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My friend Karl. No, not the Carl that has the turns named for him, but my friend that crashed his motorcycle there so many times, the turns could’ve been named after him. In fact, we used to tell the newcomers that the turns were named after him and the reason he had crash bars on his bike was that the insurance company made him put them on. Of course, the latter part of that is true. He used to race his silver Honda Hawk up there at the same time I was up there. Karl worked at the Canyon Country Store when he was 16. He used to come flying up there at the stroke of midnight when they closed. Sometimes he was there to watch the “M” turn off, sometimes he missed it. We used to set our watches by that “M”. Karl lived in Laurel Canyon too, he and I are still best friends to this day.
Karl taught me how to road race bikes. Looking back I realize that someone who crashed as much as he did might not have been the best teacher. At any rate, I bought a 1976 Yamaha RD400 and he taught me how to ride it. As I had been riding motocross bikes for years, it wasn’t too hard to adapt to street riding. So, one Saturday night we went down to Westwood to hang out. We met up with another friend of mine from school (Karl and I went to different schools) who was riding his Kawasaki 550 triple. We took Sunset from UCLA to Coldwater, and then up to Mulholland. I was still pretty new to road racing bikes, but I managed to keep up. Once we got onto Mullholland I took off and was leading the pack. For reasons I still don’t understand, I took the slight turn in front of Grandstands really wide and damn near hit the curb near the driveway that went to nowhere. Needless to say, they blew by me. I never caught back up. Several weeks later, the friend of mine that we met up with (for some reason I can’t remember his name) died in the Daytona section of Sunset when he flipped his VW Rabbit at high speed. Sorry to say, he killed a young girl that was with him too.
Neither Karl or I ride anymore. We talk about it, and how much nicer the bikes are now compared to back then. I quit riding shortly after I was almost rear ended while sitting at the light at Beverly Glen and Mullholland. Heading west on Mullholland I look in my mirror and see someone coming up fast behind me. Broad daylight and this guy is cruising. I get nervous, cross traffic, he’s getting closer, I shift into first, and blow through the intersection just in time to hear him lock up the brakes. I made it through OK, stopped, turned around to see he didn’t stop until he was ~10 feet past where I was sitting. The light turned green, and he didn’t even move. I motioned for him to come on over for a little discussion on what just transpired, but he didn’t move. He sat through another light. I flipped him off and left. I think he knew what would’ve happened had he come over to talk to me.
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