The Lost Coast Expedition of 2004

The Lost Coast Ride… 2004… What follows is as brief a description of our travels as I could manage. It was perhaps the greatest motorcycle ride I’ve ever been on and most definitely the best vacation I’ve ever had!

Day 1: LA to Morro Bay

The first day of our trip started out on a gloriously sunny California day heading up the Pacific Coast Highway (also called Route 1 or the “PCH” for short), traffic was light and the sunlight hitting the coastline was just magnificent. It was a “bay watch” sort of morning when anything felt possible. And then we hit the end of what I consider to be the southern cal part of route one - Point Magu Naval Base. If you have ever seen the end to “The Two Jakes” - the less than stellar sequel to “Chinatown” - then you’ve seen the last hard right hand corner before the PCH slides into a northeastern curvature until you find yourself winding your way through the beginning of Ventura County’s farmlands.

It’s sudden and shocking transformation. For the last forty or so miles it’s nothing but beautiful beach front property and then over the course of one Navel Base and a hard right hand turn it’s nothing but migrant workers and crops. Greens and browns bounce all around you.

Once the first farmland tour is over, then it’s the North bound 101 Freeway, which happens to also be route one. It’s a rather boring bit of asphalt, but it takes you up, up and away. Towards the most glorious coastline in California and I would offer the United States. At some point you realize that you’re heading to Santa Barbara. Since we’ve taken the 101 here several times previously on the bikes, this trip we opted to take Highway 154 - commonly called “The San Marcos Pass” - which cuts out part of the 101 and instead introduces you parts of the Santa Barbara Mountains. At first it’s a very winding road, nice sweepers and sudden curves.

Slowly the curves fade away until what is left is an outright super speedway trapped in a mountain road. Eventually Highway 154 cuts past the outskirts of San Ynez and then eventually reconnects with the 101. Here’s a link to Pashnit.com’s write up of Highway 154.

We decided to stopped for lunch at about the halfway point on Highway 154 based on a recommendation from Mad Maps. They’re awesome motorcycle based maps suggested a joint called The Cold Spring Tavern - a delightful road house if I’ve ever seen one - I highly recommend it and the chili - it’s a cross between LA’s “The Rockstore” and “The Saddlepeak Lodge”, two of my favorite LA spots, so I felt right at home. Although I have to say it had a substantially better wine list.

Once lunch was over we finished the fun part of 154 and got on the 101 again, until we reached Pismo Beach - another of California’s golden locals - then eventually San Luis Obispo. SLO as many norcal’ers call it is a nice spot - very collegiate, but decent enough - What makes it sparkle in my mind is that it sits less than 20 miles from perhaps the greatest Californian destination spot - and my personal relaxation mecca - Morro Bay.

Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo was the first non-native American to find Morro Bay. He saw the giant rock and one of California’s few coastline accessible protected harbors. Once the Spanish left, quarrying became the big industry - one that dramatically changed the face of the big rock itself. This was just the first of several reincarnations for the area. Once the quarries died out, fishing became the big business. Eventually that too dried up and in the late eighties tourism took over. Lucky for me I guess - because Morro Bay has always felt like a home away from home for me. I’ve now been there on the bike probably a half dozen times, with no regrets or feelings of been there done that. It’s just a wonderful place where the sea hits the shore with a sound of solitude. Life there moves slow, but not in millimeters and it’s always quiet. It’s the kind of place that would make a writer feel right at home. And it’s the only place I know of where the fog is beautiful not annoying!

Day 2: Morro Bay to San Francisco

Waking up to seagulls always makes me smile and a morning at The Inn at Morro Bay doesn’t disappoint. It’s just you, the bikes, the birds, the slowly sauntering and the road. Ah, and what a road. This is the best of the PCH. From Morro Bay until Carmel is about 120 miles of the most pristine coastline that exists.

About forty miles from Morro Bay stands Hearst Castle and as you glide by on a bike you realize that Hearst might have been a jackass, but he knew a great local when he saw one. We didn’t stop for the tour, but it is routinely considered one of the better tourist traps in California.

On our first several trips up the coast Carmel was the end - slowly over time as we’ve fallen in love with long distance riding up the coast we’ve pushed it further and further. This trip was the most extreme example because what once was a 150 mile day turned into a 300+ mile day.

We followed route 1 in several iterations from Carmel to Monterey to Watsonville and then to Santa Cruz. Stopping in SC for lunch was quite a thing. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid, but the downtown is a bustle of life with no parking. None.

After lunch we headed up for the next grad adventure - the Santa Cruz Mountains. A wonderful stretch of twists and turns through a grand mountain range.

This is not only a great collection of roads (we took route 9 to route 236, which loops back to route 9, then hung a left on route 34, commonly referred to as Skyline Boulevard - a brilliant stretch of twisties that passes by Alice’s Restaurant - one of the definitive biker hangouts in Nor Cal.

Once we finished tearing up the Santa Cruz Mountains we popped back on to the freeway and headed into San Francisco. As fate would have it we arrived to some of the best weather I’ve ever seen in SF proper. The crowds were starting to shuffle into PacBell as we crossed over on to the city streets. A glorious day of riding finally came to an end as we pulled into another one of my favorite hotels, The Park Hyatt near the financial district.

Milt and I in Golden Gate Park:

Day 3: San Francisco to Mendocino

After a great night out in North Beach with my friends Kaveh, Carrie and Erica, we headed up to The Lost Coast ? the great stretch of route 1 above Marin County (the famed home of George Lucas’s empire).

In many ways this particular part of the trip was the impetus for the entire trip. Neither Milt nor I had ever done The Lost Coast and according to everything we had ever read it was supposed to be a great ride. Unfortunately what I came to realize is that while it was a wonderful day and beautiful scenery, the road itself lacked any true excitement for me.

Touring for tourings sake is not exactly my cup of tea - I’m much more interested in fun rides that are length. And when I say fun, I mean twisting, rising, diving, turning, curving, sudden breaking, hard accelerating, joyous symphonies of concrete and asphalt. Not 15 MPH traffic filled tourist traps and long dull straight aways with no place to safely pass.

Motorcycle journalist Clement Salvadori wrote in his guide book to Californian roads, “Motorcycle Journeys Through California” that, “this is one of the great rides in California, if not the world… The ocean is backed by the Coastal Range of low mountains, and dashing in and out of the many valleys is downright good fun… You could do the whole stretch from the Golden Gate Bridge to Leggett in one long day, but [that] would be about as bright as buying a $150 bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label and mixing it with Coke. Savor this ride”.

While I generally agree with most Clements’ observations in his book, in this particular case I have to disagree. Compared to The Santa Cruz Mountains, The Santa Monica Mountains, or even the inland ranch filled route 25 (I’ll get to that later, I promise!) this is one big, long dull ride. Great pictures, little chance to lean the bike over and let go of life for a while. A very different kind of riding - for me at least.

We wrapped up the day in Mendocino, at a nice quaint Abe Lincoln styled hotel. Not a bad place, but not my style. I do however find the history of the area fascinating. Apparently no one knows for sure who founded Mendocino, but in the 1850s it was a bustling lumbering community (Milt & I saw plenty of lumber related eighteen wheelers here and it really slowed down traffic on a one lane, twisting 15 MPH coastline - basically it sucked - anyway I digress…). In fact the lumber produced in this area is responsible for much of early San Francisco. For the next fifty years Mendocino flourished, until Fort Bragg up the coast dead in 1911.This sent the city in a serious decline that lasted until after World War II. Basically in the late part of the twenty century artists settled up here to get some peace and quiet and eventually city dwellers found them a fun weekend escape. Soon tourism was booming and now it is the major industry. House prices in the area are obscene, ranging anywhere from the 500,000s to the 2.5 million range.

Day 4: Mendocino back to SF

Due to a bad tire gauge that resulted in low tire pressure, Day 4 started out with a change of plans. Instead of riding with 46 psi in my back tire, I had been running at 24 psi. On a track that would be ideal, on a long trip it’s a really, really bad idea.

So instead of heading back down the coast, we needed to find the shortest route possible to the nearest BMW dealership, which as it turned out was in Santa Rosa.

What was a bummer of a morning, worrying about my rear tire, turned into a great accident. Instead of taking route 1 back down the coast as we had planned we consulted our old trusty map and found route 128. Little did I know that it was yet another California’s superb motorcycle roads! Here’s a link to Pashnit.com’s page on route 128.

After the disappointment of the day before, route 128 turned me into a lost coast believer. It was just amazing. We shot through the base of the redwood forest at 75 MPH while the sun was rising and the most classic of light rays pierced their way through the tree tops. From an oil painter to a 3D artist, I don’t believe that anyone could ever capture the beauty of what we saw. I would have popped off the bike to take a picture, but the ride was even better than the sights! Every corner was hard, left, right, left, right, right, left, 180 degrees. No sweepers in sight. Just you and the forest doing battle. Ah what glory! If there is one road from up north that I wish I could copy and replicate down south, this would be it. It was that good.

Luckily for me when we arrived in Santa Rosa, Dennis, the manager of Santa Rosa BMW fit me in during the middle of some kind of local Santa Rosa parade (the shop was located on the parade route!) and set me up with new set of tires.

Day 5: San Francisco to Pismo Beach

We changed our plans early on day five, deciding not to stay at Morro Bay again - even though we love it - because we felt that Pismo Beach would be a more logical final destination for the trip. I say final destination because on trips like this the last stop for me is always the night before we head home. On the last official day I’m always starting to think about what waits for me back home, but on the day before I’m still focused on the trip and relaxing. And this particular day was no different. Matter of fact it had all sorts of adventure!

The day before while shooting the shit with Dennis and the gang at Santa Rosa BMW, they had told us about this great road called route 25. One fellow in the shop actually had pulled out a map and insisted that I let him show me where the road was because he swore that it was the best road to get to Paso Robbles from Nor Cal… And he was right.

Route 25 is akin to California Ranch styled living 50 years ago - lots of crazy lefts and right that you’re sure are there to keep the drunk ranchers awake after a hard night of drinking and because property lines must be all messed up. It’s a wonderful 70+ stretch of nothing but nothing and one amazingly great road!

More to come on this day later…It’s a long story…

Okay, so here’s the story… I for one always assume that I’m nailed everytime I see a cop. Natural habit from time spent growing up.

And on the usual roads Milt & I ride through the Mullhulland Canyons in LA, the cops don’t care who you are or what your story is, it’s just “license and registration please” and then “here’s your ticket”. And if I’m not the guy being pulled over, I’m watching it all happen to someone else. Some weekends are worse than others, but basically you’ve really got to get away from the usual motorcycle roads to find peace and quiet.

The only exception to this is when I get away from LA and head up the Coast towards SF on the PCH or one of the other wonderful roads up there. On day 5 of the trip, Milt and I were riding back from Santa Cruz and decided to make up some time after hitting route 25 on the western side of the central valley (great road btw, wish it was closer).

So we hoped on the 101 freeway for about 20 miles. Up where we were it’s two lanes in each direction with a weedy median about two lanes wide. The day we were coming back It was fairly windy and we were riding our BMW R1100S’, so both of us got in as serious a tuck as you can do on those bikes to get out of the elements.

Minutes later I see a cop fly by us in the opposite side of the freeway. Again, as I always do, I assume we’re nailed, so I start pulling over into the slow lane and dialing it back on the speedo to match the legal limit. Milt doesn’t pay any attention, he keeps let it out. By the time he looks up and back into his rearview mirrors he sees me pulling over on the shoulder. Still has no idea why. Finally once he stops and puts his kickstand down he see’s a california motorcyclists favorite friend, the highway patrol standing next to me.

While we’re watching Milt walk toward us, the cop asks me if I’m with him , I nod and start telling him we’re on our way home from a vacation. Cop listens to my whole story at which point he looks at me like I’m from outer space and asks me to remove my helmet. Yeah, that one had sliped my mind. I tell the story again, cop listens and asks for our licenses. Asks to see proof of our “motorcycle endorsement”. I pull mine out license and I guess by instinct hand over my registration. Only it’s out of date. Cop shakes his head, I assume the worst. He then says, “Come on, I know you’ve got the right one in there, just find it”… Cop then asks if we’re part of some motorcycle club - we both have matching leathers, it’s a father and son thing, so Milt pops off and says, “yeah, a club of two”. I shake my head, think to myself what the hell are you saying? Only the cop finds this amussing, hands back the licenses and says, “I know you were both well in excess of 80, but I don’t know for sure how much, so take it easy and have a safe trip home, we don’t want to see anyone get hurt” and then he lets us go.

Breathing a bit easier, we get back on the bikes and pull off at the next rest stop area - where after we arrive two different people who were driving cars come up to us and tell us that the same cop had given them tickets only a few miles before and they ask how much ours were for…

Moral of the story as I see it; make cop laugh, always remember to take off your helmet before looking like a jackass, anyone in a tucked position on a beemer is asking for trouble, and finally, mirrors are only valuable if you use them!

Day 6: Pismo Beach to Home

The last official day of the trip we headed home. Buzzing past bikes, cars and farmland for about 100 miles until we reached the top of the LA portion of the pacific coast highway. I toyed with the idea of popping into my usual canyons as a way to extend the clock, but decided after 1,200 miles I was ready to take a break. So this concluded the longest motorcycle trip I’ve ever taken, but perhaps the best one yet. It was just a glorious week alone with my thoughts during the day while on the bike and a wonderful father and son weeklong adventure off of the bikes! If I could only figure out how to get paid to ride a motorcycle all day long up and down the California coastline, I’d be a very happy camper. If there is a more diverse collection of scenic landscapes, I don’t know what they are. In one elongated state there are oceanfront vistas and John Ford farmland ranch westerns. Mountains and valleys, both of which span extreme heights and sea level lows. So much diversity it’s scary. After you seen such a wide canvass even the most novice rider has to be left wondering how much better it can get elsewhere in the world. I’ve been to the Alps and quite frankly I don’t think it compares. This is truly god’s country - the most majestic real world track I can imagine and it’s just a blast to ride, no matter which roads you take or which direction you’re heading… What a trip!