As the week winds down the tires on the Yamaha Joachim is piloting begin losing what remaining tread they have. We decide to put Annette on the back of my BMW for the return trip home.
Early the next morning we begin the 574-mile ride north up the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive. Andreas, with Karin on the back of his bike, and me, with Annette on the back of mine, quickly drop the others. The two of us, having adopted an extremely aggressive pace, quickly tag-team our way up the spine of the Blue Ridge. Swapping the lead at periodic intervals, we take turns finding the one line that might work at our elevated pace.
In retrospect, it easily was one of the most reckless, imprudent pieces of riding I have ever done. Riding hours on end at 80-90 mph, two-up, when the speed limit was half that, was clearly irresponsible. I certainly won't try and defend what we did, only offering the sad excuse that exuberance and youth and hooking up with another very fast rider can be a combination fraught with peril.
But I did learn a few things. For I had found the perfect pillion.
Nearly all of us have carried a passenger on our bike at one time or another. Some of us are quite experienced at it-having ridden with our wives or girlfriends for many miles.
And most of us have said pretty much the same thing before having that newbie passenger climb onboard for the first time:
"Just relax. Keep your feet on the pegs. Don't do anything unexpected. Lean with me. Wait for my signal before getting on or off." Depending upon how well we know her we might or might not have told her to hang on tight.
And that basic level of instruction works, after a fashion. For most people, backseat riding on a bike never gets much more sophisticated or any more complicated than that.
What I learned from Annette, though, is that an active, engaged passenger can make an enormous difference in minimizing the inevitable handling disadvantage that comes with riding two-up. Far from simply hoping for a modest, somewhat neutral level of disharmony from the back seat, an active passenger can actually contribute to the proceedings, counteracting much of the disadvantage that their extra weight brings.
Annette sat very close, first of all, so there was essentially one body mass on top of the bike, not two. And rather than simply sitting back there casually enjoying the ride, she watched the upcoming road with the very same intensity that I did, shifting her gaze over one shoulder or the other as the road unfolded. Because she was a sport rider herself, she knew exactly what I was thinking and what I was trying to achieve as I lined up each turn. She didn't just "lean with me." She pulled herself hard to the inside with the same significant effort that I did. Had we been wearing race leathers with knee pucks instead of Aerostich suits, her knee would have kissed the tarmac at the same time as mine. She was anything but the pleasant backseat passenger most of us are used to, in other words. She was every bit as actively engaged there on the back of my bike as she had been weeks earlier when swinging her ass out of the seat of Hannibal.
And that's probably the best example there is. Think of those sidecar racers. Those crazy guys you see every spring at the Isle of Man. Sure, one of them is nominally the pilot, the guy doing the steering. But, really, both of them are doing equal work in getting the car around the course.
What I learned from Annette is that you can have very much the same thing with that passenger on the back of your bike. Someone who is actually as much a copilot as they are a passenger. And that it can enable you to do things two-up that aren't easy to do when hauling around your more relaxed, I-think-I'll-just-sit-back-here-and-enjoy-the-view passengers.
All it requires is that you first find that girl who likes sportbikes as much as you do. One whose favorite sport isn't football or baseball or soccer; it's MotoGP and World Superbike racing. She'll have her own bike. And she'll love those good roads every bit as much as you do.
And then you just have to convince her to get on the back of your bike, instead of riding her own.
Good luck.