This was also what I considered my first real "crash" on the track, as this was an isolated incident that had no other determining factors other than myself. Albeit much more violent than my crash with the Aprilia, I nonetheless, once again, walked away even more unscathed. The R6, however, fared worse than the Aprilia or I did.

But like I said, I couldn't fathom riding anything else on the track other than the R6, and since I knew I could rebuild the bike, rebuild it I did. About two weeks later after the crash, the bike was rebuilt completely.

I was still lucky for an unlucky guy.

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Now all of that is behind me now, but I've no doubt come a long way thanks to where I came from. I've met my fair share of pleasant (and perhaps subjectively unpleasant) people who have shared this sport with me. Some have come and go, others continue to stay and ride along.

I used to follow others, and while I still do, I now find myself leading. I used to soak in everything I could about riding, and while I will never stop doing so, I now find myself in positions to educate. I still have more things to look forward to in my riding life at this point, including my planned attempt at racing for the first time by next year. My goal is not to foster a career of some sort or to take top billing. I just want to try it and take it from there.

It's funny, because after reading all that, you might not believe that I initially wanted to buy a cruiser, not a sport bike. I'm dead serious. It was my brother who told me to look at sport bikes. I think he simply knew me a lot better than I knew myself, or I really am just a lot like him more than either one of us knew or want to admit.

So here's to drawing a line on the sand somewhere that I can look back on while I keep trudging along. I don't know what else there is left, but I know it's far from over for me.

It's funny, but I couldn't tell you how such passion for this sport even started for me. It's not that I don't "remember."

It's that I really don't know. :)