On Sunday, I went for a ride with Paul. We did the typical 92->35 (skyline) -> 84 -> pompano beach route, with a stop at Alice’s for lunch. At the beach, Paul asked if I wanted to switch bikes. I was hesitant at first, after all, he does have a $14,000 motorcycle (MV Agusta Brutale), but he persisted and I accepted. I told him that I’d take it easy on the bike, and he said he’d do the same on my VFR.

As I was waiting to turn out of pompano beach, I was immediately taken at how light the bike was beneath me. The VFR is a porker, and I’ve gotten used to the heft. I was also surprised at how nice my arms looked in the rear view mirrors –that’s all I could see out of them. I think the mirrors on the Brutale are even worse than the mirrors on the 999, so congratulations MV on taking the ’shittiest mirror placement’ award. It’s nice to know Ducati has such serious competition.

Pulling out onto Highway 1, I noticed something else –you can’t see anything in front of you. No instruments, no lights, no fairing nothing. This took some adjustment for me, as I’m used to at least seeing some gages in front of me, but the Brutale makes you think you’re in wonder woman’s invisible plane. Highway 84 came up much too quickly and as I eased in to the right hand 90 degree turn, I hit a bump. Normally my VFR would absorb the bump and I’d go on, but the Brutale was set up for Paul, who is a fit 30 or so pounds heavier than I am (I’m still 6′1″ and 160). The Brutale bounced me clear out of the seat, immediately, my confidence was shot. In an ideal world, we would have first set the preload on our shocks, but this was a spur of the moment thing — a crazy idea thought up by a madman– and madmen don’t touch preload settings. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to be going at 10/10ths pace and risk turning Paul’s $14k toy into so much pretty wreckage.

Soon enough, the dreaded minivans of doom appeared in front of us, which was actually fortunate because we were still in the sweeper and passing zone section of 84. Time to test out the power –I blipped the bike, snicked down a cog (the shifter was nearly as nice as the viffer’s), and totally blew the shift. The MV’s engine revs much faster than the VFR’s and I overshot my mark. No matter, I was in a lower gear and accumulating massive speed as I blasted around the minivan. Paul was right behind me or at least as far as I can tell, the mirrors were quite buzzy, so all I could see was a blur of lights and red.

We were rapidly approaching the twisty bits, and route 84 with its mountain hugging switchbacks and generally impeccable road surface ranks among my favorite roads in the area. I’m no fan of in-line fours, but the MV had enough power at every RPM range that it didn’t feel like I had to work too hard to keep the engine on the boil. I also got better and better at blipping the thing –it’s really great to only have to make slight movements with the wrist and –ka-snick– I’m in a lower gear. I also got to slide around the bike a little bit, which on the MV is pretty tough. This is a bike that you sit in, not on, and I’ve never been comfortable with that. However, it forgave my amateurish movements (for the most part, I missed a line here and there) and the throttle seemed hard wired into my brain. The throttle was dead accurate, and allowed you to scrub speed with absolute precision. You could tell some Italian engineer worked many late nights on the fuel injection.

We caught up with traffic on the best part of the road (that always happens!) and 84 was over. The biggest problem with the MV is that it attracts attention. As we passed Alice’s Paul tells me that people were pointing. Heading back on Skyline (not my favorite road, BTW) the MV performed admirably, but I was getting cold. It was extremely windy up there and that was killing my confidence yet I still managed to make a couple good turns and hit some admirable lines. I wouldn’t call the MV confidence inspiring, but instead consider it an effective tool. The freeway ride home was less fun. My right knee started cramping up and I felt like a spinnaker with no fairing to protect me from the winds of freeway riding. I lost Paul for a bit, but when I merged back on to 101, the familiar red and bright blur was back in my mirrors. I downshifted from 6th to 2nd on the off ramp and was greeted with some inspiring machine music. I heard the familiar gear whine of the VFR behind me as well as the overly throaty exhaust, and knew Paul was still there. Fun times indeed.

Oh, and the D&D reference? That’s what Paul put on the license plate holder (click the picture for more)

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