Got into my first real red light brawl with Max this morning, and with someone I know from work, so bragging rights were on the line!
Now this isn't my first rodeo, but since picking up Max I haven't done much aside from smoke harleys and expensive cars. There's been a lot of smack talking around the shops, but we haven't run into each other out on the street until now.
So I'm sitting at the red light at Ball and Harbor down in Anaheim, just missed the yellow, and Big Paulie hauls up next to me on his FZ1 and starts jamming the throttle and giving me the universal "let's go" hand sign. There's plenty of time on the light, so I put my visor up and tell him he's nuts if he thinks he can get me (Of course, I'm pretty sure he CAN get me, but I'm not about to say so ). He tells me his R1 engine will smoke me, the left turn lanes start going green and it's about time to put up or shut up so we put our lids back down and stage up.
I'm waiting for the light and weighing the ups and downs. Big Paulie is a big fat bastard, that's why we call him Big Paulie, so that's on my side. I know his bike is cold because I was warming up in the lot for a good five minutes and I didn't see him anywhere, so there's that. Last on my plus list, I'm pretty sure Paul hasn't been riding that long, so odds are he'll have a shitty launch, and this is only going to be a two gear race. Against me, I'm also a big fat bastard, and so is my bike. I've done some practice launching Max, but I don't have it down pat by any means, and the forward controls aren't any help in that department. In short, I'm sweating it.
The opposing left turn goes yellow, so I stage at 5200 and get down, Paul stages too low from the sound of it, good sign for me, the cars clear, the light flips, and boom goes the dynamite.
For once I get a really, really sweet no spin launch with full engagement early and skim the front through first, snap to second around 8800, making my only real mistake and picking it up higher than I'd like on the shift. I'm looking straight ahead and I don't see a blue FZ or a big fat ass so lifes good. I top out second around 70, let off and sit up, and there he is, about 4 lengths back on his state o' the art liter bike.
Looks like I get to do the bragging at work tonight, maybe I'll go by the bicycle shop and pick up some training wheels to weld to his locker unk:
Now this isn't my first rodeo, but since picking up Max I haven't done much aside from smoke harleys and expensive cars. There's been a lot of smack talking around the shops, but we haven't run into each other out on the street until now.
So I'm sitting at the red light at Ball and Harbor down in Anaheim, just missed the yellow, and Big Paulie hauls up next to me on his FZ1 and starts jamming the throttle and giving me the universal "let's go" hand sign. There's plenty of time on the light, so I put my visor up and tell him he's nuts if he thinks he can get me (Of course, I'm pretty sure he CAN get me, but I'm not about to say so ). He tells me his R1 engine will smoke me, the left turn lanes start going green and it's about time to put up or shut up so we put our lids back down and stage up.
I'm waiting for the light and weighing the ups and downs. Big Paulie is a big fat bastard, that's why we call him Big Paulie, so that's on my side. I know his bike is cold because I was warming up in the lot for a good five minutes and I didn't see him anywhere, so there's that. Last on my plus list, I'm pretty sure Paul hasn't been riding that long, so odds are he'll have a shitty launch, and this is only going to be a two gear race. Against me, I'm also a big fat bastard, and so is my bike. I've done some practice launching Max, but I don't have it down pat by any means, and the forward controls aren't any help in that department. In short, I'm sweating it.
The opposing left turn goes yellow, so I stage at 5200 and get down, Paul stages too low from the sound of it, good sign for me, the cars clear, the light flips, and boom goes the dynamite.
For once I get a really, really sweet no spin launch with full engagement early and skim the front through first, snap to second around 8800, making my only real mistake and picking it up higher than I'd like on the shift. I'm looking straight ahead and I don't see a blue FZ or a big fat ass so lifes good. I top out second around 70, let off and sit up, and there he is, about 4 lengths back on his state o' the art liter bike.
Looks like I get to do the bragging at work tonight, maybe I'll go by the bicycle shop and pick up some training wheels to weld to his locker unk: