I had the pleasure of knocking out a ~180 mile ride last Sunday – here are some of my highlights!
Joining me that day was my business partner Adam – I asked Yamaha for a MT-09 loaner for him after I went up to the Bay Area for a review.
We also had Cory, who runs transportation for us at Iconic. He was on his personal Honda Hawk GT.
Our usual Sunday ride always starts at Iconic, and then we meet up with a few buddies at a local gas station on the Pacific Coast Highway. I was on my Bimota Tesi 3D, which has covered about 13,000 miles.
We were also joined by our buddy George, who runs a company called Moto California that Iconic has partnered with to offer rentals for clients who want to go on longer trips with us (like our ride to the Quail) or for people who fly in to check out the shop. One of the rentals is this BMW R1250GS so he took it out for a quick spin.
Before we left as a group, someone showed up in a Porsche 918 Spyder. I didn’t have much of a chance to speak with the seller but I was curious to hear what it would sound like:
We took Las Flores Canyon up to Schueren Road, and at the usual overlook we found a gentleman with an Alpine A110. Unfortunately, he had lost a bracket holding the exhaust up so he was looking for some metal wire on the ground that he could temporarily use to secure the muffler and get home.
It’s got a 1300cc engine, and I love the side draft Webers!
There was also a gentleman on a classic Norton Commando – he told me what year it was but I’ve since forgotten, sorry.
We continued on to the Rock Store, where the Yamaha got some attention as it’s a brand new model.
Here are some other bikes at the Rock Store that caught my eye:
Ducati Multistrada V4 RS – I recently got a chance to ride one for an hour and it’s pretty impressive. It’s also got one of the loudest dry clutches I’ve ever heard.
This beautiful Yamaha FZ750 has less than 3,000 miles.
Husqvarna Norden 901 Expedition
Lastly, this CBX had a gorgeous exhaust – it’s hand built by K-Factory in Japan and they also pre-heat the titanium to blue it up in advance for the customer.
I mean, look at this thing!
I left my friends at the Rock Store a bit earlier than usual because I also had to meet up with my buddy Nic de Sena of Ultimate Motorcycling. My partner Adam got a little sound check of me taking off:
Nic wanted to go for a fast ride as he had a KTM 1390 Super Duke R to test, so I met him at a gas station in Moorpark. Or, I was going to, but after I filled up my tank I noticed a text from Nic saying that he was going to be a bit late:
Seeing as it was going to be a while, I found a local cafe to relax at. 30 minutes later, Nic showed up and I couldn’t believe my eyes – the new SDR is not a good looking bike.
We headed north on some great roads – Grimes Canyon, Bouquet Canyon, and Spunky Canyon. There’s a spot on Spunky that Nathan and I like to shoot so I asked Nic if he wanted to try a wheelie shot. We normally shoot on the road itself but I noticed easy access to a hill alongside so I hiked up to see if it looked interesting. It’s a nice view but it’s not conducive to shooting a motorcycle.
Instead, I got alongside the road and tried to get a little foreground element in my phone shot as Nic power-wheelied the Beast, which is what KTM calls the 1390 SDR.
On Spunky Canyon there’s a house that almost always has adventure/dirt bikes outside when I ride past it. This time there weren’t just bikes, there was a canopy and a couple of people so I stopped to see if I could introduce myself. I got to meet Brian Barthel, who runs Barty’s MotoWerks.
He let me poke around his shop a bit and I asked about a Honda Hawk GT that was in storage.
He said he was going to build it into a tribute of a CR-1 – I had no idea what he was talking about so he pulled out his phone and showed me this:
How cool is that?! It’s very hard to find information on this but apparently it was a prototype Honda created for a show in 1989 called MOVE. It’s a street bike with the two-stroke 500cc engine from a CR500 dirtbike! There’s definitely some similarities with this and a Hawk 400 frame/tank, so the Hawk 650 is as close as you’re likely going to find in the US. I hope he makes it work, that’d be very interesting to see!
Nic and I then continued on to the Rock Inn for lunch. There were plenty of bikers already at the Rock Inn for their own meals, a nice balance of ADV bikes, cruisers, and sport bikes. Nothing “classic,” though.
After lunch Nic and I rode back towards the freeway on Lake Hughes Road – the twisties were great but the pavement surface was a bit beat up for my taste. While we got gas for the last time that afternoon, I saw a Dodge Charger being towed – hopefully to a place where it’ll be brought back to life.
I also couldn’t help myself and had to film a quick social media video sharing my thoughts about the Super Duke’s styling:
A little while later I was back at home, and the RISER app that I’m currently testing gave me some fun facts from my day:
I got back home and had to prep for a trip to Barber for their Small Bore Festival and the press launch of the 2025 Honda Grom! More on that later…