Somebody here said something about, "it's the rider, not the bike"....Here in Colorado, on many mountain roads, that's exactly what it's about, it seems. RXman can talk about some of that, I suspect.
I've gone through it many times here. One of my favorites, though, was one I've written about before. It was a cool late-1980s morning (60F) down in the Durango area, and I was headed back to Denver after a week in Farmington, doing electronic engineer stuff. Had saddlebags full of Tektronix O-scope, bench meters, frequency generators/counters, tools, parts, etc. All my clothes were packed in my tank bag, sort of like in my avatar. I was warming up with some hot chocolate at the Mac's on the main North-South drag when I noticed a nice R90S coming past. I waved to him (I geniunely admire those bikes), but he looked at me and my loaded Honda and then literally sneered, dropped a gear and pulled a little wheelie in the traffic. I thought that was sort of rude, but, oh well, some people's kids...
After I warmed up, I headed up the same road. He must have stopped for gas or something, because about 15 miles or so out of town, with 200 miles to go and 10 AM already, I was laying into it a bit on the Million Dollar Hiway when I caught up to him. We were hopping some lite traffic, and he would really pour it on to get around his obstacle cars. I watched for a while until traffic thinned, north of Silverton, and decided to catch up. He obviously didn't like the idea, and started blasting those half-mile straights. But, that road becomes anything but straight for the next 34 miles above Silverton, and soon I was right behind him.
I measured him for a while, then went under him on a 3-turn hairpin, then hit it harder until he was nowhere to be seen, even on the longer straights and the town of Ouray. I buzzed along about 65 then until I reached Montrose, where I heard the town bells stroke noon and decided to stop at that Mac's for lunch (I call this "M&M Racing", Mac's-to-Mac's
). I parked it out front and went inside to eat: about the time I sat down at the table, here came the BMW. He pulled in and parked next to mine, looking it over for a minute, then came in and ordered his lunch. To my surprise, he came over and asked to sit down with me!
We talked for awhile about where we're going, etc. He was riding from his fiance's in Durango, back to Grand Junction, riding empty. Then he asked what I'd done to my 750. I explained it was still stock (it had 10k miles since I bored it to 1st oversize, still box-stock, freshly tuned). Then I told him I was carrying about 70 pounds of electronics and a week's clothes, which he didn't believe. So, when we left the restaurant, I showed him the saddlebags full of gear. Then, he called me a liar, saying I must have a big-bore kit or something, to beat his R90S! I asked how fast he was hitting those straights: he said over 100. I told him I never hit 100 the whole time we were playing, but that I never dropped under 40 in any hairpin turn, either. Except when I was behind him.
Then, he just looked at me for a minute, then his bike, like he was getting pissed. I said, "It's not just the bike, but how you ride!" He left in sort of a huff, but I guess that made us even.
It's 112 miles from Durango to Montrose. I'd made it in about 95 minutes, took him nearly 2 hours.
