Taking the black racer to the remote office

January has been a tough month. Sometimes getting things accomplished comes somewhat naturally and other times it is an uphill battle just getting through each day. January has been a whole month of the latter. It hasn’t been a bad month so much as it has been a difficult month.

I really mean it when I write that it hasn’t been a bad month. The situation with my totaled Moto Guzzi has been resolved in what is probably the best of all possible outcomes: I no longer have the Stone, the motorcycle I’ve been riding for almost six years, but I was able to replace it with a 2004 Moto Guzzi Nero Corsa, which is a very nice replacement. It cost a bit more than I received for the Stone, but it is an upgrade in many ways.

The motor’s displacement is exactly the same as the Stone’s but it’s rated with a few more horses due to the absence of hydraulic valves. It has a much nicer suspension system and better brakes than the Stone. 

The riding position is much more advanced—I mean that literally. It’s a much farther forward riding position with the handgrips lower and farther forward and the footpegs higher and farther back. The bike rides higher than the Stone did and the transition has not been seamless. It’s taking some time, effort, and attention to get used to the bike.

One thing that has helped some is changing my work environment. Working at home is convenient but it can be very distracting. Bringing the laptop to a coffeeshop to use as a remote office has helped jumpstart the day more than once. Today, as it got to noon with nothing yet to show for the day, I decided to pack up and change environment to get some work done.

To kill two birds with one stone (or should I say one Nero Corsa?) I picked a Philz coffee that I’d never been to before today: Palo Alto. That gave me the opportunity to do some riding down Skyline on the way to my «remote office.» 

I set a downright sedate pace on Skyline. It’s a road I’m quite familiar with but a bike I’m just getting to know. The point was not to push any limits, but to get a feel for the bike and how it responds in corners and all sorts of different situations.

I’m quite pleased to report that the Nero Corsa is a great ride. As I already wrote I wasn’t pushing any limits, but everything I asked for it gave me. It never threw any surprises at me. It is a very well-behaved motorcycle in every way that a motorcycle should be well-behaved. (Obviously there are aspects of motorcycling that should never be described that way. Just ignore them for now.)

I took Skyline to Page Mill Road, which is a much more challenging piece of pavement, a narrow road with very tight curves and switchbacks terminated by hairpins. Again, speed was not the goal, but I was quite pleased at how the Nero Corsa fell into curves. Even in the hairpins and corners that felt too sharp I just leaned in a bit and the bike just went where it was supposed to. No pushing, no extreme maneuvering, just a bit more lean and it fell in line.

I’m having trouble picking a good line going through corners, which I attribute to the steering being so much more responsive than the Stone’s steering. It’s been over three years since the Speed Triple was wrecked, so all my riding has been on the Stone. I’m just not used to a quick-handling bike. It will take a little time in the saddle to adjust my line. Until then I just have to take it slow.

I’m also pleased to report that the Palo Alto Philz lives up to the expectations set its San Francisco counterparts. It has a cozy, homey environment like the original Philz on 24th Street  but with a parking lot and ample outdoor seating. The coffee is exactly as good as Philz elsewhere—or at least the Swiss Water Peruvian is just as good as I’ve had it in SF.

My strategy of getting out of the house to set up office in another environment hasn’t quite panned out. I haven’t gotten much work done today. I was counting on the inertia associated with getting out of the house and going for a ride to carry through into my productivity and ability to focus, but my focus this afternoon has been pretty poor and as a result the number of items checked off my to-do list is pretty low. There’s still more time this evening, but no matter what I’m still going to have to catch up tomorrow.