I was coming to the end of a two week stay in LA with Ryan when I found out my riding buddy Paul was going to be getting married in the hills around Malibu. I went to the wedding last Saturday and then went riding with my friends Larry and Kellee on Sunday.

I didn’t have my bike with me, but I did have all the safety gear so I rented from SportBikeRental.com. They delivered a 2007 Honda CBR 600RR for me to use for 24 hours. It was definitely a different ride than my Buell CityX. For one the redline is 15,000rpm while my bike redlines at 6,500rpm a speed I didn’t drop below while cruising on the Honda. The riding position is also more extreme compared to the upright position on my bike. We spent nearly 7 hours in the Santa Monica mountains. Most of the roads were pretty tight with a lot of technical 1st gear work… except I threw it into 2nd gear because the power delivery in 1st was ridiculously harsh. 2nd gear really helped smooth things out. I longed to ride my own bike. I’m sure someone used to inline-4 cylinders would have been more comfortable. Truth is bikes like the RR aren’t the easiest rides unless you’re wringing them out at the top end. It was a good day and I’ve geotagged all the photos; you’ll see a lot of them from The Rock Store.

I rode my own bike on Monday when got back to Las Vegas. It was good to be back, but I noticed a few things. I was riding the bike much higher in rpm band than I normally do. Which is either a habit left over from the previous day or I just got the ear plugs jammed in too far and couldn’t tell where I was. It also felt like I was putting my foot through the (virtual) floor when trying to use the rear brake so I might have to raise that up. It felt great to be back on my bike though; really fits like a glove.