Motorcycle Adventure Ride – Page 29

Riding Tools

Our good buddy Mike Huber, who literally lives his life from a motorcycle, has shared several great stories with us in the past. This one came in yesterday, it’s one of his best. It’s about the websites and services that support you when in the field, and it’s a great read and a great resource. We’re happy to share it with our ExNotes readers.

Mike, thanks again!

Many people think motorcyclists just wake up, ride in whatever direction we want, have no plans, and live without a care in the world. This stereotype often is true, but for veteran riders who have battled weather, crashes, and other unforeseeable incidents we know that being prepared with the proper tools and having our awareness honed can not only save our lives, but will allow for a more enjoyable ride when we do encounter these obstacles.

There have been a lot of trial and error moments over the years living as a fulltime motorcyclist; some of these errors in hindsight could have been easily avoided with little planning and the use of a few tools. I want to share a few links and tips with you to improve your safety and riding experience while avoiding the headaches I have had to conquer in the past.

Camping

For me, dispersed camping is the only way to go. When beginning motorcycle camping KOAs and local state parks are great for training wheels to learn and overcome mistakes or equipment you forgot or need to purchase, but can be rather loud and unfulfilling as a camping getaway. After a few incidents with generators running at all hours, kids screaming, and dogs barking I realized this wasn’t communing with nature at all. It was, however, testing my patience and destroying my Zen. From that moment on dispersed camping on a motorcycle is all I do (with the exception of some National Parks). Dispersed camping allows you to be alone deep in nature with a crackling fire reflecting off the steel of your motorcycle while embracing the silence. This is an experience not to be missed as a motorcyclist and these two links below have greatly helped in guiding me to some beautiful and unforgettable campsites that otherwise would never have been located.

freecampsites.NET
ioverlander.com

Riding Offroad

Everyone has different ability levels on their own style of motorcycle when it comes to off-roading. The links below provide information on the terrain you will likely encounter and difficulty levels which can keep you from getting in over your head while riding these beautiful roads. Along with these links, speaking to locals in coffee shops and bars can be an invaluable resource since many of them will be up to speed with the current conditions and be able to provide you with tips and suggestions that websites just can’t compete with.

alltrails.com
trailsoffroad.com

Weather/Area Warnings

The apps below are another must have for any serious rider. Storms in the mountains can appear very ferociously and with little warning at times. Staying current on weather and fire conditions will minimize your risk of being caught in a dangerous situation. These tools when used can enable you to avoid and even learn to wait out, outrun, or detour around many storms. An added suggestion would be to scout out the weather and fire conditions in the area you plan to camp. Dispersed camping often will leave you with no cell phone signal or other warning capabilities. Researching these conditions ahead of time will not only ensure you are comfortable from a weather standpoint, but can also save your life if there are adverse conditions or wild fires you aren’t prepared for.

myradar.com
windy.com
https://www.fireweatheravalanche.org/fire/

Emergency Support

When I began my journey I spoke with several riders (especially those doing the BDRs (Backcountry Discovery Routes) who swore on using a GPS or satellite communication device for emergencies. I thought at the time this was overkill even for my deep level of preparedness. Well it just took one solid fall while off-roading to convince me otherwise. I now keep this device in my riding jacket at all times (not on the bike, as in a crash you and the bike tend to part ways) in the event I do require help and am alone without cell phone coverage. The SPOTGen3 also has an “All OK” signal I use each evening when camping so my Mom knows I am safe and not in any danger.

https://international.findmespot.com/#/

These are the websites and apps I have learned to use and appreciate while riding and camping off my motorcycle. I am always interested in learning what other tools people are using on their motorcycle trips in order to continue and pass on ideas to others in our tightly knit motorcycle community.

Mike, that’s awesome. Thanks so much for sharing this with us and our readers. All the way, Amigo!

A Santa Cruz Mountains Loop

I had a great ride this week…a loop through the Santa Cruz Mountains down to the Pacific coast and back. Think giant redwoods, beautiful scenes, great roads, and a rich history.

First, the route: It’s a quick hop down the 280 to the Woodside exit (that’s Highway 84), and then a twisty ride west on the 84 to Highway 35. Highway 35 is called Skyline Boulevard, which runs north to Highway 92, and 92 drops down to Half Moon Bay. Then it was another left onto the world-famous Pacific Coast Highway. I had an interesting stop at a very old cemetery just off the PCH, and after that I continued south to San Gregorio State Beach. Another left put me back on 84 and on into La Honda. From there, the 84 completed the loop. Here’s what it looks like:

The area to the west of 280 is surprisingly rural for a location so close to San Francisco (about 30 miles to the north) and Silicon Valley (which sort of starts just on the other side of 280). Highway 84 is a quick ride to the first town on this loop, and that’s Woodside.

Woodside is one of the wealthiest towns in America. A partial list of the big names who live or have lived in Woodside include Charles Schwab (yes, that Charles Schwab), Steve Jobs, Michelle Pfeiffer (the classiest actress ever), Joan Baez, Nolan Bushnell (the founder of Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain), Scott Cook (the founder of Intuit), Carl Djerassi (a novelist and the guy who developed the birth control pill), Larry Ellison (the CEO of Oracle Corporation), James Folger (as in need a cup of coffee?), Kazuo Hirai (the CEO of Sony), Mike Markkula (the second Apple CEO), Gordon E. Moore (Intel’s co-founder and originator of Moore’s Law), Prince Vasili Alexandrovich (the nephew of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia), Shirley Temple, John Thompson (Symantec’s CEO), and Nick Woodman (founder and CEO of GoPro). Woodside is within commuting distance of Silicon Valley, so it’s understandable, I guess, why so many high-rolling Silicon Valley types call it home. Needless to say, I didn’t bump into any of these folks on my ride (if I had, you’d see photos here). Given the choice, I’d like to meet Michelle Pfeiffer, but it just wasn’t in the cards that day. Charles Schwab would be cool, too, as Charles Schwab & Company have done well for me. Maybe next time.

After passing through Woodside and climbing into the Santa Cruz Mountains, it’s on to the intersection of Highways 84 and 35. Alice’s Restaurant is right at that intersection. Getting there was fun. The road has 15-mph hairpins and there are redwoods, eucalyptus, and other tall trees on either side. In many cases they form a green leafy tunnel over the road. I would have liked to grab a photo or two, but there was literally no place to stop and truth be told, I had my hands full.

It’s only about 3 1/2 miles from the 280 to Alice’s on Highway 84. Before you get too excited, it’s not that Alice’s Restaurant (you know, the one in the Arlo Guthrie song). But the woman who started this restaurant is named Alice, and hey, why not ride that coattail? I was there during the week and I was able to get a photo of the place. When I went by on an earlier weekend, Alice’s was jammed with people, motorcycles, and Ferraris.

Highway 35 is called Skyline Boulevard. I think of a boulevard as a city street, but this was nothing like that. It was another twisting mountain road and the views were stunning.

Skyline Boulevard tees into Highway 92 at its northern end and my ride along it was only 13 miles, but 13 miles can take a while on mountain roads. Part of it is the twisting nature of the roads and part of it is the scenery. I had the road to myself and it was awesome. Skyline Boulevard follows the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There are places where you can see San Francisco Bay looking to the right, and the Pacific on the left. The photo below shows the Crystal Springs Reservoir to the east, and if you look real hard, you can almost see San Francisco Bay beyond it.

When I reached Highway 92, another quick 5.4 miles brought me to Half Moon Bay.

Highway 92 has twists and turns, but it’s a busy road and Half Moon Bay is a tourist place. Not needing any refrigerator magnets and having been there many times before, I didn’t stop in Half Moon Bay on this ride. But it’s a cool place and based on my earlier visits, it’s impossible to find a bad restaurant (my favorite is the Greek Taverna on the left side of 92 as it nears the PCH; it’s a great walkup place for fresh seafood). Bring money; things are not cheap in Half Moon Bay. The major employer is the Ritz Carlton Hotel (it’s that kind of place).

Another interesting tidbit about Half Moon Bay: They used to host big wave surfing competition here. They get 50 to 60 foot waves when conditions are right and the area attracts the best surfers in the world. The organizers moved the competition someplace else about three years ago. Me? I’ll stick to something safer, like riding motorcycles.

Highway 92 ends at the Pacific Coast Highway (also called the Juan Cabrillo Highway) and it runs long the Pacific for about a dozen miles before our next turn comes up (and that’s Highway 84 again, to complete our loop). Even though the road is the Pacific Coast Highway, it’s a fair way off to the Pacific and for most of that distance I couldn’t get a photo with the road and the ocean in the same frame, but hey, it’s the PCH, man. It doesn’t get much better than that, as these two Triumph-riders near San Gregorio State Beach already knew (where I finally did get the photo I wanted).

Before I reached San Gregorio State Beach, though, I had a stop I wanted to make. In researching this area before the ride, I discovered that there’s a ghost town and an old cemetery about four miles south of Half Moon Bay. It’s Purissima (with two “s”s), not to be confused with the La Purisima Mission, the subject of a recent ExNotes blog. The town of Purissima is long gone, but the cemetery is still there, and I stopped for a few photos. It’s a left on Verde Road, and the cemetery is about a half mile up the road.

I like old cemeteries. After snapping a few photos, I was back on the PCH pointed south.

Eight miles down the road at San Gregorio State Beach I made a left on Highway 84. The town of San Gregorio is just up the road. There’s not much there, but the people are friendly. When I stopped for a shot of their general store there was a guy with a white beard taking in the day. When he saw me taking pictures, he asked if I wanted him to move. “No way,” I said. “Stay right there. You add character to the place.”

The Spaniards were the first Europeans to pass through this area in 1769 when they were expanding the Alta California mission chain. They stayed for a bit and named the area San Gregorio after Pope Gregory I. San Gregorio became a favored 1850s destination when San Franciscans visited the area for swimming, fishing, and hunting. Grizzly bears used to live in these hills, you know. And mountain lion. And deer (the ones the mountain lions didn’t get). I’ll bet the hunting was good. I’ve hunted California’s coastal mountains a hundred miles or so further south (we were chasing wild boar, but all I ever got was poison oak). The thought of going after a grizzly bear with a single-shot muzzleloader 170 years ago crossed my mind more than a few times as I rode through this area.

Further up the 84 (heading east) I entered the tiny town of La Honda (the name means “the sling” in Spanish). Impressive redwood trees made me stop for a photo, but before I could get to the trees this motorcycle whizzed by:

La Honda is a nice little place. I chatted with an old guy who had an English bulldog. I say old, but he was probably about the same age as me. “I did that once,” he said. “Stopped because my car was making a noise and decided this is where I was going to retire.” We had a nice conversation. He’s a former aerospace guy like me, and we talked shop for a bit about the good old days. You know, when the cold war was still in a full tilt boogie and the aerospace industry was the closest you could get to Heaven without a one-way ticket.

La Honda is a wide spot in the road that isn’t very wide at all, but it sure has a colorful background. The outlaw Cole Younger and his brothers used to live here. That’s the Younger brothers who ran with Jesse James (the real one, not the reality TV dude). The Younger brothers hid out in La Honda because it was cool and it was remote. Ken Kesey lived here (he wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), and his drug-fueled La Honda exploits with Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe are documented in Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. And like I mentioned above, grizzly bears used to live in these mountains. There are stories about a guy who survived a grizzly attack by killing the bear with his knife (not Davy Crockett, but the two would have probably got along). Fewer than a thousand people live in La Honda (at least as recorded by the last census). It’s a cool place made even cooler (literally and figuratively) by the giant redwood trees in the area.

So, about those redwoods:

I was hungry when I reached La Honda. I usually select a place to eat based on how many vehicles are parked in front (who needs Yelp?) and by that measure, the La Honda Country Market looked mighty inviting (I had to wait for other folks to leave to get the unobstructed photo you see below). The Country Market has a killer deli bar. I had a pastrami sandwich on toasted marbled rye and it was maybe the best pastrami sandwich I ever had. Give it a shot. You can thank me later.

I’m up in this area fairly regularly, but this is the first time I’ve done the loop described here. It’s a great ride best done during the week. Because it is such a great ride (and because it’s close to both Silicon Valley and San Francisco), these roads are jammed on the weekends (motorcycles, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Cobras, McClarens, and other motoexotica). When I did the ride on Tuesday, the roads were delightfully open.

I’d advise avoiding speeding (especially on the weekends, as the roads had a significant CHP presence) and I’d also say don’t wear a tinted visor. The giant redwoods and eucalyptus trees bathe the roads in alternating patches of bright sunlight and deep shade (the riding equivalent of chiaroscuro), and in the shade it’s tough to see through a dark visor.

The ride I described above is about 60 miles from the point you exit the 280 until you get back on it, as shown in the map at the top of this blog. I’d allow about two hours for a relaxed ride during the week, and maybe throw in another hour or two if you want to stop for breakfast or lunch.

Want to see our other rides on one of the greatest roads in the world? That would be California’s Pacific Coast Highway, and you can see it here.

Day 7: Volcan Nevado del Ruiz

On my 8th day in Colombia and 7th day on the road, we left the town of Honda and rode to the top of Volcan Nevado del Ruiz, which took us up to about 14,000 feet. It was the highest I’d ever ridden and I was surprised at how well the RS3 (the carbureted version of the RX3) was doing. But I’m getting ahead of myself…let’s get into the blog I wrote for CSC Motorcycles at the end of that fine day.

Posted on December 21, 2015

A delightful hotel, sweltering heat, more mountain twisties, freezing cold, fog that cut visibility down to 30 feet, dirt roads, riding at 13,576 feet, hot sulfur baths, and a burbling volcano that killed 23,000 people in 1985…all in a day’s ride for us.

The hotel first…it was the Epoque, a great little boutique hotel in Honda that was one of the coolest places (in one of the hottest cities) I’ve ever parked a motorcycle. It was arranged in a square around a small pool (which we enjoyed immensely the previous night). Here are a few shots of the courtyard, Juan and Carlos having breakfast, and an antique record player in the dining room…

From there, it was another trials ride following the boys from Medellin as we twisted, turned, climbed, and descended cobbleboulder streets in Honda. Juan took us to the first bridge to ever span the Magdalena River, where I grabbed this shot of a Colombian woman taking in the humid morning air of Honda…

Here’s the bridge. It has planks across the bottom as the road surface. It’s real Indiana Jones stuff….

We saw the Magdalena River museum, and stopped in to check it out. Folks, it was hot. I was soaking wet by now, drenched in sweat.

The museum was interesting and it had some bizarre art. This guy reminds me of a boss I had a couple of decades ago…

The Colombians used steamships on the Magdalena, just like we did on the Mississippi River.

We left Honda and started to climb. The temperatures dropped mercifully. We stopped in Fresno. Yep, Colombia has a Fresno, too.

That’s me in the town square. I’m the guy on the right.

Two young ladies in a small store in Fresno.

As we were sipping energy drinks, Juan pointed out our destination for that evening, the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz. It was showing a little steam, and I stuck an arrow in this picture so you could see it.

We continued our climb. The roads were magnificent.

The photo below shows my front tire, with chicken strips that are about as small as I’ve ever been able to make them. I was getting better at keeping up with the Colombian motorcycle community.

Our riding positions are Juan, me, and Carlos. Juan is amazing. I’m struggling to keep up in the twisties, and I know he’s dialed it back for me. He’ll ride through the corners (and the roads are all corners, folks) standing on the pegs. At one point, we were taking a set of curves at speeds way above those at which I would normally ride, with the bikes leaned over at an unimaginable angle, when I looked ahead and saw Juan. He was standing on the pegs, similarly leaned over, and while all this was going on, he was reaching back to check the latch on one of his saddlebags as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do. The guy is an incredible rider.

As we continued to climb, we entered the clouds. Literally. We left the pavement and got on a dirt road headed up to the volcano.

4,138 meters! That’s 13,576 feet, and it’s as high as you can go on a motorcycle anywhere in Colombia. Juan told me he once did this ride on a Yamaha DT100, carrying a passenger on the back!

That’s not dirt on my RX3, folks. It’s volcanic ash. This was not your typical motorcycle ride.

Yours truly, posing with Carlos, on the top of the world, on top of a volcano with indigestion. Wow. This volcano is the very same one that blew in 1985 and wiped out an entire community. It was like Pompeii, as the guys explained it to me. 23,000 people lost their lives in that event. And here we were, riding in conditions where I could barely see Juan’s tail light in front of me, on dirt roads, in bitter cold. Wow.

Here are a couple of shots showing my helmet and my jacket, dusted with Volcan Nevado del Ruiz ash.

We left the volcano, rode another 20 kilometers on this dirt road, and found our hotel in the middle of nowhere.

The hotel had hot springs, and they were awesome. I had a good soak, we had dinner, and that was the end of Day 7 on this epic journey.

Today is our last day. We’re finishing our great circumnavigation and headed back to Medellin. Much of our ride today will be on dirt. I’ll take a few shots and post about it tomorrow.

Later, my friends.

You can read the earlier blogs from this great trip, and a few other moto adventures, here on our Epic Rides page!

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La Purisima Mission

As a New Jersey boy, our history courses in grade school and high school mostly focused on local and regional things, like the American Revolution and maybe a little bit of the Civil War, and then it was time to graduate. I grew up in the middle of a lot of significant Revolutionary War stuff, with maybe a little Gettysburg thrown in, and our class trips and studies tended to focus accordingly. What I’m getting at is I had never heard of the California or Baja missions until I moved to California, got married, and had kids. Then one day my young daughter came home from school and told me she had been assigned a mission.

“To do what,” I asked, thinking it was like getting a mission in the Army.

“San Gabriel,” she answered.

“Huh?” I was a curious and articulate parent.

My daughter patiently explained to her dumb old Dad what the California missions were. I had never heard of the missions until that day. But I’ve been making up for it ever since. I never pass on an opportunity to learn more about the Alta California and Baja missions, and it’s a story that’s far more interesting than the stuff I studied in school.

My favorite California mission, hands down, is La Purisima. It’s the best one there is north of the border. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

A bit on the photography first: I shot all the images here with a film camera (a Nikon N70). That’s how long I’ve been stopping in at the La Purisima Mission in Lompoc, California. It’s just a few miles inland off the Pacific Coast Highway. Surprisingly few people know of it, but if you’re planning a trip up the PCH, La Purisima is a must see destination.

This California motorcycle ride occurred as a backup to a plan to dive deep into Baja 20 years ago that just didn’t work out. Good buddy Paul flew out from New Jersey and rented a Harley in San Diego, and the plan was to ride into Baja to see the whales. That’s how it started. I had my ’92 Softail, but it gave up the ghost somewhere around Ensenada. It happens, I guess. Paul and I had to turn around and head home. No problem. I owned four or five motorcycles in those days (I was like Joe Gresh back then, with lots of hair and lots of motorcycles). We’d just park my Harley and I’d grab another bike.

Yours truly and Paul, both suffering from the two of the worst cases of helmet hair ever captured on film. I no longer have that problem. That’s the Pacific Ocean in the background.

Paul had a Harley Fat Boy he rented from EagleRider in San Diego. It was a motorcycle that worked well for this trip. It would have been cool if I could have ridden my Harley, too, but on this trip the motorcycles were a two-wheeled odd couple.

A skinny guy on a Fat Boy somewhere on the Pacific Coast Highway.

I switched over to my Suzuki TL1000S, a bike most people would think was totally unsuited for long-distance motorcycle touring. But it did the job and it did it well. I was younger then and I bent easier; I don’t think I could do a long ride on a sportbike today. The ADV style suits me better. So does a Subaru Outback, but I digress.

A tankbag and a tail pack, and oila, the TL became a touring machine.

Paul and I rode north on the 101 out of LA a bit and then took California’s 246 west from Buellton. I had been to the La Purisima Mission before and I wanted to show it to Paul. It’s not well known as a tourist destination, but it should be. The place is amazing.

A view out front showing the length of the main building and the bell tower.

La Purisima Mission (Misión La Purísima Concepción De María Santísima, or Mission of the Immaculate Conception of Most Holy Mary) was founded in December of 1787. It was a good stop and I got some great photos with my old film Nikon.

A cool front porch. It’s easy to imagine the original inhabitants seeking shade under this roof.

Another exterior view of the La Purisima Mission.

A sundial that appeared to be keeping excellent time. A friend asked what the sundial did when it was time to switch to Daylight Savings Time. That watch is the first version of Citizen’s Blue Angels GMT. It has a bezel slide rule. I still wear it.

The 2000-acre La Purisima Mission is one of only two missions in California not run by the Catholic Church, and it is the only one that faithfully recreates a complete historic mission operation.

A bit of background: La Purisima sort of fell apart starting in the early 1800s. Things were not going well for Spain in the New World and things were especially not going well for the California missions. The mission’s enslaved Chumash natives rebelled, smallpox decimated the indigenous population, Mexico won its independence from Spain and disbanded the mission system, and things generally just went to hell in a handbasket if you were the guy running the missions. The La Purisima property went through several owners. Union Oil bought the place in 1903 and then donated it to California. A huge research and reconstruction effort commenced, and the La Purisima Mission was opened to the public on December 7, 1941 (yep, the same day as the Pearl Harbor attack). Everything at La Purisima had been resurrected as it existed in 1820, including the furniture, the buildings, and even the adobe bricks made from surrounding soil.

You’ve seen the exterior in the photos above. Let’s head into the buildings to see what life was like in the late 1700s and early 1800s for the mission inhabitants.

Inside the chapel. One of the Mission’s objectives was to convert the native Chumash to Catholicism.

Another one of the rooms in the La Purisima Mission.

There’s disagreement these days about whether the Spanish mission system provided enlightenment or enslavement for the natives. The missions were intended to establish a Spanish presence in Alta California. Spain had claimed Mexico and California (and large parts of the American southwest), but they didn’t really have anyone there watching the store until they started the missions in the second half of the 1700s. The Spanish had concerns about other nations claiming the territory. Teach the indigenous people a trade, keep them busy farming and making stuff, and let’s grow it from there. It didn’t quite work out that way.

An objective of mission life was to teach leather work and other skills.

I’m not sure what this equipment was used for, but that’s okay. It means I have a reason to return to La Purisima.

The Mission’s original latrine. That’s Paul behind the curtain.

Thick adobe walls kept the inside of the Mission cool.

La Purisima is still an active farm and ranch. This rather photogenic turkey kept asking us how many days it was until Thanksgiving.

This, my friends, is a Longhorn. Like the turkey above, he had no qualms posing for us.

If you’re planning that bucket list ride on the Pacific Coast Highway, my advice is to include a stop at the La Purisima Mission. You’re only about 13 miles inland from the PCH, and it’s too grand a destination to pass without a visit. You might want to allow a couple of hours to see and photograph this marvelous old place.

Another word on the images here: I’m going to use some of them in a story I recently wrote for my favorite motorcycle magazine. I knew I had these 20-year-old images squirreled away somewhere, but finding them was a challenge. I finally found the prints, but I couldn’t find the negatives. After another hour digging through old boxes, I miraculously found them, too. I thought I’d just have Costco’s photo department scan the negatives for me, and then I thought it might be a good idea to call first and make sure the photo department was open (you know, what with Covid 19 and all). They were, and I told the photo dude I’d be right over to get my negatives scanned.

“We don’t do that,” he said.

“Yeah, you do,” I answered, figuring I was talking to a new guy who just didn’t know. “You’ve done it for me before.”

“Sir, we haven’t touched anything with film in years,” he said.

Hmmmmm. Come to think of it, it had been a while since I’d seen any film for sale in Costco. And it had been a lot of years since I shot anything on film.

The Costco guy suggested a small mom and pop operation across the street from the Costco store, and that’s where I went. What you see here are the results of the Photo Factory’s scans (thanks, guys!).

Time marches on, I guess.

More Epic Rides are here!

Day 6: Honda

The Colombia motoventure continues! This is Day 6 of my epic ride through Colombia’s Andes Mountains with good buddies Juan and Carlos, two great guys with whom I’ve stayed in contact ever since our Andean adventure. Without further ado, here we go!

Originally posted on December 20, 2015

Let me see if I can get this right: I’m a guy from California riding a Chinese motorcycle in Colombia headed to a town called Honda. Yep, that was yesterday’s ticket.

We left Villa de Leyva early in the morning, climbed higher into the Andes, and wow, was it ever cold. Juan Carlos stopped so we could grab a few photos..

As I was taking in the scenery, this Colombian SUV rolled into the scene…

We next stopped at the point where Colombia was born. The last battle of the Colombian war of independence (against Spain) occurred right here at this bridge in Boyaga…

The Colombian rebels defeated the Spanish regulars here, and at that point, Colombia was born. There are a lot of parallels between how Colombia came into being and our Revolutionary War.

Boyaga is actually pronounced “boy-jogga.” In Colombian Spanish, a y is pronounced like a j. So is a double l (as in ll). A montallanta (a tire repair place) is called a “monta-jonta.” Interesting.

Following Juan through these small towns was fascinating and taxing. We’re up in the Andes, and everything is steep. Juan is incredible…we climb these steep cobblestone streets, cut across some guy’s front lawn, grab a dirt road, pick up a new street, every once in a while (while still riding) he pulls up alongside a guy on horse or a tractor to confirm directions (Juan’s GPS, as he calls it), and we cut across the Colombian countryside. It’s amazing. Here’s a sampling of what it looks like, both in the dirt (and there is a lot of dirt riding) and through the small towns…

We hit a last stretch of twisties (a 50-mile stretch) and then we pulled over for a photo of the Magdalena River valley. Our destination (the town of Honda) is down there somewhere…

Honda is a another steep town. This street (that’s our hotel, the Epoque, on the left) is a typical super steep Colombian town road. The road is a one way road…I tried parking the bike facing down hill, but it was too steep. I thought I could just leave the bike in first gear and kill the ignition, but the street was so steep it pulled the bike through the compression stroke. That’s why the bikes are facing uphill. These are unusual riding conditions for me, but totally normal to the Colombians.

Today we’re headed to Santa Rosa de Cabal. You can read all about it in the next installment in this series!

You can read the earlier blogs in this series from Colombia here!

A TT250 Ride

I woke up last Friday with but one thought: I have got to get out on my motorcycle today.

Well, I did, and I had a glorious ride up through the Cajon Pass in southern California. That’s the pass that cuts between the San Gabriel Mountains and the San Bernardino Mountains. Most folks would just take Interstate 15 from So Cal to the High Desert through the Cajon, but to me riding a motorcycle on the freeway is a bit of a crime against nature. There are surface streets that get you through most of the Cajon Pass, and if you know where to look, there are dirt roads that do the same. Those roads are way more fun, but it’s like I said…you have to know where to look.

Me? I know where to look.

On old Route 66 through the Cajon Pass. Yep, it’s still there, and it was a perfect photo op with my black CSC TT250 on a cloudy June morning.

Big freight trains slog through the Cajon Pass on a regular basis, and there’s a dirt road that runs along the tracks for several miles. It was a perfect road for the TT250. I was out there on my own, having a good old time when I stopped to grab a photo, and that’s when I heard it. The rails, that is. They started singing. They do that when there’s a train downrange. You can actually hear the metallic buzz the rails emit miles before the train comes into view. Time to switch the cell phone camera to the video mode. I didn’t see anything for a couple of minutes, and then way down the hill in the distance I could just make out a headlight. Then that one orange orb became three blurry headlights, the signature of the first of several freight locomotives. They were working hard. It takes a lot of power to pull a train up a mountain pass. The lights grew in size, the indistinct three orange dots came into focus, and there it was:

The train was a monster. I finished the video, I took several stills, and then I mounted up and rode at a sedate pace in the opposite direction for a good five minutes before I saw the end of that train. I’ll bet it was three miles long. Maybe more. There were four locomotives pulling and there was a fifth on the tail end. It’s hard to imagine the weight and the energy of a freight train like the one I saw that morning. And it was doing it all going uphill, charging through the Cajon Pass from the Pomona Valley up to the High Desert. It was impressive.

That train just kept coming, and coming, and coming.

I had a hell of a ride that morning. A bit of freeway (but not too much), a fair amount of dirt, a stream crossing that was deeper than I thought it would be (and damn, there was no one to video me standing on the pegs with water splashing all over my boots and jeans), a train, Old Route 66, and nice, cool weather. It was grand.

It was about 5 years ago that I was sitting in Zongshen’s marketing offices in Chongqing discussing this, that, and the other thing on the RX3 for CSC Motorcycles. All the while, I kept stealing peeks at a 150cc dual sport bike the Zongshen wizards had mounted on a display pedestal in their conference area. Finally, I asked…what’s the deal on that motorcycle? Can it be had with a 250cc engine?

My good friend Chongqing Fan smiled. I could read that guy like a book, and what I was reading was this: He knew, and he knew I knew: The guys at Zongshen, China’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, they can do anything. A few quick digital pics back to CSC, a recommendation, a quick decision from a CEO who’s not afraid to make decisions (that would be Azusa Steve), and the CSC TT250 was born. I own one of the very first to arrive in America, and it’s been a hoot. We’ve even done Baja on the TT250s (talk about brand loyalty…half the guys on that ride also own an RX3). CSC can barely keep TT250 motorcycles in stock; they sell as soon as they arrive. Most of the time, they’re sold before the ship gets here.

I selected black for my TT250 (one of three or four colors available in 2016) because I thought it would photograph well, and I was right. It does a lot more than just sit there and look pretty, though. The TT250 is a great motorcycle. It’s simple, torquey, easy to maintain, great handling, reliable, comfortable, and inexpensive. Plus, I know the factory and the people who make and import this motorcycle. Good buddy Gerry and I wrote the shop manual for this motorcycle, and I know the bike’s innards. You might say I know it inside and out. I think the fact that I know most everyone involved in creating and importing this motorcycle makes it even more of a hoot to ride.

TT250s on the production line in Chongqing. Mine was in there somewhere.

The TT250 is about as simple as a motorcycle gets, and it has what has to be one of the most ubiquitous and reliable motorcycle engines on the planet. You see these motors in various versions (ranging from 125cc to 250cc) everywhere. They’re bulletproof. They’re designed to be rode hard and put away wet, and that’s what folks in South America, Central America, Asia, and the Middle East do. It’s no accident that my good buddies at Janus Motorcycles chose the same engine to power their amazing 250cc motorcycles. I’m going to ride my TT250 until the wheels fall off. Then I’ll buy replacement parts for probably something like $9 and repeat the process.

The TT250 is a light bike. It’s easy to ride and easy to keep vertical (they tell me it’s easy to pick up if you drop it, but I’ve never dropped mine). The TT250 weighs 309 pounds wet and in an age of overweight, bloated, and expensive monster motorcycles, riding it is fun. It’s not an ego statement. It’s a motorcycle. It’s what a motorcycle should be. I feel like a kid every time I get on it (and in six months, I’ll be 70 years old). I started riding motorcycles on a Honda Super 90 (a 90cc single) when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. Riding a simple single makes me a hooligan again, braapping the mean streets of rural New Jersey before I was old enough to have a license and loving every second of it.

I have the 49T rear sprocket on my TT250 (one down from the stock 50T), and that’s about perfect for me. My bike tops out at about 66 mph indicated, and after my hundred mile ride through the Cajon Pass that morning I topped off and checked my fuel economy. 62.5 mpg. Just a little better than I usually get. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

I have the Wolfman bags on my TT. They’re light, they don’t get in the way, they’ve held up well, and they’re handy if I want to carry stuff. That’s usually a few tools (just in case, but I’ve never needed them on the road), a bottle of Aleve, a change of underwear, and I’m good for a couple of weeks in Baja.

Speaking of Baja, good buddy Baja John is another guy with the same affliction as me: He owns both an RX3 and a TT250. And a .44 Magnum or two, but that’s a story for another blog. Baja John keeps his TT250 at a beachfront home in Baja, and as soon as this Covid 19 business is in the rearview mirror, I’m headed down there. I want to photograph one or two of the more remote missions, John knows the trails, and the TT250 is the motorcycle to get us there.

More good times are on the horizon, folks. Stay tuned.

Epic rides reside here!

Good buddies and a great ride…

When the phone rings and it’s good buddy Duane wanting to head into the San Bernardino Mountains for a motorcycle ride, I know it’s time to hop to. That’s what I did last week and it was an awesome ride. East on the 210, up Waterman to Hwy 18 into the mountains, and then down the 138 on the other side to ride home through the Cajon Pass. Good times, and this trip was made all the more special because of two more good friends we connected with on the ride.

Duane and his magnificent Indian up in the San Bernardino Mountains. It was a glorious day.

Geezers. Motorcycle geezers. CSC Mustang and RX3 geezers. Former Army motorcycle-riding geezers. Former Army motorcycle-riding gun nut geezers. Whatcha gonna do? Great minds work alike.

It was a grand ride through one of the greatest motorcycle playgrounds on the planet. The weather was perfect and the bikes were running like Chinese 250s (I was going to say like Swiss watches, but I have Swiss watches and I have Chinese 250s, and the Chinese 250s run better). Both the Indians were running great. My Indian is an Enfield made in India. Duane’s bike is an Indian made in America. It’s very confusing, I know.

A grand day for a grand ride. No polarizers or saturation sliders needed.

So we turned onto the 138 somewhere in one of the little mountaintop towns and we had a fun slalom down through the twisties. As we approached Silverwood Lake, I wanted to stop to get a photo of the bikes. There’s this huge parking lot and it was completely empty, so I thought we would park there and I could angle my shot for the best photo.

So we’re rolling to a stop and I noticed this silver SUV pulling in behind us, and wouldn’t you know it, the guy parks right next to us. I was thinking that would completely screw up my photo. You know the drill…a parking lot the size of Texas and the guy, this, this, this interloper parks right next to me. I was all set to dip into my not-such-a-nice-guy routine when Mr. Silver SUV stepped out of his car with a giant grin.

Twin Peaks Steve!

Wow, we were ever surprised and happy. Duane and I have a lot in common, as alluded to in one of the photo captions above, and Twin Peaks Steve is right there with both of us in every regard.

We had a real nice visit overlooking Silverwood Lake and caught up on things. Steve’s beautiful wife Rosemary was there, too, and we had a wonderful chat with her. I can’t tell you how great it was bumping into these two. Steve told me he recognized us when we rode by and he and Rosemary followed us down hoping to have a chance to connect. I’m glad he did. We all met back in the CSC Mustang days about 10 years ago, when Steve was the very first guy to order a custom CSC Bobber. It was one of the prettiest bikes we ever built at CSC.

Steve’s custom CSC 150 Bobber. It was a real show stopper…a visually arresting, gorgeous little jewel of a motorcycle.

Twin Peaks Steve rode with Duane and me on a bunch of CSC rides, and the more we learned about him back in those days, the more impressed we were. How about ultra-lights as a hobby? Yep, Steve did that, too.

Ah, for the love of adventure. Twin Peaks Steve has done it all!

Then CSC went into the ADV motorcycle business by importing the RX3. Steve and Duane both bought bikes from the very first RX3 shipment to arrive in America, and we rode together (Duane, Twin Peaks Steve, and yours truly) on a bunch more rides.

Steve is a serious rider and camper, and he outfitted his RX3 with all the good stuff for disappearing into the boonies. He did a lot of trips up and down the 395 (one of the prettiest highways in America), and the motormaestro even did a guest blog or two about his adventures when I was writing the CSC blog. If you poke around on the CSC blog and search on “Twin Peaks Steve” you’ll find he’s a regular there!

Steve’s RX3 somewhere up along Highway 395. Steve is the real deal; he’s done some amazing trips on his RX3.

What a ride and what a day!

So, how about you? Are you getting out on your motorcycle? Do me and yourself a favor and live large, like Steve, Duane, and the rest of us. Get off your computer, get your riding gear, and get on the road!

More great rides are right here!

Concluding an Extended Stay in Baja

You’ll remember our intrepid troopers and guest bloggers Mike and Bobbie. Well, they managed to exit beautiful Baja after an extended stay of nearly 10 weeks. Here’s the wrap-up to that adventure. Mike, we appreciate your blogs. Ride safe and stay in touch.

Preface: When we last left our heroes (the description probably suits my girlfriend Bobbie more than myself) we were in staying in with a new friend at her house in San Felipe, Baja, Mexico to see what comes next with the COVID19 updates in the USA before deciding when to return.

San Felipe seemed the perfect place to ride out the COVID storm. We were in a safe location, plenty of supplies at local stores and the residents seemed to take the warning seriously and were wearing masks, using hand sanitizer, etc. It didn’t take long, however, for most public beaches and really everything to be shut down. Traveling too far outside the city became impossible due to Mexican Army checkpoints turning people around, so it wasn’t worth the risk to be actually “locked out abroad.”

There was one private beach that remained open that we were able to use and moto camp in, and that was Pete’s camp. We had camped here 6 weeks prior when the world was quite different and the camp was about 70% full with campers, with side-by-sides roaring up and down the beach playing Van Halen at an uncomfortable decibel level (and I love Van Halen loud), and everyone was carefree enjoying their vacations. Now, however, the scene was completely different. The beach was abandoned, it was eerily silent with nothing but us and approximately a hundred empty palapas on the beach for miles in both directions. We frequented this beach a few times a week as it was a short 4-mile ride and was our only opportunity to really get out as we cut back on our off-roading in the event we should get injured.

We fully understood how fortunate we were to be lying in hammocks, soaking up the sun on a beautiful beach that kissed the Sea of Cortez while we watched the surreal news that was coming in from America. We held weekly touch points on when and where we should go, if anywhere. Wednesday was an optimal day for these touch points since our plans would have us leave on a Friday thus allowing us 3 days to return to Arizona.

After a month we decided it was time to return as it seemed the supplies (toilet paper, etc.) were being replenished in America while the COVID fatalities seemed to be lowering and our concern that the bubble we were living in would burst quickly if (or when) the virus would make its way to Baja. More importantly, it gave us a solid excuse to get a great weekend of riding in.

We left on a Thursday afternoon to return to the United States. The ride was beautiful. There was NO line at the border to the point I almost didn’t even place the moto in neutral when going through, whereas normally there is a 1 to 3 hour line. Once inside the United States we were a bit hungry and noticed only drive thrus were open, so we got creative and set up our camping gear outside a Chili’s and had several margaritas (probably not legal, but there’s a pandemic; act accordingly!) and a burger in the parking lot.

We had eyed Kofa National Forest as a decent place to camp, and I had always wanted to visit this area so this was a perfect time since it was extremely isolated. This ensured there’d be no temptations to break social distancing. We were not disappointed in choosing this location. It was a beautiful desert landscape with the setting sun lighting up the mountains surrounding our campsite. The weather was perfect and we could take a moment to gather ourselves with it being our 1st night back in our home country in some time.

The following day after getting McDonald’s for breakfast (don’t judge; I couldn’t find a Starbucks open for my BMW to get its fix) Bobbie came up with a different route then just the boring I-10 to I-17 we normally take. Great call! It made what would have been a drab highway drive into a longer, but much more scenic ride through little towns and National Forests, where we could really enjoy the break from everything and just be in that moment fully present and enjoying each moment as we lowered off the mountain passes returning to Sedona, and for a few hours forget about the rest of the world as we returned safely home after our nearly 10-week Baja adventure.

So these two adventure riders are on the road, and at last sighting, they were camping in Colorado’s beautiful Mesa Verde National Park. Our two troopers are living the good life. I’m looking forward to their next blog.

All the way, folks.

Time for a ride…

My RX3, one of the very first bikes in the US. Numerous Baja trips, a ride through the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest, and more. That little 250 is always good for an attitude adjustment.

Not a lot of writing today, my friends. I fired up the old RX3 and rode into the mountains to clear my mind and create my own reality. It was long past time to shed the shackles of a world gone mad. No left or right wing news media (that’s all there is any more), no Covid 19, no protests, no riots, no police brutality, no defunding police departments, no masks, no shelter in place, no stupid stuff on Facebook (now there’s a redundant expression), no ridiculously bad choices in the next election (damned if you do and damned even more if you don’t), and no one telling me how to think about this, that, or the other thing. No thank you, I can think for myself, and today I thought I would go for a motorcycle ride. Other than captions, I’ll keep the words down and let the pictures do the talking.

That headlight grille and the spotlamps were gifts from Enrique Vargas, AKT Motos General Manager (and a genuine nice guy) in Medellin, Colombia.

Steve Seidner, CEO of CSC Motorcycles, created decals for each of our multi-day company rides back in the good old days. I ran out of campaign ribbon real estate on my fuel tank.

Glendora Ridge Road, my happy place. That’s Mt. Baldy and Mt. San Antonio dead ahead.

Glendora Ridge Road is one of the best wildflower spots in the country. I’ve been up there when there are red, orange, yellow, and purple wildflowers blooming at the same time.

I’ve done Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon on my 250. The most beautiful state? That’s easy: **Utah**, hands down. But they are all pretty if you know where to ride (and I do). The best riding and the best times? That’s another easy call: **Baja**. I’ve ridden Colombia and I’ve ridden China on RX3 motorcycles. Once, when I was in Turkey, a young Turk let me ride his RX3. This is a bike with long legs, folks.

So there you have it. I’m back, it was a great ride, and I had a good time. You might consider doing the same.

Epic rides reside here!

A Whale of a Tale!

Good buddy Mike, a fellow former trooper who I met on a ride through Baja a few years ago, has been sort of stranded down there until recently. Mike and his good friend Bobbie went whale watching and they had a unique experience. Mike was kind enough to share the adventure with us. Here you go, folks.

So as someone who is always seeking adventure I may have gotten in over my head with this one. Not only am I three years in living fulltime off a motorcycle, currently in Baja due to a global pandemic, but why not throw in a rescue mission at sea just to ensure I have everything covered. Sure, why not?

It was a dark and stormy night and the sea was angry…actually it was just a bit windy around mid-day when we decided to partake in a whale watching trip on pangas (small wooden boats) in Guerrero Negro, Baja, Mexico. It’s a magical encounter with nature as these majestic creatures, which are the size of a school bus. These gray whales come up to your panga and you can actually pet them and experience these animals at such a close range. It is just a magical experience…a life-altering experience.

We begin with a standard safety briefing and get bussed out to the docks, fitted with life vests, and we are all excited to get out and see these beautiful animals up close. Prior to boarding our panga I noticed another boat with 8 senior citizens leaving the same time as us and for a minute thought maybe we should jump in their boat as there were less people then our boat, but we chose to just stay where we were assigned with 12 people aboard.

The tour was going pretty well, not great as there was a lot of chop in the bay, so the whales don’t get as close as we’d like since the boat was bumping up and down. As the tour seemed to be ending I noticed we were heading not towards shore but in a direction we hadn’t been. I first thought they had spotted more whales and soon saw a giant gray object in the distance. Once we got a bit closer I realized it was not a whale at all but a capsized panga with three people clinging to the upside-down vessel by the propeller. The reality set in as we saw others floating in the water along with backpacks, camera bags, and purses. I put everything I had into a waterproof compartment in my rain jacket and handed it to my girlfriend as I saw it was the panga with the eight seniors and I said “I guess I am going for a swim.”

As we moved in to begin rescuing people from the water I performed a headcount of those in the water. Knowing it was the panga with the seniors I had all nine (eight and the captain) accounted for and saw they all looked to be relatively well. Although it was windy, it wasn’t too cold. I also remembered from the safety briefing that there were no sharks in this part of the bay. We quickly realized no one was in immediate danger.

This is where it gets fun, sorta. As with all “disasters” there’s “that guy.” The guy that has to be a hero no matter how little they know. We were “fortunate” enough to have one on our panga (damnit). The captain of our boat spoke little English but was very competent and was trying to give directions that seemed to drown out by the time they reached us since the newly unelected hero was shouting his own directions on how to handle the situation best.

Knowing the people in the water were not in great danger I sat back on the far side of the boat as a ballast, shook my head, and let the hero begin to rescue people clumsily and haphazardly pulling them into our vessel incorrectly. While this was going on I kept contemplating the consequences of throwing him overboard and rescuing the remaining seniors myself. Would saving eight people but leaving one to swim back result in any criminal charges against me in Mexico? Luckily for everyone that was a fleeting thought.

One haunting moment that really still stands out is when the captain had to re-angle the panga to rescue the last three people clinging to the propeller. Those people thought we were leaving them and began shouting “Don’t leave us, please don’t leave us.” You could hear the fear and panic in their voices. Once we were angled our “hero” had realized his uselessness and backed off allowing us to properly load the remaining three people safely into the panga without issue.

The boat ride back to the docks was a quiet and bumpy ride. Everyone was soaked, including myself (and I never even left the boat). There were three ambulances at the docks by the time we had reached it. It was a great feeling that no one required them other than for warm blankets.

Feeling great being back on dry land (not as great as the nine that were in the water) we returned to the office where we met the owner of the whale tour company and began explaining our adventure in great detail, telling the story over tequila and tacos. He brought out his guitar and played requests for us for several hours.

Mike, that’s a hell of a story. I’m glad everyone got through it without injury. We actually read about that happening in Baja not too long ago. In all the times I’ve been whale watching, I’ve never seen that happen.

Hey, the rest of our readers: If you’d like to see more Baja whale watching, here’s the page you want!