My friend Keith (of The Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition fame) is in town for some Milk Runs and Macallan. Not wanting to waste any time, we pretty much went straight from the airplane to the motorcycles, and headed to the world’s best road, Azusa Canyon.

The ride was great, but, any ride on these fantastic mountain roads is great. The ear to ear grin on Keith’s face confirmed what I already knew – this little slice of heaven is… well… it’s about as good as it gets. While I understood all too well how Keith felt about his first time up there, I kinda felt like, while the road is probably the best road I’ve ridden on, I’ve already seen it all. Hundreds of times. I’ve ridden this road every single chance I’ve had since I found it. Just like eating steak every day would get old after a while, some of the newness of this road has apparently worn off for me.

All too soon the sun started dipping toward the horizon, which meant it was time to head for home.

Best day ever? Definitely! But on the way down the mountain, it got even better.

As we wound our way down the backside of Glendora Mountain Road, I saw something that made me do a double take. There, walking up the side of the road, was the strangest thing I think I have ever seen. I passed a guy carrying a skateboard in one hand and a BMX bicycle helmet in the other. I gestured to him as I passed, saying in universal sign language, “Are you fucking seriously going to skateboard down this insanely steep mountain road?”

With a smile, he nodded.

I couldn’t believe it. This road has grades up to 8% which may not sound steep, but riding a skateboard on a public road with an 8% grade… well, that guy has to either be insane or have the biggest set of balls on earth.

Or both.

I pulled off soon after passing him, shaking my head in disbelief. Keith was similarly awestruck. “That numbnuts is going to skateboard down this road? Let’s wait and watch him die!”

“No. Let’s do something even better. I’m going to give him a ride to the top.”

I rode back up the hill to this nutbag, and using more universal sign language, I asked if I could hasten his demise by giving him a ride up the 8% grade. Enthusiastically, he nodded, and jumped on the back of Rain Cloud Follows.

He introduced himself as D.T.and said he’d been skateboarding this road for ten years. I noticed he had on gardening gloves with some PVC pipe duct taped to the palms. That and his bicycle helmet were his only protection. His T shirt flapped in the breeze as we climbed Glendora Mountain Road.

“How far up do you wanna go?”

“As far as you’ll take me.”

We went up a few miles until he indicated a good place to stop. I shook my head as this complete lunatic readied himself for the descent.

Author: frenchy

One Response to “Never Say You’ve Seen It All”

1. abi says:

   February 25, 2009 at 7:00 AM

   Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. Wish I was there.

   Reply