We were coming home after a 4 hour, 140 mile tour around Southern California, Mike’s playground for his new silver-coloured road hog!
This is a new hobby for him, which I was more than happy to try out. I’ve actually never gone on a long drive with a motorbike before.
Biking, cruising, touring, not even sure about the right terminology here, this is one whole subculture. Of course you need the 950cc big bike. Then there is the secret salute when bikers pass. Plus the leather jacket. I always wondered why bikers wear jackets, after all it was a sunny and hot California day. Well, at that speed, it does actually get cold. As well, it’s good protection if something was to go wrong, god forbid. There’s also the leather gloves and the boots – I get those – but why the baggy straight-cut jeans? I soon found out why in my tapered G-Star worn out jeans. It’s because when you sit in that position for a long time, as well as getting on and off the bike, you don’t want to have tight jeans on. Loose is the name of the game here. Simply, it’s more comfortable.
As we drove out of San Diego and hit HWY 94, going right along the fenced off Mexican border, we entered the magical landscape of Southern California. It always astounds me. No matter that there are 3 very large and prominent cities on the Californian coast, when you go slightly inland, you might as well be light years from any civilization. The landscape is stark and barren. It’s only June and it’s already dry. Imagine what it’s going to be like by September. No kidding they’re so exposed to bush fires. Unfortunately, all you need is a little spark and the whole hill lights up. It all looks rather flammable.
We stopped for lunch at a typical bikers diner – Barrett Junction Cafe. As we approached the little joint you could see all the hogs parked outside. My lunch of scrambled eggs, hash browns and toast could have fed two. Nevertheless, I ate it all. The waitress was a charismatic older lady, with bespectacled eyes that was very much on mañana time. BTW, she said, that doesn’t necessarily mean tomorrow, just not today. You got it girl!
As we drove off towards Sunrise HWY, entering Cleveland National Forest, I realized for the first time how high up we were. We had climbed to an altitude of 6,000 feet, for suddenly on a turn we realized we were riding on the edge of a big canyon with a stunning view. Did we stop? No! My tour master made us have a pit-stop literally 100 metres prior, in a wooded area, with absolutely no view.
As we started our descent into San Diego, touring down HWY 79 and past Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, the landscape became haunted. Hilly desert landscape and low shrubs with dead white trees jutting out. That was followed by lakes and expansive meadows. We also passed whole camper communities with horses. I wasn’t sure if people actually lived there with their horses, or if this was a spot where everyone came to air-out their horses on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Stunning, stunning, stunning! It’s such a great feeling of freedom when you’re amongst beautiful nature. And riding exposed to the elements on the back of a motor bike. The only thing better may have been if I was riding the Yamaha.
After little over 4 hours, with several pit stops underway, my butt was starting to hurt. I had to start pumping my butt cheeks towards the end, to get some blood into them, otherwise they were going to fall off! How do bikers do cross country tours? It’s not the most comfortable position to be in for a long time.
I gave Mike a 10 out of 10 for this experience. It was fantastic! I can now see the appeal of owning a motorbike. But then you also have to have accessibility to country roads, spectacular nature and dry and sunny weather for it all to make sense. And San Diego is a perfect place for that. And Singapore is not.
The only thing he needs to improve on is the tour guiding. God damn, next time stop at some great viewpoints so that I can take some photos!
Follow Bojan’s travel reviews on his blog www.gowithbo.info
