Today I ended up riding with a buddy of mine, me on my 1125R and Terry on his Road King. Terry is a very good rider but somewhat conservative in comparison which is probably obvious to the reader by our choice of bikes alone. Rather than slab home I asked Terry if he was interested in taking the longer way home and he was all over it.
Terry asked that I lead as I was more like to be "a little quicker" in the corners. (Understatement of the year
) I asked him if he was up for safely passing on the DY and he told me he was as long as it wasn't on corner marked with a yellow sign saying 10 MPH. We left on the 100 miles trek home through mostly twisty roads and to his credit I can honstly say he rode his bike like the 800 lbs sportbike that it isn't.
I was basically doing wind-spirnts on the 1125 and waiting up for him just to make sure he was still there.
The best part came on the last 20-miles of slab heading home. We were southbound on 4-lane road and Terry was making progress with workiing his way through the traffic but he would only pass on the left and anyone that has been in California for more than 5-minutes knows that people camp in the left lane even if the traffic is moving faster in the right lane. I don't know why, that's just the way it is.
I finally slipped to the right and rolled on the throttle to pass a herd of slow cages and that is when Terry caught fire and got with the swing of things. Next thing I know we are slicing and dicing through at least 30 cars and then we both saw it........ wide open road, not a single cage in front of us! With the biggest SEG I have ever seen Terry looked back at me then looked forward and went WOT!
I was laughing my ass off watching him roar away and couldn't help but think that was hope for him after all. This might be the 1st of 12 steps for Terry but with a little encouragement I think he might end up buying a sportbike as well. There is a huge difference in the 96 cu. in. engine in his Road King especially compared to my Helicon but while we on the road together the difference mattered not. I'm not sure what to call this but for now, I'll call it the Brotherhood of the V-Twin.
