tail of the dragon

today is the day im gonna take my new aprilia pegaso 650 strada for a long distance ride. with a 1089 miles, this bike sure needs some rough testing. so i decided to head to deals gap to test the tail of the dragon. take bout 2 hours rie from my home, so i cranked the pegaso after my orange juice breakfast at 5am and off i went. full tanked it the night before.

get to the tail of the dragon bout 8.30am and whoaaa!! greeted with some bikers on the road, waved, get waved back and go on. just dont have the time to chit chat and make friends with those fast riders. yeah, they were with the japs litre bikes and sure gonna pass me in few moments.

along the way, there were some people by the roadside took pictures. there were few bikers, a group of siblings on choppers who may have brought one of these photographers. nevermind them, when i do the 11 miles back, im gonna swing by and give em my boots if i see them again..hahaha..

the twisties here are mind boggling. with a dual purpose, im surely not getting the fun out of it. thinking that it might be as well that i use the st1100 for the road and this pegaso for the off road fun. i had to do a slow-in-slow-out corners, the bike responded well, but not well enough.

then came the bikers that waved me before. they overtook me effortlessly, with one even waved me during a tight corner. then i started to look at how they knee down with their body down when suddenly i realize how a fool i am. i was doing the exact body position as them!

ok, some of you might not get it. in a sportsbike or any road bike, when you lean into the corners, your body must be weight down together with the bike. lean down to the tarmac as low as you can get. but for an off-road, or a dual purpose, i remember watching in tv that they pull out their legs when in corner, making it somekind of a third wheel when cornering.

so i tried a right-hander with my right legs stretch out to the road...and my body counter the bike. now that feels right. through try and error, i started to get the feel on it. the bike is now easier to control and swing it on this horrible twisties. now i value the sports channel on tv.

stopped at the pumpkin store, had a few cigs and chit chatting with the sportbikers mentioned earlier. they are from new york and here for the weekend. didnt get their names. the less you know, the better you are. then continued on until the tail of the dragon store where i stopped for my packed sandwich brunch. few bikers are there and there's this one solo rider with a harley from nashville and heading to a two wheel inn. he said that it's a nice place for people like us to stop there for a night. but meaning it will be bout another 100miles. no thanks.

getting on the pegaso, starting to appreciate it and feels the comfort of it. getting more on the throttle, it's more easier once you know how to ride this piece of marvel. took less time to get back to the starting point. should have studied bout the bike before riding it!

see ya all...