Sunday’s Sport-Touring Sportbike Ride - Part 1

Sunday morning I woke up around 5:15 AM and I had never even set the alarm clock the night before. Even though it was still dark outside I just knew from the moment I got up that I felt immediately ready to hit the road. It was just one of those morning when you have no need for luxories like coffee or breakfast, you just want to get going. I’m sure this instant desire to get out and ride was in no small part due to a conversation that MotorMilt and I had the previous evening over dinner. Somehow we had both gotten it stuck in our minds that we not only wanted to ride the next morning, but we needed to ride. We needed some stress-free hours on the bike. Not just some fantastic loop through the canyons mind you, but something larger. Something with a little bit more adventure. Maybe even something with a little bit of that unknown wonder that only a road you’ve never traveled can provide.

So Saturday evening I spent a couple hours look at maps and surfing the web. I spent a good hour checking out the often referenced but never equaled Pashnit.com in the hopes of finding a new exciting place to visit. At some point Pashnit bounced me over to SBC-Rides, which it turns out changed my Sunday considerably by opening my eyes to a whole new assortment of roads and route through the Santa Barbara area… So to be honest I wasn’t shocked when I woke Sunday morning in a rush to ride. I already knew it was going to be a grand adventure sort of day… The only person who didn’t was Milt.

Less than an hour after waking up, both MotorMilt and I hit the beginning of the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. So at roughly 6:30 AM we were already a good fifteen to twenty miles up the coast. By then it was obvious that this was going to be a special day. There was no traffic at that hour. No signs of life actually. It was just blissful being alone on the road that early on a Sunday morning.

Around 7:00 AM we made our first stop of the day at the Starbucks in Malibu, just north of Zuma Beach. At that hour on a Sunday it’s a rather odd crowd that gathers there. Generally speaking a large portion of patrons look either completely hung over from the night before, still extremely wired or so out of it that they’re completely lost. In the first of a series of odd conversations during the course of the day, another rider who was on an Aprilla came up to us while we were sitting outside drinking our first cups of coffee and asked us if it would be alright for him to go look at our bikes in the parking lot. Not to be to sarcastic but when did you have to ask someone if you could do that?

A few minutes later we got back on the bikes and continued to head up the coast, taking the PCH all the way up past Point Magu Naval Base and through the two towering rock formations. At that point none of the early morning fog had burned off yet so even though the incredibly efficient Italian seat heaters had kicked in both MotorMilt & I were freezing our asses off. It’s amazing to me that after all this time riding up and down the coast neither one of us has seemed to grasped that we both much prefer riding when we’re too hot then when we’re too cold. And of course once again we had both forgotten either the top or bottom set of thermals. Go figure.

So when we hit the city of Ventura about half hour later we didn’t want to stop, we had to stop. Just to defrost. It was right around then that Milt first gazed over at me as I was toying around with a small photocopied section of a pocket map and asked where we were headed. In retrospect I suppose I could have been more forthcoming, but instead I just sort offered some off-handed nameless road above Ojai. I don’t know if MotorMilt was completely awake at that point or not, but this rather vague answer seemed good enough for him. So while I wasn’t really trying to lie, I also wasn’t sure that I wanted him to know just how far up the coast I was planning on taking us…

See. the previous evening while looking up roads on the internet I came to the unfortunate conclusion that after riding The Santa Monica Mountains almost exclusively for the past several years there just aren’t any local roads that we’ve have never ridden. All the close ones have been done repeatedly, weekend after weekend. Part of me smiled when I realized that, yet on the other hand there’s something magical about trying out a new road for the first time before you know whether or not you enjoy it. Perhaps it’s the most quintessential of motorcycle experiences when you’re coming up to a fresh corner and know nothing about where it leads. There’s some kind of freedom in that kind of moment when you don’t know where the road is going but you’ve already made the choice to head down it anyway… So with that in mind, this was the magical route for the days adventure…

The 12 Hour Sport-Touring Ride On A Sportbike Route
Approx: 340 miles and about 12 hours

Took the Pacific Coast Highway North to The 101 North at Oxnard

From the 101 North shot up to the lower portion of Route 33 towards Ojai

Popped up Route 150 and went around Lake Casitas

From 150 took the Caltrans Detour to Route 192 North

Took 192 from Carpinteria all the way around the backside of Santa Barbara, until we hit Route 154

Took Route 154 North towards Santa Maria

Just outside of Los Olivos, took a right on to Foxen Canyon Road

Took Foxen Canyon for roughly 25 miles before eventually taking a Left on Palmer Road

Palmer eventually intersects the 101, Took that North to Santa Maria

Turned around after gassing up in Santa Maria and took the 101 South

Just outside of Los Olivos we picked up Route 154 South bound

Took 154 all the way back to Santa Barbara

Got on the 101 South and then the Pacific Coast Highway (Route 1) South back to The Westside of LA

After we leaving the city of Ventura, we shot up the 101 for a few miles before I motioned for MotorMilt to follow me off the freeway and on to the beginning of Route 33. Part of me had thought about simply taking Route 33 all the way above Ojai and into the foothills of the Central Valley, but seeing as how MotorMilt and I have done that on a number of occasions and I was jonesing for something new, I shook that thought off and simply used 33 to get us to Route 150.

As I’ve come to learn over the course of my riding adulthood roads that wrap themselves around bodies of water are almost always a blast and Route 150 doesn’t disappoint. Hugging the outskirts of Lake Casitas, 150 starts out relatively softly running you through what feels like the California countryside, but suddenly shoots straight up what feels like the one lone mountain that separates the Ojai Valley from Carpenteria. While not the tightest collection of turns, it’s one of those roads that has a tremendous amount of visibility through almost every corner which enables you to really set yourself up nicely at each entrance.

It was somewhere towards the middle of 150 that it occurred to me that the reason that I so greatly enjoy the Ojai Valley is because it truly reminds me of the East Bay of Northern California. For some reason the topography just strikes such a similar chord with me that every time I’m up that way I feel almost teleported back to my youth. Odd how such completely different areas can feel so connected.

Usually we’d take 150 straight into Carpenteria, but every since the winter rainy season the final few miles of 150 have been shut-down. What had been a nifty side road that connects 150 to Route 192 is now the only way to get back to the coast and into the Santa Barbara region. If you look at the map above you’ll notice that starting in Carpenteria the 1 and the 101 merge together and it stays that way until you’re fairly high above the city of Santa Barbara. Technically the city of Santa Barbara has roughly 90,000 residents, however because it’s Santa Barbara there’s a pretty decent sized workforce and the combined 1/101 is basically the only way in or out going either north or south. Having taken the combined 1/101 several times on a bike and in a car I had no real desire to spend my Sunday morning dealing with it’s high level of traffic, so instead MotorMilt and I continued on up Route 192. It was the first road of the day that neither one of us had ever been on and it turned out to be absolutely amazing…

Starting in Carpenteria, Route 192 works its way up and around the backside of Montecito and Santa Barbara for roughly thirty miles. It’s a sneaky set of roadway that snakes itself past amazing vistas, seriously impressive mega-mansions and small chunks of what feels like the ‘real Santa Barbara’ - not the tourist traps. Since it was early the traffic was still relatively light and that let us swing around corners probably a bit faster than you could once there was more residential traffic on the road. Had it been later and we had to dial it back it would have been an absolute shame. The road just carries you from start to finish with a gigantic smile on your face. How can it not? There are just so many wonderful corners that swing you up and down and side to side and then just as you think the road is drying up, it starts all over again and this swinging sensation repeats itself in such a timeless manor that once you reach the end of the road you feel almost cheated because it stopped to soon.

Somewhere towards the end of Route 192 was when I first realized that I just about to full break in my 999. 1,500 miles had come and gone in lightning quick fashion it seemed and as we started to make the switch from Route 192 to Route 154 - commonly referred to as the San Marcos Pass - it began to dawn on me that I could finally open the bike all the way up.

Rolling on the throttle for the first time my immediate reaction was WOW, this thing is truly a one-of-a-kind rocketship… With the throttle kicked open, the bike just fires forward, right around 7.5k the audible magic of a Ducati becomes entirely apparently to everyone around no matter how much insulation their cars or trucks have. The whole experience just dramatically changes. It’s almost like going from just a passenger on top of the bike to a visceral participant with the bike… Now, maybe it’s just that I’ve been away from a fully broken in bike for awhile now or maybe it was just the kind of day I was having, but the minute I slowly started opening the bike up it just took off. Like never before. More rocketship than I have ever known. Trying not to either kill myself or get a record breaking ticket this early in the morning, I quickly dialed it back before my next most instance reaction hit. ‘Wow, finally, time for another trackday’…. It took me a few minutes to come to grips with the fact that here I was loosing myself during an amazingly pleasurable sport-touring kind of day and yet I was already fantasizing about being somewhere else and getting out on a track again. Amazing how that can happen once you’re jazzed about something…

The San Marcos Pass as it turns out happens to be a pretty decent road to let the bike run itself out on… It’s another roughly thirty mile stretch, which connects the Northern edge of Santa Barbara with a town called Los Olivos yet its claim to fame is that it runs right over the top of the Santa Ynez Mountains. As roads go this one has a pretty interesting history. The route was first used by the Indians and later named for a monk named Fr. Marcos Amestoy who supervised the building of a mission dam, waterworks and filter house between 1804 and 1813. The road stayed in Spanish hands until a Col. John Fremont (as in Fremont, California) marched his troops over the pass in 1846. From that point forward the route became a legendary stagecoach location - including being used by the Wells Fargo Stagecoach Express. Originally the route took 8 hours to tranverse, but in the 1960’s a more mainstream freeway straightened out a great number of the curves and now the trip can take a mere half-hour. If you’re interested Santa Barbara Lifestyles has a more complete history available on their website.

MotorMilt and I had ridden the San Marcos Pass a couple of times before - all of which I believe were on Beemers. This trip was absolutely nothing like those previous adventures. First and foremost because we were just approaching somewhere around 11 AM and the local police enforcement hadn’t come out to spoil the near freeway like speeds that were going on. Secondly the sun was finally starting to break and suddenly I went from feeling pretty cold to almost instantly feeling flush with warmth and loose. Sliding in the saddle just magically felt easier and smoother. Finally because as we hit the summit of the pass, we were pretty close to the Cold Spring Tavern. The Tavern is one of those great almost hidden treasures of a resting stop. Founded in the 1860’s, the place has a rather checkered past - reportedly housing gamblers and unsavory types for quite sometime before turning into a rather upscale restaurant later in life. Nowadays it gives both The Rockstore and Newcomb’s Ranch a run for their money for top billing as best biker bar hangout for Southern California. I strongly encourage anyone who heads through the Santa Barbara region to find the time to stop and check the joint out. It’s really worth the stop.

After we had a quick bite at the Tavern, MotorMilt and I continued to head up North. At this point I think Milt was starting to get a bit suspicious about where we were headed exactly, but he went along with it anyway. That turned out to be a great thing because when we got off the bikes in Los Olivos and I had a chance to check my notes from the previous nights’ internet adventures, I made sure that we wouldn’t miss what in many ways was the road I had wanted to find from the outset of the morning, Foxen Canyon Road…. Part II Tomorrow…

update: To Read Part II, click here.