Another Close Call
by Ken Bray
It was on the day of the last Kawasaki day at Alice's Restaurant, there were more motorcycles than I have ever seen at Sky Londa, a place that is notable for the amount of bikes usually present.
I was riding my Daytona Special, my friend Ron was riding his new Ninja 900, and friend John was on his clapped out XS650 with bald tires. When we grew tired of the crowd thing, we chose to ride the canyons. We went down through La Honda past Happy Jacks to Pescadero road., and baled left onto Alpine road, where we stopped among the redwoods to burn. When we got back on the bikes we were feeling right with the world.
Ron was leading on his 9, followed by myself, with John in the rear due to his bald tires - trouble was, because of the Loma Prieta quake, there were ripples in the pavement at odd places, but we didn't pay too much attention to them. About a mile down the road we had a real good rhythm going. I was following Ron pretty closely because I was transfixed by the way he was floating his front wheel through the corners with only his rear suspension moving over the ripples.
We were going about 50mph through this left hand sweeper when we came across this damp shaded area that I didn't notice because I was watching Ron's suspension when my front tire slid. From years of riding trials bikes, I stood up on the pegs while stepping on the rear brake to get the rear sliding as well. I realized that there were redwoods about 8 feet off the edge of the road in the direction I was sliding (it was at this point that I began praying). Then I saw my salvation in the form of a small berm about 4 feet off the pavement. As I entered the dirt I could hear John and his bald tires going by me, I clicked down a gear and gave it some throttle and fanned the clutch as I hit the berm, and it snapped back onto the road about 3 bike lengths behind John.... rarely have I been so certain of my doom as I was for that split second!
Looks like lady luck was on Ken's side again. ...ed.