Latigo Canyon + Traffic

The day after my birthday was pretty rough, but I was feeling good by about 5pm, so I set out for a cruise since the sun doesn't set until about 8pm. Heading up PCH, there was an accident southbound north of Sunset Blvd, which had traffic backed up pretty far. Hoping to avoid getting stuck in traffic on the way home, I took my time and headed for Latigo Canyon.

I love driving Latigo in my car. It's twisty, and the top part has pretty high quality pavement. This was going to be a learning experience on my motorcycle, since I hadn't ridden anything nearly that curvy yet.

Big learning point for the day: you go where you look. This means several things, but two in particular:

• If you stare at the pavement 5 feet ahead of you, you'll never hit a good line and won't feel stable in a turn.


• The further ahead you look, the better off you will be. Even in blind corners, visualize where you should end up and adjust once the exit comes into view.

The secondary learning point came from inspiration I found reading some of Keith Code's articles: Counter-steering turns the bike. Body movement will not. Counter-steering as a result of body movement will, but that is simply cause and effect. You want to focus on the real cause, so learn to counter-steer to initiate turns.

I also had a bit of a scare downshifting into a turn where I didn't match revs close enough. Letting out the clutch quickly, my rear tire skipped briefly. Fortunately, I was still slowing down for the turn and was moving in a straight line. Keeping my head up and looking where I was going, the bike balanced itself out in a matter of a few milliseconds, but it still shook me up mentally.

Latigo was fun, I headed back to PCH down Kanan Dume, and, just like I was trying to avoid, I ended up in very heavy southbound traffic. I wasn't comfortable splitting the two lanes (especially since PCH isn't very wide) and was puttering along at >5mph when two motorcycles passed me riding the white line on the shoulder. I got in behind them and followed them until traffic cleared up, then got back into the normal flow. Not quite lane splitting, but my first experience with "creative" use of road.

Time: 3 hours
Miles: 60 miles