Canyon Stan's CBR 600RR!!
Week 45

Newcombs 1	Newcombs 2	Newcombs 3
Newcombs 4	Newcombs 5	Shell 1
Shell 2	Shell 3	Shell 4

Since Spring '04 was starting this weekend and I hadn't been on a ride in 6 weeks, I decided to go for a ride. I didn't want to be out all day but certainly wanted to go with some others. I logged onto SoCalSportbikes to see what rides were being planned for this weekend. I originally got the ok from my wife to go on Sunday. Another ride was being planned for the Crest. It's a fun ride, but I have done it quite a bit and was actually trying to get to the group to do a Lake Hughes/Bouquet Canyon run instead. It seemed that the majority of the people wanted to do the Crest, so I went ahead and decided to go along with them. The only problem now was that it seemed that everyone was going to go on Saturday and I was planning to go on Sunday.

Friday night, when I got home from work, my wife told me that the Carpet Cleaners postponed the Saturday appointment to Monday, so I was free to ride on Saturday if I wanted. I jumped all over this opportunity and let everyone know that I would be joining them for Saturday's ride. My oil change and chain cleaning/lubing could hold off one more day.

I arrived a bit earlier than our scheduled meeting time of 9am. I went into the Shell station and got some Hot Chocolate, a danish and a Red Bull for later. As I was drinking my Hot Chocolate, I saw KawiKid. He told me that there had already been reports of a couple of CHP on the Crest. He was planning on doing a much longer ride in Sport-touring mode, so he and a buddy of his left right about when CaliGixxer and R1MAN arrived. We chatted while they sipped on some coffee. We were just about to leave when Javawhz arrived. I asked him if he wanted to join us and he was happy to. I had read on-line that morning that PG_Rider, Adospeed & Tony would be meeting at the Shell @ 10am and to meet them at Newcombs Ranch later.

We decided to take the Crest up to Angeles Forest HWY, take AFH to Upper Big Tujunga, take Upper Big T back to the Crest and take the Crest up to Newcomb's Ranch. CaliGixxer took the lead and the rest of us followed him up. On the way up the first part of the Crest, we saw a pack of Sportbikes coming down giving us the slow down hand signal. Sure enough, not too far behind them was a CHP patrol car. We continued to take it easy until we saw another CHP patrol car followed by another sportbiker giving us the thumbs up signal. Let's just say the ride got really spirited after that. Once we got back to the Crest, after coming up Upper Big T, Javawhz decided to go ahead and head home to take care of some errands.

Once we got to Newcomb's Ranch, we stopped and got something to drink and cooled off. It was a nice warm day but starting to get on the toasty side. We chilled for a while and waited to see if PG_Rider, Adospeed and Tony would show up. As we were waiting Hybrid_EG and his brother arrived. We chilled with them for a while. CaliGixxer and R1MAN played a game of pool and Hybrid_EG's brother ate some breakfast. We were just getting ready to leave when PG_Rider, Adospeed and Tony arrived. Again with the chilling and chatting before we all saddled up.

CaliGixxer took the lead again for the trip down followed by PG_Rider, Adospeed, R1MAN, Hybrid_EG, myself, Tony and Hyrbid_EG's brother. CaliGixxer got us started off in a spirited, fun pace. Hybrid_EG was losing ground to R1MAN. It looked like he was having some handling problems. I took an opportunity to pass him in a safe spot. After hitting at least another 8-10 more corners, we started losing the back portion of the pack. CaliGixxer waved the front half of the pack by (probably to check on the back half). PG_Rider took the lead followed by Adospeed, R1MAN and Myself. Eventually, Adospeed backed it off and waved R1MAN and myself by. We basically stayed in this configuration (PG_Rider, R1MAN, myself, Adospeed, Caligixxer, Hybrid_EG, Tony and Hybrid_EG's brother) the rest of the way down. We got caught behind a train of cars when we were near the bottom that took a lot of the fun (and speed) out of the rest of the ride.

We all stopped at the Shell station for gas, drinks and chit-chat before we all split up and headed home. I think I spent more time talking than riding, but it was fine by me. I got a chance to get to know CaliGixxer and R1MAN, who are two cool guys.