Upon sending a complete draft of this book to my publisher, I packed up and moved to California. There are amazing roads through the Santa Cruz mountains, minutes from where I am staying. I daydream about taking the Bug on these roads when it is finished. In the meantime, I have been making a study of them on the powerful Yamaha, carving the canyons with growing confidence. Rounding a sweeping left-hand turn marked 25 mph at about 45 mph, I lean further to tighten my line. The “feeler” on my inside foot peg grinds on the pavement, sending a shiver of vibration into my boot and up my leg. My eyes are fluid, running out ahead into the next corner, and now I am out of the seat, up on the pegs, sliding my body to the right. “Soft hands,” I say aloud. My head directed into the turn, I toss the bike to the right, hanging off on the inside and getting low again. As the right peg scrapes, I get another reward—the tingle of edge work—and exit the turn on the throttle. As the motor surges up through the rpm range, the sound is intoxicating. In the momentary release of concentration that comes with a straight section of road, a line from Snoop Dogg comes, the sound of my voice resonant in my helmet: “I lay back in the cut and contain myself.” For me it is an attitude to emulate, an admonishment against getting tight and hurried. I take Snoop to mean what jazz drummers mean when they talk about playing slightly behind the beat, letting the song come to them. It is a posture of musical cool perfectly suited to the pavement-jazz of riding a bike at eleven, on the far side where time slows down.
There was one day in particular, on the road to La Honda from Alice’s Restaurant, when everything came together exquisitely. It was a slalom through the redwoods, dappled sunlight playing on perfect black tarmac as I came hard out of a corner, front wheel lifting off the ground. On this stretch of road, there are several serpentine sections where you can see, in a single take, a series of three corners ahead in their entirety, with nowhere for surprises to hide. These chicanes have a bodily rhythm to them that is sublime, when taken at speed. I have never been a good athlete, and can only admire those who move with natural grace. But on a sport bike on a canyon road, for a brief spell I feel raised up from my God-given mediocrity. By a machine! What a miracle.