Friday, October 29, 2010

9/02/10 Touching the Limit

It was almost 4:30 and I needed to meet Space back at his office by 6:00.  Covering the 75 kilometres that I had travelled and making it on time was going to be monumental.  Those 150 CCs were going to have to work harder than ever before.


Self portrait at speed... not too smart

The suspension on Space’s bike was suspect so the plan was to go easy on the corners and then hammer it on the straights.  The bike developed a pronounced buzz at about 115 km/h and at about 125 km/h it simply went away.  At full tuck I touched 135 km/h and then I stepped out of the zone and found clarity: I was hurtling down an undulating highway on a 12 year-old 150 CC bike that is serviced by a guy named Chuckles; I was wearing a helmet a half-size too small and my shorts and thin shirt didn’t exactly qualify as “protective gear”; a wipeout at this speed wouldn’t be funny.  So in the interests of self-preservation I dialed back my pace ever so slightly.  I made fantastic time and the 6:00 rendezvous took place as planned.

140 kilometres later, much of it at wide open throttle, the needle on the gas gauge hadn’t moved across the “full” mark.  If the rooster lived off the sleep of others, this two-wheeled irony horse was fuelled by adventure.

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