Mike Coustier's AKA Cous-Cous

Ride Report

It started as a ride, and turned into an adventure.

It started inocuously enough... we met up in San Jose at 8a.m., and jammed down to Hollister to pick up Alex. From there, we headed down 25 at a good clip, and I led us out most of the way thru 198. We were simply moo-ving !

We gassed up somewhere on I5 land, and proceeded the 50 mile jaunt down to Hwy 58.

Solis: "Man, I can't wait ! 58 is my favorite road in California !"

Yeah, whatever dude.

So, we get to 58, and drive thru downtown Buttonwillow. This is an example of a city that drives down the states academic achievment scores.

We're going for a good few miles, just at a mellow pace, not much interesting to look at.

Solis in the lead, me, Horney, and Alex.

And then... the turns begin.

Picture this: Perfect asphalt (perfect.)
15-20MPH turns, banked, with about 100 yards separating them.
For about 4 miles.

We were fucking ON !

I was letting Solis lead, but I wasn't happy... that fucker was holding my ass up.

I'd dive right on top of him going into corners, cranking the fucking 550lb pig-a-busa from speed down to 20MPH, putting that bitch on her ear, and watching Solis drive that Couch-a-sucky out harder than me.

I'm determined to show Solis the hero I am on the 'Busa, and follow him hard thru a saweet left hander... I'm in perfect, have the 'Busa grazing the engine case, elbow on the ground (almost !), and have the throttle at a nice neutral position... just ready to drive it out... and my Metzler MEZ4, my darling tire, creeps out of line.That's the first time I've ever enduced a rear slide at such an extreme lean angle, and it was a wake up call ! I think I notched my pace back a teeny bit, but I wasn't gonna let Solis walk away... hadda keep the 'Busa respectable, plus I had Horney on my ass... come to find out, Horney lost the rear pretty good in a subsequent right hander.

We were fucking railing !

We pulled over at the end of the twisties, and waited for the others to catch up... we were all excited and laughing over the awesome, flat out SEXINESS of what we'd just done.

You guys... you have to understand, the temperature was perfect. It's spring time, everything is in bloom. You got yer' buddies railing in front and behind you. Perfect road and corners.
Fuck yeah !

I ask Solis what's up for the rest of this road...

Solis: "It's different, but good !"

OK, so we dial is up, again, Solis, Me, Horney, Alex, Jimil et all following Solis at his 85-90MPH pace on the average stuff.

Suddenly, Solis is holding 130. Huh ? OK, there's some hills coming up, he mentioned that... doesn't look bad.

We go up and down one... front felt a little light, but not bad... little scary...

Solis goes up the next hill, and then, WHAM, he falls away, instantly invisible.

OK, my meager little brain just added 2 + 2. We're doing at least 120+MPH.
I'm on the gas. Solis just fell off the face of the earth. I'm about to follow.

FUCK THAT !

I chop the throttle, and probably manage to go over the abyss at slightly over 100mph, the front end glides over, and I bottom out.

Fuck you very much.

Here Horney, you go right on ahead !

More whoopty shit, I'm giggling my ass off in my helmet, trying not to flip the bike, or have my ass go over the front end... jesus.

Cut to San Lois Obisbo... we eat at this tasty Mexican joint, and everyone is grinning from ear to ear.

Horney: "1000 mile day? Hay, screw that ! We can do 2000 !"
Err, OK Douggie... we'll set that up for ya'.

Solis takes us on some roads I don't know what they are... local roads for him.

At some point, Solis gets caught behind a station wagon, and is waiting for a place to pass. We're on a fairly straight section, and I still don't understand what happened, but crash or crash + falling off a cliff almost happened to Solis.

Somehow, either Solis started his pass ( but you didn't ?), but Solis go on the left side of the car, and the car simultaneously swerved and braked left, going to a pull out on the far left of the road. I swear to god, Solis missed the bumper by a foot. I'm not shitting you. As horrific as the near miss was, it was more horrific (IMO),watching Solis all the way on the shoulder of a cliff, riding in what looked like dirt, asphalt, and dirt.

Apparently oblivious to this, he kept the hammer down.

A few miles down the road, Solis was leading alex, me, and douggie. He was on some sort of mission, cuz the fire up his ass simply got up and left us. I guess at some point, have hundreds of hours on the track vs. my 10-15 pays off.

We shifted onto some other side road that he had only done once before 7 years ago, and were at a moderate pace, having picked up 2 rogue bikers.

We got to the end of the road, and noticed we were missing Sexy-isco. Word up ?

We traversed back, and, unfortunately, found that the man had a bit of an accident (he simply went a bit wide, did a little dirt riding, and 99% had it saved... until the small log got in the way), snapping his whole foot controls, and leaving the bike ... shiftless. After a complete and laughable few minutes of the ten of us trying to get the bike into a gear (3rd) that he could ride to civilization, some brainiac ( oh,that's me ) finally determined we were trying to shift it the wrong way.

We got that settled, and Jimil and Ricky chaperoned Cisco to civilization... I think. (read about them on Jimil's write up)

Solis, Douggie, alex, the rogue riders (CJ and mike) and myself continued onward.

We followed G14 (or whatever) up up and away.

At some point (CJ and Mike heading back to their base), the idiot of the tribe spoke up and asked about doing Naciemento Fergguseon Road out to HWY 1.

The appointed brainiac of the tribe had mentioned he ridden it once before, and it was a good road, if not a bit twisty/bumpy.

We road onto the military base (hunter leggit?), got lost, found our way, and road up up and up.

Uh... is gravel on the road ?

Why is their a constant crunching emanating from my wheels ?

Is it too late to turn back ?

At the top of the ridge, my rear rotor red hot, we came upon a magnificent view.

The fog was rolling in, and it simply extended westward, as far as the eye could see. The sun was 70% set.The fogs fingers crept all along the ridge. A-fucking-mazing.

We take pictures, and head on out.

I'm not the quickest horse at the track, and it took me a few corners to recognize the following:- We were on a shit box of a road, gravel an inch thick everywhere,
having already had the front go "flop" about a dozen times in the past 5 miles. It was getting dark Did I mention the gravel? I mean, normal guys don't ride this on their street bikes.

- Uh... we're going into this fog bank.

And so it was, another mile or so down, and we road into the fog bank.

It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great.

The best part ? We road down to the base of Hwy 1, and we were UNDER the fog bank now!

Oh yeah, did I mention anywhere here that I froze my fucking ass off since we entered the Military Reservation?

We set off up Hwy 1, moderate pace, a little fog here, a little freezing your nuts off there, and noted ...

Uh... gas would be good.

We each put a gallon in at big sur ($2.69/gallon), enough to get us to Caramel Valley.

We continued our pilgrimage north, in the dark, the cold, and the fog... and blessed be, the light of the city finally emanated... civilization. A Chevron.

We topped off, ate a snack, and road home.

The end.

OK, I could say the last part up 101 was when I finally started aching a bit, but it really was amazing I did 650+miles and was relatively comfortable to whole ride.

Jimil's Ride Report and Pics

Doug's Pics (with his captions)