Last night I was working on the blog, doing a bit of backend work with the php files, when it suddenly dawned on me that I’ve been blogging quite awhile now. Being more or less the absent minded type when it comes to calendars and important dates, it never registered to me that I’ve been doing this for over a year now. I never thought that it would last this long, get this far or continue to going on. When I started blogging I more or less thought it was something I should try because of my inclination toward technological stuff and because frankly I was curious how html, php and webpages worked. I never imagined that I would so diligently stick with it. At several other times in my life I’ve tried to keep journals before but those were never wildly successful. Inevitably those adventures would cease for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I’d get bored or simply forget to write stuff down. TwistingAsphalt has been the exception it seems, according to the WordPress blogging software this post will actually be the 450th entry since the blog’s inception.
Now there are no longer 450 posts, so don’t bother counting them. Over the course of the past year I’ve deleated several for various reasons, but mostly because over the course of the past twelve or thirteen months I’ve gradually found more and more focus. Originally I had a whole bunch of various categories and divergent topics, but ultimately as time has gone on I’ve only really written about one thing and one thing only.
Motorcycles.
Or more specifically my bikes, my rides and the parts of the motorcycle industry that interest me on either a personal level or because of their gee-whiz nature. In retospect perhaps this focus or dedication to writing about riding should have been obvious. While there are a few entries I post-dated for the sake of hierarchal organization, the blog started right after MotorMilt & I came back from our six day Lost Coast Expedition of 2004. It was a six day 1,200 mile adventure which when paired with a new digital photo camera made for perfect blogging material. I guess in hindsight I should have seen this mixture as the precursor for the eventual niche nature of this blog, but it took awhile for me to realize that when all is said and done no matter what other interests I’ve got in ‘real life’, only one makes it on to the ‘net…
Motorcycles.
As this its-been-a-year concept fully crystalized, my mind started churning along with visions of riding. The ‘I’ve got to go a ride right now’ itch started almost immediately. It’s the kind of mental exercise that pushes everything else to the backburner except wondering which direction you’ll head off towards. Only other motorcycle riders can probably fully appreciate the power of this feeling and the level of exclusion that has the power to kick any and all other responsibilities to the curb while you find yourself daydreaming about lonely highways and secluded routes with gorgeous vistas.
While thinking about riding I started flipping through the various photographs I’ve taken over the past year that have documented just about every single ride I’ve taken. (What would I do without a digital camera? 
) These photos run the course from local roads all the way to distant locations for adventures up the pacific coast highway. The more I looked them over the more I realized that if I was going to celebrate having blogged for a year now I need to head somewhere new. Somewhere fresh. Somewhere different. Somewhere that wasn’t North! And that’s when I decided that there was only one place to go, The Angeles Crest.
For the past year I’ve thought about and even mentioned my desire to make it across the LA basin and tackle the Crest, but for a variety of very real reasons I’ve always neglected it in favor of The Santa Monica Mountains. It’s hard to usually justify riding an hour or more just to get to the start of the ride when you’ve got the Malibu Canyons right next door. But one year anniversaries don’t come along that often so it only seemed right to give it a shot and see what riding the other side of LA was like.
Dylan’s Mid-Week Sick Day Ride to the Crest
Approx: 260 miles and about 6.5 hours
(You can click on the Map for a larger view of today’s route)
As it turns out staying on an east coast timezone is really beneficial for LA traffic. I was able to hit the road once again far earlier than I normally do, getting out the door around 7:30 AM. Getting out of Santa Monica was a snap, but the 10 West was a bitch. By 8 AM I was stuck in stop and go, bumper-to-bumper traffic with the Duc heated up to a smacking 230º. Ladies and gentlemen I believe I finally understand the concept of perfs in your leathers. My rear end was roasting while we crawled along. I suppose I could have lane split a bit more, but to be perfectly honest after witnessing some early morning lane changing chaos the idea lost much of it’s appeal. When I hit the 10-110 interchange life got a bit better. The 110 as always was movin pretty good. Why people in LA slow down to get on a fast moving freeway boggles my mind. In anycase the 110 to I-5 North to CA-2 was a snap and by the time I Glendale the bike was cooling down and my rear end was feeling a heck of a lot better.
I popped off at Verdugo Blvd - the same exit I take for ProItalia - gassed up and got some coffee. Inside I was tingling with antisipation for a new ride. Even though it was still fairly early in the morning it was already getting pretty hot out. The bike claimed that the air temperature was about 80º.
A view from the top of the world on the Angeles Crest
It only took a short five minute hop down Verdugo Blvd before I reconnected with Route 2 at the base of The Angeles Crest and the foot of the Angeles National Forest. As it turns out the park is a heck of lot older than you’d think. It was established by Executive Order in December 1892 and was the first national forest in California. Covering over 650,000 acres it also one of the largest national parks close to a major metropolitan city. For a more detailed history of the area check out this piece from the Palmdale Public Library.
Oddly enough 1892 was a rather amazing year for the LA Basin because not only was the Angeles National Park founded, but Edward Doheny mades the first oil discovery within the City of Los Angeles, The Banning brothers begin developing a small town named Avalon on Santa Catalina Island with the intention of turnin it into a summer resort, and a man named Abbot Kinney bought a bunch of swampy coastal land upon which he planned to build a “Temple of Culture.” The location is now called Venice, California.
The history of State Route (SR) 2 or The Angeles Crest as it is commonly called is equally as interesting as it turns out… The highway was originally envisioned in 1912 as “the most scenic and picturesque mountain road in the state”, but the need for a road for fire-fighting was at least equally important. Funds were allocated beginning in 1919, construction began in 1929, continuing piece by piece until 1956, except from 1941 to 1946 during WWII.
About midway through the Crest
I didn’t know any of the history behind the area or the road while I was riding - being there made me curious - but in retrospect the age of the road seems fitting considering how poorly it’s condition is kept. The road peaks at over 6,000 feet and there are two ski resorts near the top, so obvious the road gets a fair amount of snow in the winter. Yet I was amazed at how bumpy the asphalt felt. Granted the 999 has a rather stiff suspension, but it didn’t take long while winding my way up the mountain to wish I had a soft beemer suspension underneath.
To be completely honest the lack of quality in the pavement kind of shocked me since I’ve constantly read about “The Crest” in riding magazine, online publications and sportbike forums. It’s a seriously popular destination for riders - perhaps even more so then The Santa Monica Mountains since it connects two highly popoulated areas, the LA Basin on the western side and the Antelope Valley on the eastern edge.
Santa Cruz meets SoCal
The Crest also gets quite a bit of notoriety because it’s considered perhaps one of the most dangerous roads in all of California. From 1995 to 1998 23 motorcycle fatalities were recorded and in June 1999 the California Highway Patrol got a $100,000 grant to police a 38 mile stretch of the roadway. According to Pashnit.com’s description of the Crest by May 2000, 1400 tickets had been written which is a ten-fold increase. While fatalities down, it’d be nice to see some of that income from tickets go to resurfacing the road. Who knows how many accidents have been due to hitting pot-holes at the apex of a corner. 
Around 4500 Ft Above Sea Level
Even though the road surface was rather lacking, the views and vistas were absolutely stunning. Few places in the world feel so out of this world. I felt like I was back in the middle of the Alps. None of the other moutain ranges I’ve ridden in California compare to the width and depth of Angeles National Forest. It’s simply grand in the greatest adventure sensability. The scale of the area just overwhelms you and the natural beauty seduces you to the point that trying to envision being a mere twenty or thirty miles away from the LA basin seems completely absurd.
My favorite shot of the day
By the time I hit the top of the range - at around 6,000 feet above sea level - I felt pretty convinced that I had just spent weeks riding to get there. There was basically no sign of life in any direction. The Crest is definately one of those areas that makes you think, both the good and the bad.
I was pretty sure that if I lost it and laided the bike down, no one would find me for weeks. I couldn’t stop feeling a bit unsafe riding without MotorMilt in tow. At least when he’s behind me I have the illusion of someone watching my back - not that I ever really want to put that into practice. Today that illusion was gone and it was just me and the lonely mountains. The up shot however was that riding alone up in the mountains was one of the most relaxing moments of the past year for precisely that same reason. It was just me and the road. Everytime I pulled over for a break, I couldn’t hear anything but a slow soft mountain breeze, birds chirping in the distance and the gentle sounds of life moving on at an incredibly leisurely pace.
About a mile before the road closure
Hoping back on the bike after a break, I kept riding east towards the Antelope Valley. Originally I had planned on taking the Crest all the way to Wrightwood and then shooting back towards Palmdale and the 14 Freeway. Turns out this plan didn’t work out so well because about thirty five miles across the Crest the road turned out to be closed. I had seen a few signs that said ‘closed road’ at various points on the way up, but hadn’t paid much attention to them figuring that it’s June and they were probably left over from the winter season. Turns out I was wrong.
Looking out at the Antelope Valley
So after discovering my ignorance to the local road conditions, I flipped the bike around and headed back towards Newcomb’s Ranch, one of the famed riding hangouts on the west coast. I guess you can’t really be considered a riding paradise without a greasy spoon for riders to hang out in front of…
Along the way up and then back down The Crest I had seen a few folks riding or driving in the other direction - most of these vehicles were park service rangers or service oriented trucks. One of the interesting parts of riding a road both ways is that you get a handle of how other people take to the road. Unlike the coastal canyon roads I regularly ride, on The Crest it didn’t take long to notice that people really hug the yellow line. When I say hug what I really mean is cross. In several corners cars or trucks entered my lane. Normally I’m quite guilty of hugging the yellow line on say Mullhulland or Latigo but it’s rare that people heading the other way are riding or driving ’sporty’. On The Crest everyone does. This is truly a California Raceway. That’s the bottomline. So pretty quickly I started taking the Reg Pridmore approach and hugging the inside of the corners. Even though that left me with less room for an ‘out’ on the inside, it gave me plenty of room to deal with the truck drivers acting like they were Michael Schumacher.
Newcomb’s Ranch on The Crest
Not so surprisingly for a mid week stop, the ranch turned out to be basically empty. Although I have to say that inside they’re remodeling and from what I could tell it’s a fairly decent joint. Much cleaner and newer than The Rockstore. Not quite sure it has the same charm, but I suspect to truly find that out you have to be there during regular riding periods.
Just a bit South of Newcomb’s, I took a right and got on to Upper Big Tujunga Road. Talk about a completely different experience. In mere seconds the grand vistas that just go on and on endlessly towards the horizon line had completely vanished and disappeared. Suddenly I was riding from sweeper to sweeper through an almost California farmland like area. If you look at the map above you’ll notice that Tujunga runs between The Angeles Crest (SR-2) and The Angeles Forest Highway, so instead of winding up the mountain range the road cuts across in a more Northwest to Southeast orientation. While The Crest felt like a visit to The Alps, riding on Tujunga was more reminiscent of the costal mountain ranges just without the water.
Upper Big Tujunga Road
Perhaps the best part about Upper Big Tujunga was that the pavement quality dramatically got better. Instead of battling a constant barrage of filled-in asphalt cracks and relatively wide potholes like on The Crest, Tujunga was felt slick, clean and relatively freshly paved. On a bike like the 999 this raised the enjoyment level ten-fold right off the bat. I felt like the bike was planted to a whole different level because I wasn’t hitting the corners and getting bounced off the pegs.
Angeles Forest Highway
Upper Big Tujunga isn’t a very long stretch of road and eventually ends at the intersection of Big Tujunga Road and The Angeles Forest Highway (not to be confused with SR-2 The Angeles Crest Highway that I took up from Glendale).
The Angeles Forest Highway is more or less the original Angeles Crest, but it’s significantly older and shorter. At roughly 25 miles long, it’s just about half as long as SR-2 which is roughly 56 miles in length. But just like it’s newer and longer sibling, it was built in order to connect the Antelope Valley to the LA Basin. Approved in 1928 by The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the Angeles Forest Highway was not completed until 1941.
I started to head down the Forest Highway until I checked my gas level and got a bit nervous about where the closest gas station would be on the Northeastern end of the road (near Pearland fwiw). So instead I took Big Tujunga back down towards Glendale. That turned out to be just a glorious stretch of road. You can tell that I was really enjoying it because I didn’t manage to shoot any pictures! To much open road I guess .
Coming back down the mountain it was approaching elevan or so and quite frankly I just didn’t feel like heading back home. What kind of mini-vacation in LA would a relatively short morning ride be? After a quick fill up I whipped out a mini-sized map and started thinking about my options. At first I considered shooting back up into The Angeles National Forest and trying out some of the other roads, but then it occured to me that if I did that I’d stand the chance of wrapping up the day of riding just as the beginning of cross town rush hour would be getting started. If you’ve ever tried to get from one side of LA to the other during rush hour in a car you will be able to appreciate just how little appeal the idea of dealing with that mess had for me on a bike that can get up to 230º right beneath your seat.
Twisting Asphalt @ it’s finest
Peering over the map it then occured to me that if you take the 210 out of Glendale it drops you off pretty close to the beginning of the 118. Since it was the middle of the day there was basically no traffic so in a matter of minutes I was suddenly heading west down the backside of the Simi Valley on the Ronald Reagan Freeway. If there’s a nicer, newer feeling freeway in California I haven’t found it yet. Just very easy to ride.
I ended up taking the 118 all the way around the valley until it hit Route-23. At this point I half considered heading back down to Thousand Oaks and hitting up some of my normal riding roads, but that didn’t hold the magical feeling that heading over to Ojai did. So once again I shot North up Route-23 towards the gateway to the Ojai Valley.
Welcome To Ojai
In just about an hour I had now traveled from a highly wooded mountainous region that’s 6,000 foot above sea level all the way to the doorstep of California’s Central Valley farmlands. Somewhere between five to ten miles up Route-23 orange grooves line the road and you just feel emersed in a sepiatone-colored version of old school California where you can just imagine John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart would feel comfortable sitting on the porch shooting the shit.
The Ojai Valley Vista
Of all the places I’ve ridden in California - and I know there are those of you out there that have logged thousands more miles than I have - I think it says something that I continue to find myself drawn to The Ojai Valley. I can’t explain it nor do I believe I do the area justice, but for some reason it just feels utterly complete as an area. It’s warm, it’s fairly close to the coast, Route-33 is it as far as I’m concerned when it comes to flat out amazing riding, the town is quaint and charming, the people are perhaps some of the most friendly in the LA area and life just moves at a very comfortble pace. It is without a doubt one of those places in the world where the locals have every right to fear that one day the beauty and charm of the area will be run over by flocks of newly minted home owners needing to expand because of urban sprawl. If I had the money to live there I would. And I’d put up a big frigg’n wall to keep everyone else out. It’s that kind of place.
And now for the beach
After a short break in the city of Ojai, I got back on the Duc and headed out of town. Instead of taking Route-33 all the way around town, I took the newly discovered MotorMilt short cut of Creek Road. It’s a relatively short juant of a road that run oddly enough along a creek that backs the westerned edge of the town. It literally starts and ends at different points of Route-33, but it’s charm is two-fold. First it cuts all the downtown traffic out and secondly, it’s just a hoot to ride. A very nice collection of sweepers, tight corners and shaded straight away through horse farms and country clubs. I wish it was longer and had less traffic. Just one of those type of rides.
Beauty by the beach
Heading South on Route-33 towards the coast was when my wrists and rear end started to feel the first hints of soreness. At this point I was well over the two hundred mile mark. If I rode a beemer my day would just be getting started - although I doubt I’d be riding as spirited - instead on the Ducati the day needed to start wrapping up. It’s just hard to ride a 999 the way it wants to be ridden and get close to three hundred miles. Anyway who says differently either ain’t leaning over very much or out of their mind.
California Route-1 Near Pt. Magu
Feeling the effects of a long day of glorious riding starting to catch up with me, I headed got off the 101 and took Rice Road west towards where it eventually connects to The Pacific Coast Highway just above Point Magu Navel Air Base. The proceeding curves at Pt. Magu were just sweet. With no real traffic to speak of (a reoccurring theme huh?) the coast was just a blast. Seventy-Five in the corners and wide open everywhere else.
Hit the coast also significally cool me and the bike down. The air temp dropped from 85º in the Simi Valley to around 75º according to the air temp gauge on the bike. Until this bike ten degrees didn’t seem like, now it does. The bike dropped to a mere 167º and I was almost cold at this point. How crazy of a day is that? From 230º on the 10 at 7:30 AM to 167º at 2 PM along the coast.
Does it get any better?
In the matter of just a couple of hours I’d now ridden from the Mountains to the Farms and now the Beach. Where else in America can you reach and see so much diversity in such a short period of time? And had The Angeles Crest been open all the way I would have also hit the edge of the high desert. That’s four types of climates, regions and viewing pleasures all wrapped up in one day.
How these diverse areas can be so close in proximity to each other and yet so different simply boggles my mind. It just doesn’t seem possible to be so high and far away from civilization and then in such a relatively short period of time make your way to an area that feels so classic in its roots and then wrap up the day looking at the Pacific Ocean. Does it really get any better than that?
For a mid-week mini-vacation I sure don’t think so.
I have to say that this is the most relaxed I’ve felt in ages. Over 260 miles of sportbike riding in one day sure shakes everything loose. Physically I feel pretty beat up, but emotional I wouldn’t trade this feeling in for anything else in the world. As a bonus the Duc now sits at just over 1250 miles as of tonight. That’s just three very average length Malibu rides until it’s fully broken in which strikes me as one heck of a fast break-in. Given my sense of time that’s probably not as true as I think it is and I’m sure I could look it up on the blog, but right now I just find myself enjoying the day of riding to much to care or put in the effort. The fact that the fully 140 horses are almost at my disposal seems unfathomable given everything that’s happened this year with the bikes in my life.
Of course this whole mini-adventure started because it’s a belated one year celebration of the blog on my part - not the strongest excuse to blow off work and go for a very long ride, but I’m sticking with it because it sounds good and well, who doesn’t want to go for a ride in the middle of the week on an absolutely beautiful day?
Over the course of this past year I’ve probably ridden more than at any other time in my life. The blog year started with a 1,200 mile trip on the BMW R1100S. I probably put another 500 miles on that bike before it went away. Maybe more. Then came the 749 which had just about 1,000 miles when it got nabbed. The first 999 had somewhere around 1,800 miles on it before the whole warrenty deal. Now the new 999 has just over 1,250. So in rough math that’s like almost 6,000 miles in about 13 months. Previously I believe I was averaging around 3,500 to 4 thousand miles a year. So I guess there you go, apparently it’s good to blog about motorcycles because it makes you ride more.
I can only hope the coming year will be as grand of a two wheeled adventure…
For more photos from the day - and there a lot! - check out The Angeles Crest Photo Gallery in the Photo section.
Popularity: 8% [?]
RSS Feed
Dylan,
Congrats on your first year+ of blogging. I’ve enjoyed a lot “riding along” on your adventures with Motor Milt and the Duc’s.
Doug
Point MUgu, not point MAgu…