Will the marine layer ever relent?
Into Crescent City the “jumps” have been lengthened to the 1098S’ maximum safe range, 120 miles, out of necessity.  In response, my body is betraying me.    That’s making it …

I’ve made navigational errors before, tons of them, but this one feels profound.  The fog is so dense I can hardly make out the cat’s eye reflectors on the road in the 1098S’s projectors and …

L.A. … The 1098S slices northwards on the 405 out of Irvine between columns of traffic trudging forwards like workers in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.  Even with the Ventura luggage, I’m the widest thing on the …

“They took my Allen keys from my at security,” on the phone photographer Kevin Miklossy sounds disgusted, “you need a 6mm and a 3mm.  Does the Ducati toolkit have them?”
I laugh, “You’re joking right.”
The 1098S …

Sitting long, low and sepia-lit in the evening sun at Alice’s on Skyline Road the 1098S projects sensuality and anticipation of acceleration so pure it borders on erotic; needing only to shed vestigial street fitments …

It is September 2003, and the chugging of my new VTEC VFR’s ABS, normally so subtle and elegant as to be unnoticed in all but the direst of conditions, gives me notice that we have …

“It’s going to be the, ‘I rode one of these in the war’ story”, I joke as we watch two elderly gentlemen appraise the three bikes.  BMWs it seems are some of the most approachable …

We ascend into Manning Park to the aeronautic thrum of the three horizontally opposed twin engines as the BMW R1200RT, R1200ST and R1200GS Adventure sweep though in single file.  April’s rugged meteorological terrain has been …

Tendrils of golden “Dirty Laundry” Gwurtzraminer trail down the glass’s interior.  The taste, even to my limited palette, is fruity, clean, and lingering.  Looking up at the wine board in the Toasted Oak Wine Bar …

There are rods for our backs and for our eyes, and cones for smoking and seeing. Rods distinguish shapes, cones determine colour. In the hour before dawn the rods rule – there are shapes without …

130 mph is indicated on the speedo as the bikes shoot arrow-straight across Death Valley’s floor. The road may be linear in direction but the warning signs of dips are not to be disregarded. …

It’s 0 Celsius, we’re navigating though the occasional bout of slush and the bikes are now thoroughly coated with sand, gravel, salt and road spray. I haven’t had time to plug in the heated …

It’s 7:20AM and we’re burning down the freeway with Evan Leung, OWD contributor and friend, in the lead. Our destination for the day is Buttonwillow, CA, but for the moment we’re more concerned with …

Life moves pretty fast in “the City”, or so I’ve concluded.  Charlie Rauseo is on the phone, aside from that little Paris-Dakar thing he attempted recently he’s been a contributor to OneWheelDrive.Net on a few …

It’s an all-out sprint… actually it’s more than that.  It’s an all-out chase, through traffic with lane splitting, in the dark, on fresh tires, at periodically baffling speeds, and the only thing it needs to …

 
It’s dark out on the fourth day of the trip and we’re still riding.  It’s all part of a hastened “push” to reach Ukiah, California, but still night riding has its own charms.
Everything changes at …

Rain? Or is that snow sticking to my visor? And what the hell am I doing here anyway? It’s 6:30am. It’s bloody cold. There’s slushy snow sticking to my helmet and I’m having difficulty making …