3,300 (S)miles

2 months after purchasing my new Speed Four, I have to say that this bike is ridiculously awesome.

Riding out to San Diego was as much fun as a straight shot through the desert can be. I didn't have any music to listen to except for the Triumph sweetly singing, and the Strapping Young Lad (beware the audio if you're at work. Some people don't understand the joys of death metal. Even proggy, humorous death metal.) song I had stuck in my head. I got to experience "Severe Winds," which at 90+ mph on a naked bike translates to "Wind will rip your freakin' head off and lob it into the dunes where it will then be subjected to Richard Wagner's complete works in one sitting."

The ride back was considerably less fun, because the only really fun roads on the trip are in California. It's like eating dessert first, and then you have to sit down to a big ol' plate of liver and onions with a side of pickled herring.

Anyway, the Triumph is shockingly comfy on long trips for a bike which has ergonomics similar to humping a football. Of course, having to stop for gas every 120 miles helps out, since one gets a lot of stretch breaks.

While in San Diego, I visited my buddy Penguin-Man's family, and got to go out riding with his dad, Human Comet, and his brother, The Stranger. These guys are lucky enough to live in SoCal, and know the roads. Therefore, they were able to ride way, way, way faster than me most of the time. I felt kind of bad for making them wait for me so often, but a going into an unfamiliar curve at high speed is a good way to catch a nasty case of dead, so I took it easy.

Incidentally, while riding with those guys I found out exactly what doing 0 - 60 mph in 4.5 seconds is like. Remember "bullet-time" from that one movie that had Cowboy Curtis and Ted but not Bill in it? It's like that, only without all the half-assed metaphysics.