I went for a ride this weekend – follow along to see some of my favorite bikes from a trip that had to get redirected!
My original plan was to ride out to Wrightwood with my buddy Mike on Angeles Crest Highway/Angeles Forest Highway. I rode my Tesi, and Mike brought his Triumph Speed Triple RS (which he has just sold).
Despite the cold and wet weather, there were plenty of folks at the usual staging area of a Shell gas station at the start of Angeles Crest. Here were some of my favorites:
I love the KTM RC8 but it’s rare to see one in the wild. This one had been modified with wings.
The crazy thing was, there were two RC8s as part of the same riding group!
Yamaha Tracer 9 GT – an excellent touring bike that I don’t see enough. Here was my review from the GT+ version, which Yamaha no longer offers as it was likely too expensive for the market due to the extra technology. Now you can just buy the regular model (which is absolutely fantastic).
BMW M1000RR.
My first sighting of the Chinese-made CFMoto 675SS triple. I’m not really interested in these though I would like to try one just for review purposes, and I can understand why it might be hard for a buyer to ignore this when it costs less than $8k brand new.
Kawasaki Z125 – I liked the livery but it was going to be a long day for this guy considering all the uphills on the mountain roads.
The new Yamaha R7 in the awesome 70th Anniversary livery – review coming soon on this bike!
Riding on wet roads in foggy weather will keep traffic slow, but it was still a surprise when traffic came to a complete stop.
Mike and I split our way up to the front to find a few police officers that had closed down the road as there had been a head-on car crash. The road had been closed for more than 2 hours by the time we arrived.
5 minutes later we saw this coming by in the other lane, and we decided it was our sign to ride somewhere else this morning. Off to the Old Place!
Just down the street from the Rock Store, the Old Place has turned into a bit of a crazy car show as of late. Mike and I found some parking next to a Moto Guzzi V100 Mandello and then I admired a Caterham 360R that was parked up front.
The Tesi gets a lot of people pointing at the front end.
One of my buddies recently sold his 40th Anniversary GS on our auction site as he had two of them, so I was amused to see him go by on his other one (presumably after a visit to the Rock Store).
I later found out that the white/green Porsche in the background was captured being a little naughty that day in this video.
Beautiful Mazda RX-7.
There’s only so much “staring at cars” I can do though. Mike’s friend Ash showed up on a lovely BMW R nineT, and one of my employees named Noland coincidentally rode by as well so we all went for a ride in the Santa Monica mountains and enjoyed much safer, drier roads.
It was a great way to reset for the week. Hope to see you on a future Sunday rie!