Author Topic: Southern California Fun!  (Read 2492 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

VersysRider

  • Guest
Southern California Fun!
« on: April 10, 2014, 09:46:19 PM »
By Doug Westly, Safety Editor

If you’ve never ridden in Southern California, you don’t know what you’re missing. Becky and I ride out there a lot, both because of our work for Honda and because it is just an AWESOME place to ride. We try to take at least one week a year and journey to SoCal for some road time.

In 2013 we headed to the state’s southern areas during the first week of December. Fortunately, Honda doesn’t mind loaning us a couple of bikes whenever we’re in town, so upon arrival at LAX we jumped into a taxi and headed to Honda’s secret off-site storage location in Los Angeles. No, we can’t tell you where it is…keeping the secret is part of our contract! This year we opted for a pair of bikes in Honda’s new 700 line. We always ride bigger bikes, so decided it was time to go light and maneuverable for this trip. Accordingly, Becky picked up a new CTX700N and I opted for a NC700X. Both bikes were equipped with Honda’s new Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT) option, which allow for either automatic or manual shifting (with handlebar mounted paddle shifters). The DCTs would prove to be a wise choice later in the trip. After a quick meeting with our Honda bosses, we changed into our riding gear and set off, headed first to Huntington Beach, south of downtown Los Angeles.

Huntington Beach is surfer central, where surfers come from around the world to challenge each other and the waves in yearly surfing competitions. It is also the home of some great friends of ours. Keith is a senior manager at Honda and his wife Brittany is a freelance copy editor with a flourishing business. They decided this year to take a few days off and play tour guides as we all rode SoCal together. We spent our first night at their home, planning our trip and playing with their 3 cats…

Helpful tip No. 1 for any tour: Find someone who really knows the area and REALLY knows how to ride. Keith was a Marine in his former life, stationed at Camp Pendleton. He was also the head of the Marines combat motorcycle reconnaissance unit, serving on two wheels in the Iraqi desert during the First Gulf War. He knows bikes and knows SoCal. After an evening of maps, Google Earth, a bottle of wine and cats, we had a plan for our tour.

Helpful tip No. 2: Pack light. Fortunately Keith and Brittany were two-up on their BMW R1200GS (A long story…actually my former GS, now residing in CA), so he was packing all the necessary tools and bike gear. That means Becky and I showed up with just our personal riding and casual gear. One medium dry bag each, strapped across the back seat of each of our bikes did the trick.

Day 1 of our touring began with a run south on the PCH from Huntington Beach down to Newport Beach, just to see how the other 1 percent live. You know the area is affluent when you pass an auto consignment lot and it is full of Porsches and Ferraris. After Newport Beach, we cut inland and headed for the back roads of California. From there we wove our way down 2 lane canyon roads and over passes until we reached the eastern, rural area of San Diego County. Keith cut his riding teeth here and knows roads, both paved and dirt, that you couldn’t find with anyone else.

It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining, blue skies and 70 degree temperatures down in the canyons. A quick stop for lunch at one of their favorite Mexican restaurants (this became a theme for the next three days), and then we headed farther east.

Our next challenge, as Keith put it, was the steepest paved road he has ever ridden. It turned out to be just a short section, maybe a half mile long, of single lane back road that led down a pass in the hills on either side, but Holy C%&( ! Not exaggerating, the road is well over a 20% downgrade, with tight switchbacks all the way down. It was so steep the bikes wouldn’t hold constant speed even in first gear, and we had to work the brakes down the slope. I’ve ridden Lombard Street in San Francisco, and this beats that famous downgrade, hands down. Very cool…once you’re at the bottom!

From there it was off to our next destination, Mount Palomar. We didn’t go all the way to the observatory, but did circumnavigate the mountain at about 6,000 feet. The temperature dropped into the high 30s at the top, so we were happy when we started down the other side. From there it was through Montezuma Valley (including a couple of short dirt road sections) and down into the high desert for our first stop of the night, Borrego Springs, CA.

Accommodations in Borrego Springs are few, but we found a cool little western-style resort, with a good restaurant and a bar to hang out in for the night. We spent the evening hanging with the local characters… and there are a lot of them in Borrego Springs!

Day two started off with a Mexican breakfast (see, I told you it was a theme), and then on the bikes and headed northeast. We set out across the desert for a refueling stop at the northwest corner of the Salton Sea. A little history is in order here. The Salton Sea was created by a huge flood from the Colorado River in 1905 and is the largest lake in California. Anyway, after a beautiful ride on a sunny day through the high desert, we made a refueling and provisioning stop in Mecca, CA. Both were necessary, as our lunchtime destination was further north, Joshua Tree National Monument. To get there, we rode a fabulous little paved trail called Box Canyon Road, which wound through desert washes and hills.

We came into Joshua Tree Park from the south, after crossing over I-10. We were feeling a little smug, seeing all those cages and trucks, plodding along the Interstate while we were adventuring through the California back country. We spent the next 3 hours riding from south to north, including finding a great picnic stop in the giant rocks of the park, where we snacked on (what else?) Mexican bread.

After touring Joshua Tree, we set our sights on the 2nd night’s destination, the cool little roadside stop of Pioneertown, in Yucca Valley. Pioneertown actually started as an old west motion picture set in the 1940s, and many of the famous, early westerns were filmed here. Now with a permanent population of 350, it still retains all the old set buildings and a very famous bar/restaurant where the likes of Eric Clapton and others have been known to show up on a Friday night, to play an impromptu set or two!

Our lodging for the night was the Pioneertown Motel, the only establishment in town. Not exactly a Holiday Inn Express, but it fit perfectly with the theme for this trip. We had a great time at the restaurant, with dinner and a band jamming on stage.

Day 3 of our SoCal tour started out with temperatures in the 40s. We layered up and now aimed the bikes northwest. Our first destination of the morning, for brunch, was a little airport café at the airstrip serving Big Bear Lake resort. To get there we took a circular route through Lucerne Valley, then up the mountain to Big Bear Lake. Big Bear Lake is one of the premier recreation areas near Los Angeles, sitting above 6700 feet in the mountains of San Bernardino County. Again it got a little cool on the ride up the mountain, but some hot beverages and brunch at the café made up for it. After brunch, we did a ride-by of the open ski resorts, then started back down the mountain, headed west back to Los Angeles. Like all other routes for the tour, this one consisted of narrow mountain roads with steep downgrades. What made this leg different was we were now above the snow line. Even with the sunny day and temperatures rising, there were still patches of ice in some of the shadows and corners, so careful riding was the order of the afternoon! This is where the DCTs really paid off, as we didn’t have to worry about shifting and maintaining good clutch control/traction while navigating the icy patches. Honda’s DCT system really does work as advertised.

The end of the day found us back at our hosts’ home, with lots of new memories and stories! But…not the end of our SoCal riding adventure.

The next morning we thanked our wonderful friends and set out for ourselves. With great weather still beckoning, we turned our bikes north. Our objective this day was the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), north of Los Angeles. That meant a quick ride up the infamous 405 freeway. Fortunately we have ridden in California enough that we’re familiar with that most welcome technique of all: Lane Splitting. While it is not something we would ever do at home, it is not illegal in California and after experiencing traffic on the 405, I can say with some certainty it is actually safer (if performed carefully) than just trying to maintain an adequate safety margin in rush hour traffic. BTW, the California Highway Patrol takes the same position and actually promotes lane splitting as a safe traffic management technique for motorcyclists.

After a dash up the 405 and west on I-10 (referred to locally as “the 10”), we found ourselves on the PCH in Malibu. Our destination this morning was one of the famous motorcycle hangouts in Malibu, Neptune’s Net restaurant. As it was a beautiful Sunday morning, EVERYONE had the same idea. We arrived at the restaurant right at 11am, and there were literally hundreds of motorcycles and custom cars already parked. We got lucky with parking spots and a great table right on the front porch. We perched for a while, ate and watched the fun. Afterwards, we headed up the PCH to the Santa Barbara pier for ice cream and then back to Ventura Beach for the night.

Our final day on the bikes started with a quick ride down to Oxnard for one of our traditions. We never go to CA without stopping at In-n-Out Burger for at least one lunch. If you haven’t eaten there, you’re missing out. You can’t order anything but old-fashioned hamburgers and fries. Awesome! The it was headed back south to drop off the bikes after lunch. Of course we couldn’t take the direct route, so it was through the Potrero Valley (horse farms), then up through the canyon roads, including famous Mulholland Drive, etc. We finished up by dropping back down into Malibu via one of our favorite trails, Decker Canyon Road. After that it was south through Malibu, the 10, the 405 (more lane splitting) and finally arriving back at Honda’s off-site location.

Overall, the ride was about 900 miles in 5 days of riding. It doesn’t sound like much, but included 90% back roads, the SoCal canyons, the high desert, mountain roads above the snow line, and pleasant miles along the Pacific Coast Highway. Like I said at the beginning, if you haven’t ridden in Southern California yet, you are missing out!

Now if we can just win the lotto, we’ve already picked out the street in Ventura Beach where we’re going to build the house with the 6 car garage…

[attachment deleted by admin]

Offline stevegrab

  • MSTA Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1331
  • Karma: +36/-3
  • Lifetime Mileage: 130,000+
  • Primary Motorcycle: 2014 VFR
Re: Southern California Fun!
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2014, 01:22:08 PM »
Very cool. Having grown up in LA its alway nice reading about the area and how people enjoy it. I've only ridden there a little, I moved before I was riding. But I have been back to visit my brothers who live and did a little riding with one of them. Still on my bucket list to ride more, including Angeles Crest Highway and some of the other roads in the mountains.
Visited a couple years ago with my brother Richard (also in MSTA) and we had a rental car while my other brothers were working. We took a drive to the Rock Store one day, and down some of the canyon roads to the beach. Then up the shore a while and ended up at Neptunes for lunch.  Also recognize Decker Canyon Road, think I rode that once or twice.
Steve Grabowski
2014 Interceptor, 98 VFR, 99 Triumph Sprint ST, 06 Ninja 650