STICK1

I pulled up to Betty’s place for the KSU of 7:30 on a Wednesday morning with a fresh tank of gas in the bike and the Men’s Ministry meeting for the soul. I’d run into Betty at a friend’s 50^th birthday party the Saturday before and she invited me to ride with a group that pulls out of Lancaster on Wednesday mornings. Well, ‘run into’ is a bit misleading since I expected her to be there and had a 40 or so year old photo of her younger son Brian in my pocket. The honoree, Michelle, and Brian had been a part of a youth group that my wife and I acted as youth pastors for and I had searched for a photo of Michelle as an 11-year old with my helmet and gloves on. Betty’s invite came at a good time since I haven’t been able to connect with my riding friends from the southeast and I really wanted to ride with some folks.

Betty had her kick stand up and ready to pull out when I rode up but she needed to gas up her red 1996 Harley Dyna with a black rose detail on the tank and soft bags behind her. I’m not sure what type of Dyna it is; Street Bob, Low Rider, Wide Glide, Fat Bob, or Switchback. Regardless, the bike fit her well. And, I only know those names from the Harley website. We rode out to the Antelope Valley Harley-Davidson dealership to meet up with the main group - a 65 mile freeway ride to just to get started. I was a little apprehensive about riding my Victory Cross Country (VCC) into a Harley ride - after all, we bikers can be a zealous lot when it comes to our rides. I found them to be a likable group of experienced riders out for a little morning run with friends and any friend of Betty’s…

My '71 Honda CB500

Our 65-mile run to the meet point in AV was uneventful with the traffic flowing toward LA and wide open in front of us to the northeast. I’d ridden with Betty on one other occasion over Angeles Crest to Newcomb’s Ranch for a birthday lunch when I was still riding my ’07 Honda Sabre. Betty led the way and set a comfortable pace with a nice line. I had some time to think and found myself going back over the photos that I’d dug up the Saturday before. They included a B&W of my first bike, a ’71 Honda CB500. Those four cylinders took me wherever I wanted to go, including a 6,000 mile western-states tour that should be the subject of a multi-part flashback post. Those earlier rides also included taking Betty’s kids as well as the others from that church group for little rides around the neighborhood and rides up to Bass Lake to meet church groups that my mom worked with and taking those kids on rides around the campgrounds. If I tried to do that today the church leaders would only walk away shaking their heads and mumbling about liabilities. The old photos included one of my license plate: STICK1. I’m tempted to see if I can resurrect that one for my VCC. 

STICK1 - 'nough said

I took a walk through the showroom with Betty to pick up a turn indicator bulb for her Dyna and was very impressed by the bikes on the floor. Harley-Davidson builds some beautiful bikes. To be honest with you, they have a better color selection than Victory, particularly when my selection for 2010 was black or maroon. Victory now has a much better selection of colors and custom looks. To be equally as honest with you, none of those Harleys made we want to beg a salesperson to take my black VCC in trade; I love that bike, it’s taking me anywhere that I want to go.

The group ride was from the dealership out to the Pine Mountain Club where shared a late breakfast. There were 16 riders in total, 11 or 12 Harleys of various models, including a trike that road slack, 2 or 3 Honda Goldwings, and my VCC. We stayed off of the freeways and went out of Lancaster via some two-lane roads passing by Elizabeth Lake to Highway 138 and across the 5 freeway, up a side road to the Pine Mountain Road to our destination. It was a great combination of high desert roads lined with Joshua Trees and low-elevation mountain/canyon roads. These guys were very comfortable together and stayed in a tight formation at an easygoing pace. My relaxed ride held over to a nice breakfast with Betty and the three guys at our end of the long table having pleasant get-to-know-you conversations. I’m looking forward to another ride with them someday, maybe with STICK2.

Y’all keep the iron side up.

What’s Your Excuse?!

Sometimes the best excuse for a ride is no excuse at all beyond “I felt like it.” I may have used that excuse with my mom and dad – once. I have plenty of excuses for today’s ride, one being that I needed some material to write this post, another is that I needed to scout a scene for one of my stories, and still another is that I needed to break a little pattern that was blocking production. The nice thing is that if none of the excuses pan out I’ve still had a nice ride.

Today’s ride was fairly well unscripted with only two prime objectives of the ride; get to the Santa Monica Pier to reconnect with my PAR character and ride up coast and by Point Mugu. After an early morning men’s prayer meeting I decided that I’d get business done in Pasadena (Credit Union ATM deposit) and then go down to the pier and I’d do it without using a freeway; partly to avoid rush hour on the freeways and partly just because I felt like it. I won’t bore you with the route other than to say that getting to Pasadena was a delight using my old bicycle route and the route from there to the pier was a grind. Interesting, but grinding.

Mugu Lagoon Vista Overlook - A favorite stop

I observed that a lot of LA is under construction; new buildings on vacant lots, remodels of old stuff, and rebuilds of stuff that wasn’t as thought out as it might have been. Lanes were closed, streets were torn up, iron plates had to be negotiated, construction vehicles clogged the roads, and I also found that there are a lot of people avoiding freeways when they can during get-to-work days. Still, it didn’t seem to wear the smile off of my face. I had plenty to think about; my Kids’ Hope kid and how to approach reading with him (the object of a side prayer), what next to do with the bike (lights and chromishness mostly), where to take my writing projects, what next to do with the house…you get the picture.

I spent some time sitting at the end of the pier listing to a whistling guitar player. It was beautiful and made me smile and I made him smile when I thanked him with a healthy tip in his jar. Once I hit the Pacific Coast Highway, US 1, I spent some time visualizing a ride PAR will take early on his search. I also outlined a new item for my to-do list, ride the US 1 from its northern-most point to the southern-most point as one trip. The first item is to determine what those points actually are; next is to figure out how to get north so I can have the coast on my right without a lane between me and it. How many days will I need for the whole shebang? Then figure out other logistics like tents vs. hotels and such. What’s my excuse? Because it sounds cool to do the whole Pacific Coast as one journey.

I have other ride excuses:

·         It would be cool to do (see above)

·         There are awesome things to see over there…

·         There is an event in the middle of it like Sturgis or Street Vibrations

·         I can demo bikes and have a good ride on my own

·         I haven’t seen my ride-buddies in way too long…

·         Those twisties have been calling my name all day long

·         Half Dome whispered to me that it wants a ride-by

·         Because I feel like it!

What’s your excuse!?

Y’all keep the iron side up.

Let the Rabbits Run

Thar be rabbits on the road for any given ride; those vehicles that push the speed limit beyond my comfort zone, up to 15 MPH faster at 80+ and they are mostly obnoxious about it, approaching fast and getting right on fenders trying to intimidate the other vehicle into moving over even if they are in the process of passing another one to the right. They can be anything on wheels from mini-vans with a carload of kids they don’t care about to bikers to SUVs and anything smaller that the driver doesn’t mind torturing to that speed, you know, like Sentras. I call them rabbits because I like to let them run up ahead and draw the law-dogs’ attention while I stretch my personal ticket-safe speeds.

It’s the ICBMs on the road that you really have to watch out for, they push their speed to 100, weave in and out of traffic at will and they think everybody sees them and will come from your blind spot and weave in front of you within inches of your fender. I find it best to be aware of them and not to make any sudden accommodating move that they might not anticipate.

I took a weekend trip up to Brentwood in the Bay Area to see my cousin Lee, closest thing to an older brother that I have, and his wife Kathy who are now staying with their daughter Jennifer and her family. I opted for my Victory Cross Country and a more scenic route than Highway 5 up the middle of the state when it was apparent that I wouldn’t need a car. I took the 210 freeway to the Highway 118 that heads west and in the town of Moorpark turns into a two lane road and took me through the agricultural corridor to Highway 101 right about where it rejoins the US 1, The Pacific Coast Highway; they split again at about Los Cruces, the 101 continuing on as the El Camino Real. My plan was to take the 101 up to US 680 and on into Brentwood, only using my GPS after lunch to zero in on Jen’s place.

I really like the section of the 101 from Ventura on up to Salinas, even when the ag-traffic picks up after King City (where I put the GPS to work) with tractors and trucks getting on and off the road. Hugging the coastline early on I had the Pacific Ocean to the horizon on my left and the rugged coastline stretching out before me and dotted with great beaches like Carpentaria, El Capitan, Refugio, and finally Gaviota as the 101 heads inland through a little pass with a short tunnel where I dropped down a gear and jumped on it (see Baritone Solo for why). I was happily alone with my thoughts and prayers, thoughts for my writing and prayers for friends and family, particularly my folks and Lee. I let the rabbits run along the coastline with no thought of stretching the speeds; I used them liberally from Las Cruces on up.

I trusted my little GPS app Waze and it betrayed me taking me off the 680 on to an eight mile stretch of surface streets and a quasi-country road only to get back to the 680 for about 150 yards and off again to where it really got interesting. I was directed on to Calaveras Road that skirted by the reservoir of the same name. This was a fun road, full of challenges, twisties to the max. The engineers didn’t even bother putting a centerline in it because that would have indicated that only motorcycles could pass each other and stay in the lanes. It was tight, brothers and sisters, and traveled by rabbits who used the road for commuting every day. Two were on my tailpipe so I let them run on by to pave the way for me while I stayed with them the rest of the way to more two-lane roads into Brentwood. I suppose that route saved me from sitting in freeway traffic since I don’t split lanes. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I didn’t already have 400 miles behind me and I knew it was coming.

Coming home, I used Highway 5 from Walnut Creek after my great visit with family and then my friends Jim and Shirley. This run was notable only for a couple things, the light traffic by leaving on a Sunday morning and spectacular rabbit. Actually, she drove a VW Passat wagon and drove it exquisitely. She had come up behind me to the left and then I got in behind her and stayed there from Patterson until she got off at Buttonwillow, 110 miles of following the best rabbit ever at a few miles over my ticket-safe zone but never becoming an attention getter. She never got obnoxious with the other drivers she approached; if they didn’t move over she would do so in plenty of time not to panic or slow down much. Every move was signaled; a few times I would anticipate and make the change first giving her a clear lane change. We were an ad hoc caravan of two and when she slowed to exit at Buttonwillow we acknowledged each other as I passed to head on home, her with an electric smile, me with a thumbs up.

Y’all watch the ICBMs and keep the iron side up.

Baritone Solo in the Angeles National Forest

I kicked over the motor of my Victory Cross Country at about six on a Thursday morning careful not to rev it too much in deference to my neighbors. The V-Twin, 106ci engine and exhaust combine for a nice baritone sound, at least to my musically challenged ears. To get to a deep bass sound I’d have to modify the system and it seems that comes with a decibel increase which goes against my quiet nature. The early start got me headed up the Angeles Crest Highway and into the Angeles National Forest by six thirty that morning. There is one spot after getting onto the Angeles Forest Highway where I break with my native desire for quiet and that touches a part of my lingering, childlike joy at hearing my own voice echoed back. That is in a nice little tunnel along the road there where I have to crank it up just to hear the rumble come back to me and to feel the reverberations. I think we’ve all seen the look of wonder on a kid’s face as they let out a whoop to hear it come back in a canyon or even a room of any size that echoes. The look is almost always punctuated with a smile, the glee rocking the child’s whole being – I say nurture it.

The early start coincided with a nice onshore marine layer of fog whose tendrils wound their way up the canyons of the lower elevations and bubbled over where the canyon met the winding road. They were like witches’ cauldrons with steamy tendrils snaking out as if to grab me as I into leaned the corners.

It was an ideal day to wind around in the mountains, no alto-tenor street-racers buzzing along pushing the envelope and on this morning the inbound commercial traffic all headed on up toward Mt. Wilson instead out to Palmdale. I rode against the commuter traffic of the high-desert dwellers “beating” the always backed up Highway 14 to the 5 junction. These are a variety of cagers with a sprinkling of bikes who travel the road every weekday and know it like an old friend. Many of them are trying to make time not too dissimilar from the weekend sport bikers, pushing the envelope, and sometimes thinking nothing of being within a car length of the next guy in some moronic effort to intimate them into driving off the side of the road so they can pass. They often drift well over the double yellow line to the inside of curves ignorant, or just plain uncaring, that there might be someone with the nerve to be going the other direction. As the Angeles Forest Highway empties out toward the Antelope Valley there are a couple of the straightaways, one lane each way, where I was thankful for my extra riding lights but nevertheless considered where I could put more and still keep the sleek look of my bike. It seemed that Parnelli Jones was their tutor as some drivers popped out to pass only to see me coming along to block their maneuver, forcing them to pop back in line.

I had a breakfast date with my friend Kathy from my days as an AT&T Broadcast Video Planner and hers as the Television Operating Center Area Manager. We hadn’t gotten together in well over a year and Kathy is living her dream in Marrakesh living there six months of the year and working among the people there while learning to love and understand the land and culture. We had a great visit while we ate at Karen’s Kitchen in Quartz Hill, a nice local eatery with locals coming in and out, Kathy as one of them. I sometimes envy her pursuit of her dream and then I have to realize that my riding and even my writing are my dreams, my way of understanding and loving the road and hopefully coming to a deeper understanding of what makes me tick. Writing can do that; the world is a blank page until it is written on.

My friends, pursue your dreams, yell into the canyons and tunnels of life just to hear them yell back, come to a deeper understanding, and watch the drifters you encounter along the way.

Y’all keep the iron side up.

Bass Lake Quickie

I had been wanting to make this run for a couple of years now; heck, since I got back on a bike in ’07 – it’s a ride I’d done several times on my old Honda CB500. Bass Lake is where my mom was raised and where our family had spent many wonderful vacations at all times of the year. I rode up to visit my grandparents and my cousin Lee’s family a few times and a couple of other times rode up to visit my mom during a Junior High Summer Camp that she advised. We had great fun loading the kids on the back of the bike with my too-large-for-them helmet and riding them around the camp. I can imagine trying that in today’s litigious environment; I would never get it by the Session (ruling body) at LCPC.

I had a small window of opportunity for this ride with my daughter’s family getting a cabin at the lake for a couple of days and I took it. The ride up on Friday the 15^th was most remarkable for smells; first the freshening air going up the grade to the Tejon Pass, then out along Hwy 99 and through the fertile valley where I passed the onion truck and dodged the skins flying off, same for the load of hay, and then there was the dairy farm with its pungent array fertilizer and methane. It was nothing like riding by Harris Ranch on Hwy 5 but still, it’s a dairy and there is no way except by holding your breath to hide from odors while riding.

With my 6a.m. KSU departure I made it in plenty of time to enjoy a low-traffic Friday and Hwy 41 and the roads leading into the lake  were traffic light so that I only “had” to pass a couple of cars. I had 23 hours with Matt, Ashley, and my grandkids, Teya and little JJ. Jeremiah took a nasty tumble down the stairs while I was getting out of my riding gear and sported a half a hardboiled egg sized knot for rest of their mini-vacation – tough kid though as it did not deter him from trying to head butt me off the swimming dock later that day. We had a two-hour putt around the drought depleted lake on a 50hp pontoon boat for fun and then an easy and laid back dinner.

I had the kickstand up at 10 a.m. the next morning and did my traditional ride around the lake for a photo op on the dam. The ride home was more hectic with people trying to get home after their week away and everybody kept a frenetic pace until it was stop-and-go up the grade from Santa Clarita to San Fernando due to an accident. Even so, I made it home in a little less than 5.5 hours with a longish lunch stop.

It is not worth 11 hours of riding for a 23 hour visit, including sleep time, with your grandkids…said no biker ever. I had nice ride on a great bike to see one of my very favorite places with family. Can’t beat that.

For a fun little challenge, post your own “said no biker ever” quote, either your own or one you “borrow” from someone. Post it either as a comment to the blog or on the FB page.

Directly across from the Marina where we stayed.

This is Thanksgiving time level for the lake

Y’all keep the iron side up.

A Not So Subtle Reminder

It was a stark reminder; nothing subtle about it. There were some harbingers that things weren’t right on the road ahead; the L.A. City fire hook and ladder that had made the turn from Foothill Blvd. on to Oro Vista just before me and two sport bike riders stopping to talk with them and pointing back the way they’d come, the way I was headed, and then the group of a dozen or so sport riders coming down Big Tujunga Canyon Road and giving me the slow down signal. I had just passed the Vogel Flat Road turn-off and came around the last passable turn heading up to the Angeles Forest Highway where I was stopped by a yellow-slickered Cal Fire man with his stop sign and he had me pull over on to the shoulder. There were already 10 or so sport bikes on the left shoulder with two or three on my side of the road. The CDF truck blocking the lane was one of six or eight emergency vehicles representing at least three agencies. Search and Rescue would soon join them as the LA County Sherrifs' rescue helicopter circled above looking for the closest landing zone. A couple of hundred yards up from us was a rider on the ground surrounded by trained personnel administering first aid and stabilizing the rider. His bike was a few yards up totaled by the impact with the guardrail, one that I’d seen being replaced back in 2009 after the Station Fire had burned out every wood supported rail for mile after mile of forest roadways.

Down Rider and Bike

On the way down the hill...

...and on by the onlookers

The scene in front of me was forthright – vigilance always; know the road, your bike, and your capabilities. To quote Dirty Harry, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” The rider had lost it on a curve, not blind but with an open view of the whole turn leading into the next one. No one around me knew if he hit something and lost it or what really happened. Some things are just unavoidable, indescribable.

I could have walked up to get a closer look but 200 yards away was as close to a looky-loo as I wanted to be. It wasn’t too long and they had the man lifted into the back of the search and rescue pick-up and passed by the growing and waiting crowd and out of sight where they met up with the helicopter which soon rose up and flew over us up the canyon and then over Mt. Lukens to head to a local hospital; maybe Verdugo Hills but likely either Glendale or Huntington Memorial.

Rescue Helicopter at its base

Again at the base in 2009

I had stood around mostly apart from the other riders but within earshot as they spoke to each other about their own incidents, about how they handle things, and about their safety gear. By the time the last EMT had picked up his paraphernalia I had geared back up, rolled my bike off the dirt turn out (not favorite thing on a cruiser) and headed back down the eight or nine miles to Foothill and over to my remote office to write this up. My enjoyment for the ride up to Angeles Forest Highway, over to and then down Angeles Crest Highway and a writing session on another project had disappeared with the rescue helicopter.

I said a few prayers for the downed rider and his friends and here’s one for my readers: “May God watch over you each day, around each bend in the road, and through every intersection. May he guide your path and keep you vigilant. May the Lord keep your eyes open to the road and all it brings your way. May he help you every day to keep the iron side up.”

Country Roads - New England Style

During our week in the New England states we drove on, walked down, and great country roads and trails. As you can see, this post is more about driving and walking then about riding motorcycles but there are points of interest for the rider and riding the roads was never really far from my mind.

Walkways at Bennington College are mown
 paths winding through lush meadows

“Country Roads” by John Denver or “Country Road” by James Taylor – take your pick; they are both great songs and we had both of them bouncing around in our heads during our recent trip to attend the graduation of our daughter-in-law from the Bennington College Masters of Fine Arts program. Yes, we’re proud of her for the accomplishment and we’re proud of our son for being the strong supporter and caring husband he is; they are bringing a lot of joy. 

We landed in Boston a few days before the graduation with a loose plan to take in some of the New England history and views. We had no real plan for that first day except that we wanted to see some historic sites and maybe paddle around in the Swan Boats at the Boston Public Gardens. Getting out of the airport in our rental car, a white VW Beetle, and into the city was problematic with toll roads being a big part of the route and a very small part of our previous experience. California is moving in the toll road direction and I’ll have to discover how best to work with them, especially on a motorcycle. We opted to pay cash at each toll station and we’ll rethink that next time we are in a heavy toll area and perhaps go to the electronic pay method. Once off the toll roads we cast about looking for a way over to the city without paying tolls again spotting a church spire and simply made our way toward it hoping for the Old North Church; nope. We parked and walked by it anyway, the architecture was great everywhere we looked, even some of the rundown areas are interesting. We saw a tall monument rising above everything around and made for it on foot to find ourselves about a mile away from where we parked and at the Bunker Hill Monument and one end of the Freedom Trail.

I hustled over and moved the car nearer to the monument park and to freshen up the “parking clock” in case a parking enforcement type person was busy. We walked to the Old North Church which took us by Old Ironsides. It was early evening and we found out that most public places close up at five; plan accordingly. We saw the sites from the outside and they were stirring; walking the Freedom Trail, and later the next day the Battle Road, made me regret being such a passive history student.

The plan for the following day was to go up to Concord in New Hampshire and see some historic sites and Walden Pond before dropping back down to The Inn at Crumpin Fox in Bernardston MA for the night to give us a shorter hop over to Bennington VT to meet up with Ani. Yes I know, hello poor history student. Fortunately the navigator and real brains of our duo spotted Walden Pond and the historically significant Concord. We were right on top of it and she saved us several hours of driving to disappointment. This also gave us the time for two walks, one around Walden Pond, the other along the Battle Road at the Minute Man National Historical Park.

Henry, Cindy, and me

Walden Pond is a beautiful place and is now an attraction and swimming and paddle boating location during this time of year. The walk around the pond was great; spending time at Henry David Thoreau’s cabin site, the re-creation of his cabin to take an ussie photo with his statue, and even the gift shop – all of it was deeply thought provoking and humbling to this wannabe writer. 

James Taylor said it very well in his Country Road, “I guess my feet know where they want me to go, Walking on a country road.”

The Minute Man National Historical Park information center provides a refresher course on the events that rent the thin fabric holding the colonies to Britain. We took a short walk along the Battle Road which the British soldiers took from Boston to Concord and back. It is lined with the old rock walls built up as the colonists farmed the land and removed rocks from the fields as they plowed. All along this footpath are markers proclaiming acts of heroism during the battle, marked homes of the farmer communities, and told of the cost on both sides of the battle. The fact that no one ordered the first shot or who fired it hung in the air as we considered what might have been our history if men of reason were able to sit down and work out a fair way to have a representative government and tax schedule tied to Britain. We could have walked the whole road back to Boston, maybe someday we will. 

Those roads we walked are wonderful and worthy of a planned hike end to end on the Freedom Trail and Battle Road and all around Walden Pond again with a dip in the water at the end. And the list grows on…

What struck us as we motored along the highways was that once we leave the cities and the metropolis fades in the rearview mirror we are immediately on country roads and highways. In Southern California we go from one city to another city or suburb and have to travel traffic clogged many miles to find a country road that is, as often as not, in a desert. We kept saying “it is so green” to each other. (Of course we need only remember the winter they just came out from to know why it is so green) The forest comes right down to the right-of-way on the four lane highways, so thick that the trees obscure the towns the highway passes by. We preferred the two-lane, numbered roads that the highways closely paralleled; the forest comes right down to the shoulder and thins only as we approached the towns – first with hidden driveways, followed by a trip down Main Street with old town buildings, churches with spires and old graveyards marked with flags for the veterans of all our wars, barns and out buildings, old town stores. We made plenty of quick stops and passed others that we wished we could make; we could have taken many days along our route making stops to take in the history and the feel of the communities we drove through. The vista at Hogback Mountain boasts a hundred-mile panorama and looks into another state with views of two national forests. It is breathtaking, to use an old cliché for an old place. 

180 degree + panorama shot from Hogback Mtn.

One thing that struck me as we wound our way from place to place was what great roads they are for riding, horses or bikes, motored or peddled. I didn’t regret the time spent in the cage, it was one of those nice road trips with my wife that allowed us to talk or simply enjoy the road and views in a comfortable silence. We never once turned on the radio of the rental. It was hot and humid as we drove along and we spent a few miles driving through downpours so be ready for both when riding in New England in the summer, all that green takes a lot of water. I put down the window for long stretches and gave the bike salute as they rode by; I hope that wasn’t a sacrilege to send off the greeting from inside. We spent a day after the graduation at Lake George, NY, a huge lake by our standards, 35 miles long and seven or so wide. We had lunch on the second story deck of a restaurant overlooking the main drag of Lake George Town, across from a park, and with a view of the lake. It was a cruiser street and we watched as loads of bikers, classic car enthusiasts, and hotrod hound dogs cruised by.

These country road photos won't do the drive justice but you'll get the idea:

One of many covered bridges

Old Indian sign at the Natural Stone Bridge Park

View from the bug

 John Denver’s Country Roads “I hear her voice in the morning hour she calls me, Radio reminds me of my home far away, Driving down the road I get a feeling, That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday.”