Day 2 II: My Baby

Riding, not writing.

Writing, not riding.

What’s a riding writer to do?

Day 4, June 4. I’ve taken a table at Serious Coffee, hard by the West Coast Road bike shop on Highway 1, Vancouver Island, and I’m not getting up until I’ve posted something about Day 2. The 600-miles-before-noon-tomorrow-in-Seattle imperative will work itself out somehow.

Just after hitting publish on my last entry, I hailed a Seattle Uber and hauled my 85 lbs. of dry-bagged gear to Moto International on Aurora Avenue, there to meet the bike at center of this adventure.

Moto International is a saffron-yellow garage and showroom bordered by a bouquet of red, white and black Moto Guzzis, Ducatis and Aprilias. My silver-grey Stone waited in the curbside line, but I picked it out from across the avenue, spying the chrome Hepco & Becker rear rack and Givi windscreen shop owner Dave Richardson installed for me.

“Picked it out”: it/her/him… I have a bad feeling this bike is going to have a name, an affectation I’ve avoided for decades. But the bonding was immediate, like the that’s-my-baby moment in old-school movie hospital birth scenes, the struck-goofy father looking through the nursery window at the row of bassinets. “There she/he/it is! My baby.”

Dumped the bags in the Moto International showroom door and went right back out to sit on the Stone. (“Stone”: what do you think about Pedro, or Petra? Soon as I figure out the gender, anyway. No? Okay…)

We’d decided on swapping out the stock shocks for the ones that come with the V7 II Racer. Stiffer, more responsive — — and snazzy red against the black frame, bonus. Felt great as I bounced the seat. The heated grips were installed, too, nice and chubby in hand. The reach real good, maybe an inch shy of perfect, but there are risers for that. I could already tell the Givi screen was going to be too tall and not tall enough, sending turbulence straight at a head struggling for calm. But I’d give it a try, and by prior arrangement, there’d be a flyscreen waiting after the shakedown run. Sitting straight up; leg angle, knee-flex degree, heel hang on footpegs all ideal.

And is it pretty? (Is she pretty? Is he pretty?)

Oh, hell yeah.

Que bella.

This is a bike I’ll be visiting in the garage on sub-zero mid-January nights, just to sit on the staircase and stare.

My baby.

Dave came out, and a Guzzi Griso rider named Steve, and Moto International’s head tech, Jason, and we stood around staring, and if I’d had cigars I would have handed them out. “It’s an it/boy/girl!” But we started talking about the weight in those dry bags and the dozen-plus gear boxes waiting in the stockroom and whether we ought to drop the forks an inch and crank the shocks a notch and whether I could get all my mods dome and gear stowed and be on the road for Vancouver by nightfall…

So we stopped standing around and staring and got to work.