Dancing with the Devil

Another blog title dilemma.  I went with the one you see above.  I almost went with “Quoted by the NY Post.”

This is a blog about a dynamite So Cal loop ride, one that I covered for Motorcycle Classics magazine a couple of years ago and one that was (as the saying goes) critically-acclaimed in the NY Post.  No kidding.  I’ll get to that in a second or two.  First, the ride:  It’s circumnavigation of the San Gabriel Mountains, with a stop at the Devil’s Punchbowl State Park.   The Punchbowl was burned out during one of the recent California wildfires, but it will be back.  Here’s the route:

This ride includes a stretch along the northern side of the San Gabriels, a hop over the San Andreas Fault, Mt. Emma Road to cut around the northwest corner, the magnificent Angeles Crest Highway, and more.  I like to start south of the San Gabriels and head up through Cajon Pass on I-15, grab the 138, and then take a quick left on Lone Pine Road.  That’s a nice long climb up into the San Gabriels, it’s desolate, and it’s scenic.

I wrote up this ride for Motorcycle Classics, and suprisingly, the NY Post newspaper had nice things to say about it.  They prepped an article critiquing other motorcycle mag articles, but they liked my piece.  Here’s what they had to say:

Funny how it’s Motorcycle Classics, a magazine focused more on the bike than the ride, that really revved our two-wheeled wanderlust.

Joe Berk takes us on a ride through a passage in California’s San Gabriel Mountains called “The Devil’s Punchbowl.” The piece opens with a picture of a San Andreas Fault sign. Berk only gets one page to draw us in, but he has us ready to put our keys in the ignition.

“The Nirvana-like northern segment through the San Gabriels’ scenic twisties is … where the fun begins,” Berk advises. Later he describes a “ragged and rugged canyon” created by “a misbehaving San Andreas fault.”

Having indulged in the “crisp pine-scented mountain air” and taking in views of the Mojave Desert to his right and the San Gabriel summits to his left, Berk stops to recommend the French toast at the Grizzly Cafe. “You can thank me later,” he writes.

You can read the NY Post article here (you might want to see what they said about a couple of the other moto mags) and the Motorcycle Classics Devil’s Punchbowl story here.

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You probably already know this, but both the guys who write the ExNotes blog (yours truly and Joe Gresh) are well published.  You can read some of Gresh’s work here, and some of mine here.

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