Open Mike Check Up or Check Out

By Editor and Publisher Mike Seate

We were lucky enough to get out to our favorite new bike testing grounds in sunny So Cal recently, an area that’s always buzzing with two-wheeled activity. The fruits of the visit will appear in upcoming First Ride motorcycle evaluation features throughout the year, while some of the sights we took in were just too strange to categorize.

One of the main roads we use for testing is the twisty, undulating Mulholland Highway, a meandering slab of asphalt that winds its way through suburban Los Angeles for miles. On weekends, the road is a favorite for riders of all kinds of bikes, from stretched choppers to fullblown racebikes. There’s even a photographer who regularly sets up a mobile studio where he shoots every motorcycle that buzzes by in hopes of selling the action shots to riders as souvenirs.

Towards one fast section of Mulholland, there’s a hairpin turn where riders gear up for maximum lean angle, and it’s fun to dismount and watch the various lines and speeds taken through the apex. Most take the curve at around 40 to 60 MPH, but on a recent Sunday, someone had other ideas.

We heard the roar of a twin-cylinder engine well before the bike – a late-model air-cooled Triumph Bonneville – came into view and from the frantic revs, the rider was really going flat-out. The low black cafe racer whizzed through the turn so fast that most of the sportbike riders who had gathered to watch were vocally awed by the spectacle. It seemed a bit on the crazy side what with dozens of cars parked along the roadside and hikers and backpackers walking not far from the berm.

Leaned over far enough that his footpegs scraped the pavement in a shower of sparks, the rider, in a flash, was gone, leaving in his wake plenty of discussions about whether we’d just witnessed a professional racer strutting his stuff or one bad dude on a streetbike.

A few minutes later, our crew rolled up to the Rock Store, the fabled motorcycle meeting place in Cornell, near Malibu, where the Triumph sat parked, smoke slowly curling from one of its straight-open exhaust pipes. “It’s him,” observed CRM test rider, Jay LaRossa, who eagerly pointed out unexpected details on the bike. While we expected to find a motorcycle festooned with high-performance accessories, instead the Bonneville was rolling on nearly bald and poorly-inflated tires, its engine leaking oil from several points.

The rear chain drew plenty of shocked and horrified onlookers as it was bright red with rust, and so worn that there were kinks in the links where it was threatening to break. Dents in the gas tank evidenced this bike was not unfamiliar with horizontal travel.

“What kind of nutball would ride a bike in that bad of shape that fast in the bends?” Jay wondered aloud, saying what dozens of other riders were thinking. I’d met my share of irresponsible riders, from guys who imbibed a six pack and several shots of high-octane whiskey before a ride to folks rolling on tires with less air than you’d find in a child’s Happy Birthday balloon. But this guy was the all-time caketaker.

I wondered if other riders thought it was cool or brave for the flat-out flyer to unnecessarily risk his life – and those of his fellow road users –each time he twisted the throttle. Was he simply negligent and/or lazy?

No matter the reasons, I wondered if the bike might be pulled from road use and used as an example by the local police or riding groups as an illustration of how not to treat a motorcycle.

It only takes a few minutes to perform a quick walk-around safety check of your ride to ensure that it’s in safe operating condition, which is something that can save on costly repairs not to mention expensive, painful hospital stays.

Before I could locate the rider and interview him, I heard the Triumph roar back to life and the rider wheelied out of the Rock Store parking lot like he was qualifying at Laguna Seca. Who knows if he’s still tempting fate and risking it all at every turn. Or maybe, just maybe, he’ll read this and clean up his act. CR