Awkward Dance Partners - The Ducati ST3 & MV Agusta F4 up The California Coast
California Route 33 above Ojai
At first there’s one. A second later comes another… And then all hell breaks loose, as a cascade of perspiration rolls forward with vengeance. It’s the first real tangible clue that you’re getting close; close to the middle of nowhere and close to California’s Central Valley in the middle of summer.
Coming out of yet another series of contiguous sweeping corners, you feel the slight ache in your wrist - because it’s already been a long day - but instead of falling victim to your inner demons you press on. Ignore the pain. There’s just too much bounty to be had here. The sirens of an empty road are far to captivating as they call out.
So you roll the throttle back. A minuet movement in a landscape of grandeur. Once again feel the bike pick itself up and hustle forward as it shoots up the short straightaway that connects this twist with that twist and a moment later you remember to exhale before getting right back on the brakes, settling the suspension back down and diving into yet another arched asphalt form of serenity.
It’s a fast paced dance done with a mountain top. You throttle up, you throttle down. You duck, you dive, you pick it back up. You brake. Perhaps you even continue breathing.
And as the pace quickens so to does the transformation. Not of riding but rather life.
What had been a scenic route splitting bundled patches of pine tree derivatives quickly evolves. In minutes, or maybe just heartbeats, you rip through another banked corner and crest a 5,160-foot summit of dreams.
On the other side lies a stark and desolate arena. The average visitor might think it far to remote and well past dull to bother with, yet for an actively engaged motorist it is an untroubled paradise full of unique forms of individual adventure and challenge.
Welcome to the Southern edge of California’s Central Valley.
The landscape is harsh and dry, built on brush and cattle, tumbleweeds and water prudent oak trees. A place far removed from the concrete jungle and yet fairly dependant on it for survival. To live or work here is to languish in an alternate version of society, more Steinbeck then Grisham, where the quality of the water pump in your pick-up truck is far more important then the latest magazine cover girl.
It is also a place that time has forgotten and yet still hit hard nonetheless. Where every hundred miles empty retail spaces battle big-box stores for supremacy and conflict runs deep, which somehow encapsulates both the best and the worst of the Golden State all in one place. Everywhere you look the hopes, the dreams, the challenges, the exploration, and even dire hopelessness are blatantly apparent trends.
Yet life still goes on. Moves forward. Boiling upwards, inch by inch, in a thousand degree melting pot of that exists on the fringe of civilization.
A day later I swing the other extreme, subtly freezing as I watch seagulls dance just a short fragment off the coastline and the last drip of coffee tries its best to push past the lingering memories of a long last night. A quick wick the throttle and a different beast fires forward as a bucket of aspirin takes hold. The engine’s suggestive notes find instant traction. On the road and in my mind. Each millimeter of piston movement brings out a louder, deeper, more hideous wailing. A sound so strong it forcibly removes the thumping headache and matter of factly tosses it down on the road. For all to see and hear and trample. It’s the kind of evocative auditory experience that only comes from a bullish inline four cylinder that’s cracking its raw fists on the skull of an open road… And absolutely laughing about it afterwards.
Just like that I’m awake — But better yet, I’m alive.
Thanks in large part to the combination and contradiction of two completely distinctive types of riding – One which elicits sheer passion while the other remotely suggests it. Together they bend the rules of life and their associated meanings; forcing the yellow lines that divide us to vanish as the cool damp early morning fog evaporates in a mere moment.
This is a radical departure from my usual trips up the California Coastline — because I’ve never cruised up the coast on a true thoroughbred before…
Logically I’ve always held the belief that inside every machine is the perfect tool for a particular job and it’s foolish to ask a sportbike to do a touring task. Conceptually the idea of taking a full-blown sportbike up the coast has always seemed rather suicidal at best. The reasons and rationales range from the physical toll they take on a rider all the way to the unforeseen mechanical hiccups that could, and often times do, occur with trackday weapons are used on public roads.
Yet the older I get the less inclined I am to allow logic to infiltrate an arena of passion. If for no other reason then everything else in the day-to-day of the real world is completely and one hundred perfectly logical. And somewhere deep inside I keeping trolling over one basic core thought – If not now, when?
A half hour later while shooting up CA-46, which is an inland oasis of an open road, the traffic is surprisingly light for an upcoming MotoGP weekend that will take place in Monterey. Brilliantly crisp vineyards fly by on both sides as we burn through California’s Central Coast wine country on two rather awkward dancing partners; the old man’s brand new MV Agusta F4 and my trusty Ducati ST3. Neither is the perfect 1,000-mile adventurer yet they might just be the most fun for a joint trip covering a collection of remarkably empty and remote curving roads.
Coming around the next kink in California’s landscape of tarmac armor, I flash backwards eleven days and think how ridiculous this all must seem. A little less then two weeks ago the old man and I hit the track where one might have thought that we would have gotten our fill of getting our rocks off on the fast paced sportbike ethos. Yet we didn’t. Instead a strange thing happened on the way home.
We decided to let go of logic and instead starting formulating a plan entirely designed by passion.
The F4 was just too enjoyable – and to be honest, probably too new - to leave in the garage… So we left Buttonwillow openly talking about ratcheting up the stakes on our coming California coastal adventure. Could it make it Monterey? Could we survive it if it did?
We had no idea.
But it was a gamble that seemed worth taking. So we did something that even now strikes me as somewhat flawed. We left a perfectly good and capable sport-tourer in the garage, the BMW K1200RS, and instead flew the coop with one full-blown sportbike and one seriously sporty sport-tourer.
Our plan; A multiday escapade over and through some of California’s finest routes, starting with Central Valley staples CA-33 and CA-58, followed by the more coastal CA-41, CA-46, and inland avenues of chance G14 and G17, and then finally the mother of all great California roads, CA-1, which is better known as the Pacific Coast Highway. And that was before we started all over and did it again in reverse.
It’s a journey that over the past few years I’ve had the pleasure to attempt several different times – The old man however hasn’t been as fortunate for a variety of reasons, most of which center around time or the lack thereof. But motorcycles are about more then just tracks and canyons; they’re also about escapism as well. So once we committed to attending the GP races at Laguna this year we decided it was time to take a different kind of journey together – a more mellow, free-flowing amble North, which traversed both dreamlike scenery as well as our collective past.
Entering Lockwood, we stop at the aptly named Lockwood Store for a BSB break (butt-smoke-bathroom) and snap a few pictures. It’s a slightly surreal experience. Because we’re in effect retracing our previous steps. Our first great California road trip adventure rolled right through here and it’s surprisingly odd to stand in exactly the same spot you did eight or nine years ago in a seemingly remote part of the world and realize that while nothing has changed here, everything else in life has.
And then there are the bikes…
Eight or nine years ago we rolled through here on two BMW R1100S sport-tourers. At the time they seemed like the epitome of the perfect riding companions. Looking at the ST3 and the F4 that seems like a long, long time ago.
“This is a very different trip,” MotorMilt says, while running his hand over the tank of the F4, “and we’ve come a long way since then”.
All I can do is acknowledge the sentiment with a smirk as he smiles and says, “These are just a hell of a lot more fun”…
Both bikes offer a more fluid system of travel then the Beemers did; yet when compared to each other they are radically different animals. The ST presents a unique blend of both speed and semi-comfort while pushing the sport side of the sport-touring equation to the forefront of the category’s inherent compromise between the two extremes.
The F4 on the other hand is completely uncompromising to say the least. It’s a full-blown racing bike that just happens to have mirrors and lights. Everything about it is harsh. Hard. And uncomfortable. The footpegs feel like they’re stacked against the exhaust, the seat is the antichrist of plush, and the only seating position that feels remotely comfortable is a completely tuck.
Yet what this bike lacks in creature comforts it more then makes up for in wicked acceleration, awesome exhaust notes and remarkable handling. The bike just feels completely planted. All the time. It’s a freakishly secure feeling that’s night and day different then any of the Ducati Superbikes I’ve ridden, including the 1098S. On the F4 it feels as if you’ve got a holy ghost lingering above and watching your every move as you attack each successive corner. The chassis feels so solid that seems damn near impossible to upset it unless you’ve done something completely idiotic.
Of course the irony of idiocy on this bike is that it’s only a throttle advance away.
Twist your right wrist and you thrust the machine forward so fast that even a GPS enable iPhone accelerometer has trouble keeping up. The bike just hauls. Flat out and with idiocy in tow.
Just in case the warp speed disappearance of the landscape surrounding you confuses your visual sensory perception, there’s also a series of auditory battlefield explosions as well. The four organ-like pipes in the back bellow out such a nasty, evil, downright scary wail that both big and little critters alike flee in fear.
Stacked next to the 1098S it’s a very different riding experience. Far less fluid and far more point and shoot. Where the ’10’ feels torquey, the F4 feels defiant. Making such a loud and demonic noise that it makes mothers across the country to cringe in terror. The 1098S lets you delicately dance into and out of apexes where as the F4 cracks heads like sledgehammer, never losing sight of the fact that it’s got somewhere else to be.
An hour later I am somewhere else, as I take a slow drag from the smoke and suck down my eighth vitamin enriched energy drink of the day. Glancing at the digital clock in the dash it’s hard to fathom that it’s not even noon yet — Already my sense of time and space has been lost, much like contemporary society’s awareness of the true roots of California.
Looking out at a collection of wide-open fields surrounded by rolling hills and mammoth mountains in the distance, the old man smirks, “It always amazes me how empty most of California is,” he says before matching my puff of smoke with his own, “I think we tend to forget about that sometimes”…
He’s right; the enduring legacy of California isn’t the marvelous technological advancements, the Disneyland theme parks or the beacon like draw of the Hollywood scene that continually draws thousands of young dreams each year, rather the permanent fixture of the State is what’s missing in a pristine undisturbed landscapes. There are no hands-free gizmos sprouting out of anyone’s ear nor the rushed sensibility to trade your gas guzzler in for a hybrid so you can sleep better at night, instead just an honest panorama that’s not all that far removed from our pre-technology existence.
California’s Central Valley isn’t just physically at the state’s core but emotionally as well. This is the land of classic California virtue. Where dreams drift in the soft summer breeze and potential is allowed to amble undisturbed until it’s ready to come to fruitarian. What exists here today is completely indicative of what used to exist everywhere and the more you peer over the landscape, the clearer it becomes that something tragically got lost in our society’s evolution from the past to the present.
I’m not completely sure what that exactly is but each time I step foot in this Valley there is a sense of peacefulness and comfort that you could spend a lifetime searching for in the big cities and never find. A sensibility of hard work and determination scratched on people’s faces that echo’s the founding of this great nation not the current sense of elite entitlement broadcast nightly on E!
Six days after setting out I’m flush with fear when entering LA County again. While I’m still physically on the bike, I’m no longer not actually riding it. Instead I’ve already made the mental leap towards re-entering the ‘real world’. Something I feel inherently loath to do right now, but I know I must. Because that’s the way it works when you grow up. When you have bills to pay and tasks to do.
As the traffic thickens, I feel my lower back start to tighten up. The muscles squeezing the nerves for all there net worth. It’s not a comfortable sensation by any means, but then the last leg of a thousand mile adventure almost always ends in some sort of ailment.
Yet today the physical toll that the trip has taken is the least of my worries.
Rather it’s the never-ending game of mental catch up that I’m frantically playing that’s drawing my attention as I try to deduce what I’ve now got to get done while still expressively coming to grips with where I’ve just been. What I’ve just seen. Who I might be.
It’s an inherently unstable moment to say the least and one that leaves me wondering why the ride home always feels both completely premature in its arrival and yet long over due at the same time?
But then I suppose all great rides ultimately are comprised of a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, you never want to see them end and yet on the other hand there’s definitely a physical and mental ceiling that you hit. Especially when one of the bikes you’ve chosen for the particular task is the completely wrong tool for the job from a logical standpoint.
Of course common sense only gets you so far in this world and in the space of the past eleven days, from the trackday at Buttonwillow to this trip up the coast, the old man and I have gone from one extreme of the motorcycle persona to the other, battling and conquering the vast differences between logic and insanity.
Without a doubt my non-riding friends would say that taking a bike, any bike, to a track is an insane endeavor. Yet my guess is that they would completely understand the appeal of a good ol’fashion road trip – even if it is on a bike.
Yet as the road buckles down and the traffic comes to a halt, it occurs to me that these two divergent extremes of the motorcycle experience are exactly the opposite. The time we spent at Buttonwillow was all about the application of logic. Perfecting the art form of proficient riding. Taking two Italian motorcycles on a thousand mile journey up and down the coast on the other hand isn’t just an adventure – It’s also just plain nuts.
And it’s also a personal fantasy come to life.
For all the times I’ve ridden up and down the coastline, I never done it the way I’ve really wanted to – on a full blown sportbike that has a wicked engine, killer brakes and instinctive handling. Instead I’ve always bent to convention or at least logic and taken a sport-tourer of one kind or another. To finally make this sort of fantastical mental image come to life is something that’s worth any and all residual back pain and leaves me thinking that perhaps the axiom of the right tool for the right job is incorrect at its core. Maybe, just maybe, sometimes we need to choose the wrong tool for the right job in order to make dreams come true.
Memorial Rejuvenation
The sword, the sea and reincarnation are three fairly basic components of Celtic Mythology that Arthurian legend later weaved together into the notion of rebirth or rejuvenation. Anyone who’s ever seen a modern day retelling of King Arthur or The Knights of the Round Table has undoubtedly witnessed the rather common scene where someone does something rather noble in their last stand before their dead or dying body descends into the depths of an icy cold body of water. It’s one of the primary conventions of classic medieval story telling. For the folks who wrote these tales water held the power to not only wash away ones sins but also bring their soul back to life in its purist form. I have no idea whether these centuries old tales are true, but the idea that a journey to the edge of a body of water can actually cleanse your soul has always fascinated me. Perhaps because on a personal level I tend to believe that riding at its core is a completely rejuvenating experience and on a practical level because the vast majority of my travels happen in a relatively confined space that traverses the California coastline.
I found myself mulling this rather heady conceptual notion over while coming back down the Pacific Coast Highway this afternoon after six hours of introspective rocketship riding throughout the Los Padres National Forrest. Somehow I couldn’t shake the thought that while water might have worked well for the folks who wrote these tales, Route 33 works better.
When I got up at 5:20 this morning I had no idea that today would hold the key to bringing my sense of purpose and desire to live life to the fullest back. Throughout this past week I had dabbled with the idea of heading up to Ojai and Route 33 at some point over this holiday weekend yet the fear of traffic, congestion and other riders’ moronic behavior kept holding me back.
The on Thursday I opened up the Los Angeles Times Calendar Section and found an article titled “Cycle of the Seasons” by Auto columnist Dan Neil a few pages in. It’s a rather odd sensation when you read someone else’s words in such a public publication and realize that this person is telling the masses about what you wish was only a secret held by a few. Reading Dan’s glowing review of a road I certainly know well was yet one more reminder that living requires action. To enjoy the ride you’ve got to experience it.
Dan summed ‘33’ up with this short graph;
This is the sort of Ultimate California road you see in Honda and Yamaha ads: stunning red-rock cornices and forested canyons, valleys of patchwork-green geometries, trees grown together like vaulted ceilings, and through it all an undulating seam of asphalt (and recently paved too) — high-speed straights, hold-your-breath hairpins, perfect sweepers and roller-coaster elevation changes.
Re-reading Dan’s words last night I couldn’t help but think that perhaps this was the weekend to make my semi-annual pilgrimage. You see Route 33 isn’t just a road or simply an adventure; it’s much more than that. It’s a calling. Seldom have I ever experienced anything that quite resembled the urge to conquer and tame such a beast.
Yet even though I knew that I wanted to ride it, logic kept creeping in. I couldn’t decide whether following Dan’s advice and riding 33 today was a fantastic idea or a downright horrible one. I have no doubt that his write up was giving the same idea to a thousand other motorists at the same time. While having my first sip of coffee I decided to just get on the bike and see how it was going. Decide from there.
Forty minutes later I found myself pulling into The Rockstore with the idea still percolating in that Southern slow cooking sort of way. It was only when I got off the bike and popped the kickstand that I realized that this was already an oddly different day.
I was the eighth bike to show up. Since they opened. I don’t know that I’ve ever been out riding so early. Or have arrived at the Rockstore when it was this empty.
The sun hadn’t even broken yet when I walked inside and ordered. As the hot oily coffee slipped down the back of my throat and the four older BMW riders’ idle conversation turned to hybrid engine technology, it seemed way to early to go back home and far to empty to let go of the dream.
As it turns out heading up to Ojai and Route 33 over the Memorial Day Weekend is becoming something of a habit for me. According to the blog last year I made the same trek using a slightly different route. Both trips however served the same purpose. To let go and enjoy. To exist somewhere special. To take in the beauty that too many other folks seem to ignore. But most importantly to refresh and to rejuvenate that small part of me that sits deep inside.
Leaving The Rockstore, I headed North on Mulholland for a bit before swing East on Kanan-Dune. Eventually I hit the 101 and took it North towards Thousand Oaks. I got off on 23 and headed east again. In short order I found my way to the CA-118/23 exit and got off. At this point the relatively simply set of numerical directions becomes much less certain and merely an exercise in mental memory. I could bore you with all the names, but in all honesty it’s not a Mapquest kind of trip. Rather it’s about emersion. At some point the ride takes over and you become more passenger than rider.
Once you’re off the freeway you find yourself beginning to feel lost in an oasis of change. Rolling through Moorpark and later Fillmore it’s hard to tell if you’re in suburbia, farm country or some urban planners mixed up Lego set. This is an area in transition and it’s easy to tell. Chunks of landscape are missing and have been replaced by MegaMall shopping areas. Other sections are classic California single story ranch styled homes. Most of the ride is amazingly beautiful in an oddly classic Californian way – yet it’s very different than the idyllic and easily definable stunning nature of the coast. This is more Central California than Coastal.
Once you hit Fillmore, it’s a quick left at the first stoplight you’ve seen in ages and moments later you find yourself shuttling down Route 126. It’s one of those roads that doesn’t know what it wants to be; is it a freeway or a scenic escape? Eventually you hit Santa Paula and get off at CA 150.
Riding through Santa Paula is something of a history lesson for early California. Like most of the coast the Chumash Native American Indian tribe founded the area approximately 10,000 years ago. They called their city Mupu. The Chumash had little reason to fret when the first Spanish explorers arrived in 1542 and became the first European settlers on the left coast. It took roughly 227 years for Gaspar de Portala, who was the former Spanish governor of Baja California, to explore the area. Yet in 1769, a mere twenty-six years after Portala’s arrival, Mupu got renamed Santa Paula by Spanish and Mexican settlers. The area was incorporated multiple times until eventually it ended up with the name Rancho Santa Paula y Saticoy.
A little over a hundred years later in 1862 the ranch fell into the hands of George Briggs, who promptly got the inspiration to spilt the area up and sell parcels to farmers. The cause and effect of this early attempt at subdivision eventually required Nathan Blanchard and E.L. Bradley to lay out the first urban plan for the area in 1873. One would think that by now this early attempt at planned development would hold little distinction yet it does for one very small and colorful reason. Blanchard planted oranges on the west side of town.
Today Santa Paula has been dubbed the “Citrus Capital of the World.” – though I suspect folks in Florida would find that hard to imagine – yet in 1887 when The Southern Pacific Railroad first arrived Blanchard capitalized on his land by shipping oranges through the west and thus created an identity for the area. Who would have thought a fruit would be so important?
Yet the story doesn’t end there – that same year two men by the names of Wallace Hardison and Lyman Stewart moved to town. Within a short matter of time the two began California’s earliest oil production in the canyons surrounding Santa Paula and together went on to form Unocal, who’s first offices were you guessed it in downtown Santa Paula.
Of course since those early exploits Santa Paula has fallen on hard times. Last year Santa Paula Mayor Mary Ann Krause resorted to a lobbying campaign to have the town declared fictional West Wing Presidential candidate Arnold Vinick’s hometown. Shockingly this did little to boost the self imagine of the area.
Riding up through CA-150 it’s hard to ignore the socioeconomic gap that’s dividing the area. Small enclaves of modern homes dot the landscape while most of the town seems ten years late in applying a new coat of paint. Today this chasm was particularly noticeable due to hundreds of Vote Yes and Vote No ballot measure signs that had been hammered into every other lawn in town. Apparently the area is voting on something called Measure E6, which as it turns out is a community vote to approve building 2,155 new homes in an area called Fagan Canyon.
From outside appearances it seems that many of the residents don’t want the measure to pass because they are concerned about additional traffic congestion. I tend to stay out of the fray when it comes to political issues and since I don’t live there I suppose I ought to keep my mouth shut, but as a fan of the area anything that builds new homes, new parks, new schools and offers more jobs seems like a worthwhile gamble in my opinion.
Once you reach the far end of town, the houses and ballet measure signs vanish just as the road begins to envelope your focus. Suddenly the straight and narrow turns curvy. Part of the road is still damaged from last years rainy season, yet in-between the damage there are some simply spectacular moments. While waiting for the last stoplight to turn green I realized that during previous trips I’ve never taken the time to stop when I was between Santa Paula and Ojai to snap some pictures. So today I held back the urge to open throttle up and pulled off to take a couple of quick picts of the valley floor area between the two cities. Oddly while most of the region is agriculturally based most of this in-between valley is actually comprised of horse and cattle farms. They are some of the most picturesque landscapes I’ve seen in quite some time. After yet another break and a quick smoke, I hopped back on the bike and finally entered the town of Ojai, California.
Of all the towns in the greater Santa Barbara County area, Ojai is my absolute favorite. It’s quiet, it’s charming, it’s artsy and it’s easy to navigate. One main road – that’s it. It’s also the home to what seems like a million bed and breakfast establishments. Clearly I’m not the only one who likes it here. While the area sends off a rather wonderfully rustic Spanish architecture vibe, don’t let the looks fool you. This is pricey land.
Yet it hasn’t always been that way. Ironically while Santa Paula’s early reputation was growing, Ojai’s wasn’t. The land was first settled in 1837 when the Spanish granted deeds to the area to Fernando Tico. He promptly sold the land in 1853 to oil prospectors who apparently didn’t have much success. Evidently the search for oil slowed down and by 1864 the main area of the city was settled. In 1874 settlers decided to officially call their city, Nordhoff. The name stuck until post World War I when folks felt Nordhoff sounded to German. So they went back to the origins of the area and used a Chumash word to rename it. Thus began the rise of Ojai, California.
Last year over the Memorial Day Weekend, Ojai was a mess. Choppers and Harley’s were coming out of the woodwork and traffic was complete disaster. I’m sure it was equally as congested today, but since I was up early I ended up rolling through town at ten in the morning and thankfully missed the masses. By the time I stopped at the local 76 station to fill up one last time before hitting 33, the sun finally had broken through the mixed assortment of clouds and the temperature had finally risen into that acceptably warm, yet still relatively cool riding range where your hands feel a bit nippy but your body resonates with warmth. It was ideal. And that was before I got to the real adventure.
There are few roads that I have ever ridden that hold the kind of hallowed power that lies among the 56 miles of curves that make up Route 33. Yet the road is defined by more than just merely the sum of its corners. To ride it is to experience something beyond merely entrances and apexes and gargantuan vistas. This is a road of lust. A road to witness everything that you can’t do legally. It’s a unique blend of the metaphysical and the innate human desire to push yourself and your abilities to the maximum. With few legitimate hiding spots and absolute no concrete turnoffs, this road is easy to exploit to its’ fullest. From corner to corner it’s just full out fists of throttle at a time. And unlike the tight canyon roads I normally negotiate with, most of these bends sweep rather than switchback and forth. Yet that’s part of the charm and the excitement. This journey is all about letting yourself go and letting the engine out. This road has the unique ability to both transform your place in life and transcend a single moment in time. Every second forces you to think and react. Scary fast doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling that this road elicits. Riding it well is something that goes beyond a mere trackday or a thousand mile road trip. To conquer this winding, twisting, rollercoaster of an adventure isn’t about connecting dots on a map, but rather about building sequences of smooth flowing transitions from full lean to maximum power and back again.
Seldom if ever have I come back from a trip up through Ojai and Route 33 feeling anything less than spectacular. Today is no exception. If you love to ride this road is unquestionably a Mecca. Because the real bounty here doesn’t lie in the path of the asphalt but rather the journey it takes you on.
Rails, Part II
Yesterday was a day of days and today was not. Feeling pretty good about life I decided to head up to Ojai and Route 33… To be fair most of my morning was pretty amazing and I suppose at this point I could wax on poetically about my bike but in all honesty I’m not really in the mood. While there are a number of things that I’ve come to accept while owning an Italian beast - namely extreme ergonomics, an extremely hot seat and amazingly imaginative character - reliability and dependability are not among them it seems.
For the second time in less than three weeks on two different bikes I came to a stop light and found the clutch unable to engage. Thus had I not been on the front brakes nothing would have prevented the bike from going on it’s marry way regardless of our modern day traffic laws.
So either, A) In the last three weeks I’ve become completely inept and retarded when it comes to shifting a modern sportbike, B) there is a design flaw on both Milt’s ‘04 and my ‘05, or C) It’s August and as is the case with most of Italy, these bikes simply want to take the month off.
I say this in jest , but in all reality I have no good answer. Just a throbbing wrist and the knowledge that on both my bike and MotorMilt’s I’m unable to shift effectively.
I have to say I’m completely frustrated. While there are certain things on these bikes that clearly have no business being on a racebike - namely the speedo, the mirrors, the gauge cluster, etc. - a transmission and a clutch seem rather required. One would think that of all the parts on the bike that the factory would ensure could work correctly these would be among the top of the list.
Luckily for this blog I’ve had a few beers and enough time to calm down, but come on folks how fuck’n hard it is to build a decent transmission and clutch system? It ain’t like this is new technology here - clutches and tranny’s have been around for quite sometime - and there are no paddle shifters here… In many ways I’m at my wits end… I feel compelled to ride these bikes because when they’re on they’re amazing - more than amazing, they’re astounding - to the point where you simply do not know where fact stops and fiction begins. I truly doubt that a Japanese Inline 4 could do the trick. But when they’re off, like today, you stand in awe that you could so easily fall in love with such a temperamental beast.
All of this makes me wish that I skipped english lit in high school and took autoshop instead.
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!
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!
