In California, you can string together corner after corner, spectacular view after spectacular view... Just months before the fires, Nige toured it on two wheels... Words & Pics: Nigel Paterson
California | The roar of sportsbike exhausts heralded the arrival of a fast group of riders by some time. They sounded like racebikes, and weren’t afraid to take their engines to the upper reaches of the rev range… a cop could have had ample time to set-up a speed trap.
The famous Angeles Crest Highway… Well worth a ride if you ever get the chance and only a short ride from LA City.
When the four bikes swept around the hillside turn and into view I was watching, curious, with the mix of Japanese machines and a Triumph triple flashing past and giving me a wave. If I were Californian, that would have been me, 30-odd years ago, for I believe that crew were a bunch of riders in their late 20s looking for a mid-week adrenalin rush, and they’d found it in the San Gabriel Mountains just outside LA.
I believe that crew were a bunch of riders in their late 20s looking for a mid-week adrenalin rush…
While they had been knee-scraping through the twisties I’d been making my way through Los Angeles, riding a rented BMW R 1200 RT and wishing I’d switched from calimoto (which didn’t want to take me on freeways, as a GPS mapping system it’s always trying to find a more interesting route) to Apple or Google Maps (because I actually just wanted the fastest route to the twisties). Lesson learnt.
Calimoto had helped me plan this trip, finding winding roads leaving Los Angeles to give me an interesting route to Yosemite National Park, one of my favourite places in the world, but one I’d spent little time in, just a couple of days back in 2015. I knew I wouldn’t have much time there on this trip either – not much more than a ride-through – but I felt it was worth it, for the landscape is breathtaking and the roads exciting.
So the most interesting route looked to be through the San Gabriel Mountains, aka the road through Angeles National Forest. Los Angeles is easy enough to ride through if you are familiar with riding in big cities – sure, it’s the wrong side of the road, but I’ve been lucky enough to do a fair bit of riding over the years on the right, so apart from trying to say to myself ‘keep right’ every time I threw a leg over the BMW I was pretty good with that.
The Los Angeles freeways, however, they are not for the faint-hearted, with lots of lanes, high speeds, ridiculous traffic loads and lots of tailgating. They are the fastest way to get around the city, but they are also just a little bit daunting.
American highways – the ones which run between cities – however, are basically boring, and best avoided. They suit bikes like Harley’s Grand American Tourers, where you lean back and enjoy the infotainment, but I was seeking spectacular views, great riding and a backroads experience.
The weather wasn’t being friendly on that first day in California, with thick high-level cloud creating a overcast atmosphere, although it never really felt like it was going to rain, and it didn’t. I discovered later the California sun could be problematic riding up through the steep hills in the region though, riding into it would blind you and then the deep, deep shadows would hide all the detail… having an internal visor in my Airoh helmet was one thing helping mitigate the problem and a reason why going back to single-visor helmet for touring isn’t going to happen for me.
I’d been warned about the roads through the Angeles National Forest though – Dave, the owner of the bike I’d hired, thought many of the roads were closed and I might not make it through to Lancaster, where the twisties stop near Edwards Air Force base.
Both calimoto and Apple Maps disagreed with Dave though, so I thought I’d give it a shot, and both turned out to be right – there were some road closures and I was forced to go around one section of my planned route, but I got through and found some great riding along the way.
LA changes suddenly from DownTown and industrial, to suburban, then all of a sudden you climb a few hills to this…
Leaving Los Angeles was almost like a switch – one minute I’m riding some god-awful suburban streets, then I turned up hill – very quickly the houses started turning into mansions, the road surface improved noticeably and its direction started to twist and turn. In just a few minutes I was leaving suburbia and entering the forest, and immediately my mood switched from frustrated traveller to keen rider…
“In just a few minutes I was leaving suburbia and entering the forest, and immediately my mood switched”…
I stopped along the way to try to record the views, but the high cloud was lower here and visibility back toward the city obscured, while the tops of the mountains were covered by cloud. The road, however, was making up for any disappointment I felt from the weather, while the locals added to the entertainment for me.
Apart from the small group of sportsbike riders I mentioned earlier I didn’t see a lot of other bikes, but I probably saw more supercars – Porches, Ferraris, other things too expensive for me to bother learning about – than I’ve ever seen outside of hanging around a casino.
One in particular had me interested, because it was on the back of a flat-top tow truck, which left me wondering if it had run out of fuel or the driver out of talent. I was having fun climbing the mountain and began to realise the weather was clear on the other side of the range, which would also bring a welcome rise in temperature, for I’d packed for hotter weather than I was experiencing.
Then the road closure upset the GPS system… a left turn to take me north to Lancaster was blocked, and there wasn’t an obvious way around, so I continued on, only to have calimoto decide I could turn left in a few miles and ride around the road closure. I don’t know how much fun the closed road might have been, but the diversion was more than fine, it was fast-paced and twisty.
This is the Angeles Forest Highway, the N3, and it’s a fun road. The peak is Mill Creek Summit at 1493m, where the temperature had dropped off and I was really starting to feel glad I’d hired a touring bike equipped with a massive screen. I was able to often ride with it fully up (it’s electrically powered) and look through, rather than over. This effectively eliminated wind noise, created a calm environment for me to ride in and kept me warmer… I’m not so sure I would have been so happy had the weather been as warm as I’d expected, but I’ll take the wins where I can.
For twistier parts of the road I dropped the screen and looked over it, but at the end of each day I was really pleased with my choice of bike – anything sportier would have been harder on the body, I wasn’t riding gravel roads on an adventure bike this trip – I’m not sure I’m keen to do that solo in a foreign country – so the RT was a great choice. More comfortable than my FJR1300 I’ll note, but the Yamaha’s engine is a lot more fun.
Leaving the mountains you drop down in altitude – Palmdale sits at 898m above sea level on an arid plain, so I, of course, stopped to photograph the cactus. Discovering contrails in the sky added something a little special to the images I think, but even so seeing the big succulents eking out an existence in the thin soils of the region is another reason to travel the world.
The twin cities of Lancaster and Palmdale are actually still within the bounds of the Los Angeles County, so I didn’t actually make it out of LA on the first day… kinda. However, not being sure exactly where I’d make it to on the first night meant I hadn’t booked a room, and that would prove expensive…
I starting hitting the accommodation Apps and eventually settled on a room in Lancaster which seemed expensive at $135US, but got a lot more expensive when they slipped in a charge of $15 for the bike parking… which was obscene for the area. I was diligent about motel pricing after that experience. Not only that, but the room’s AC seemed as loud as the jets I heard flying in and out of the nearby Edwards Airforce Base!
Motorcycling might be my great passion, but food is close behind. I love to cook, I love to discover flavours and new gastronomic experiences, but I wasn’t expecting much on this trip – I’ve been to the USA before and while there are amazing restaurants in this amazing country, mostly it’s a dedication to too much sugar, too much food, not enough nutrition and something I really noticed on this trip, an absence of subtlety.
A quick Google pointed me to Gino’s (Italian) Restorante, at the edge of a shopping centre walking distance from my motel. It looked pretty good, but was very quiet on a Thursday evening with just a scattering of the 100-odd tables taken.
A young man quickly greeted me on arrival, took me to a booth. Very friendly and helpful, I’d either found someone who loves being a waiter or someone who was working for tips, and somehow I suspected the latter. After checking out the menu I asked a few more questions of my waiter, who was, again, helpful, although I ordered the dish he didn’t recommend, partly because my partner dislikes eggplant and she wasn’t with me for this trip, so it was an easy way to enjoy some. The eggplant parmigiana came out and punched me in the tastebuds. The tomato and cheese flavours were strong on a palate, a rush which made those first mouthfuls intense.
But then I realised, I was eating eggplant but could barely taste it – overpowered by the American diet of intense, probably enhanced, foods. If I were in Europe, the eggplant and herbs would have been allowed to shine through. I know what I prefer.
Adjacent to the Palmdale airport is the Blackbird Airpark, which houses a couple of Lockheed SR-71 Blackbirds – the fastest aeroplanes ever built. I’m a sucker for a museum, and an even bigger sucker for fast planes, and when I realised I’d timed things correctly – the Airpark only opens Friday-Sunday – I decided to hang around town until 11 and check it out.
The eggplant parmigiana came out and punched me in the tastebuds…
Not quite as big as I expected yet with a ratio of engine to airframe which reflects the incredible performance of these aircraft, the SR-71s on display looked a little rough around the edges, reminding me of grand prix machines of a similar era (developed late ’60s) – handmade and built to do a job, not look slick. Indeed, the panels of the Blackbird expand when heated, and things get hot at Mach 3, so the aeroplane probably looked better in the air travelling fast than it ever did on the ground.
I’m glad I went to the Airpark and captured the images you see here, but the road was calling, so I was back on the bike and heading north, on to the Tehachapi Mountains.
Palmdale is north of the San Gabriel Mountains, on the western edge of the plains which, if you travel east, turns into the Mojave Desert – dry, hot and flat, not what I’m looking for. I turned back toward the west and the Tehachapi Mountains, which are actually the southern tip of a long mountain range, the Sierra Navada.
The roads through the Sierra Navada wind along rivers, twist up through canyons, are covered in switchbacks up steep hills. It’s a motorcyclist’s idea of nirvana…
Next Month, Nigel continues his California Ride, heading to Yosemite and onto Death Valley and more…
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