Tim bathurst
bmw R 1200gs
It’s not my daily ride this one. Not great for LA traffic. It’s a BMW R 1200GS I hired for the trip from www.motoquest.com down in Long Beach. It was a beast. Comfort and handling all at once. For such a heavy bike, you can still throw it around and get the best out of both dirt and road (it handles the sand better than me!)
BEAST FROM LONG BEACH
The hardcase panniers worked well and can pack some decent stuff. But for me it’s mostly camera equipment, wet weather gear, a trusty pair of jeans and a bunch of socks and undies begging for a laundromat.
SUUS branded us for this trip. Denim, leather, boots, tees and caps - the works. It was awesome they kitted us out, but they went bust when we returned. Too bad. The gear was good.
SOCKS AND UNDIES
I travelled this route with you (‘moto amoro’), but if I had my choice of dream road trip buddy?..... I’m going to say Jim Carrey. And we should probably go to Aspen.
DUMB AND DUMBER 3?
We spent six months mapping out plans and researching some of the best sweepers and fire roads we could find across the South West States – California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
WESTERN LOOP
The tip we’d been given was to ride to Palm Springs via “the awesome 74 to Elsinore”. The scene of multiple deaths each year, the Ortega Highway is known as one of California’s bloodiest routes for motorcyclists, connecting Riverside and Orange Counties via steep ascents and hairpin turns through Cleveland National Forest. The most memorable comment was “don’t hot-dog it, or you’ll bite it.” So we ignored the advice and gave it our all.
74 TO ELSINORE
After a late night at The Ace in Palm Springs (taking on all comers in Tequila Table Tennis) we took Hwy 62 to Joshua Tree. The National Park offers miles of twisties. We did the full loop of the Park to Twentynine Palms, and there’s an enormous amount of sand in the area. It required a new style of riding with these 230kg motorcycles and the pannier weight wasn’t helping.
TEQUILA AND TWISTIES
After the Grand Canyon we rode 270 miles east. Out of the sand and into the rocky ‘wild west’. It’s territory that has a stunning landscape ‘build’ as you ride in, that literally peaks when you hit Monument Valley and its Navajo Tribal Park called Ya’at’teeh.
YEE-HAH, YA’ AT’ TEEH
Tunes? OK. No judgement here….Boys of Summer. Summer of 69. Top Gun soundtrack. Anything Metallica and Poison. Music to suit the location I say.
RIDE INTO THE DANGER ZONE…
A short ride out of Bluff at the southern end of Route 261, we pulled off the highway onto a dirt road that runs through the Valley of the Gods. It’s a mini-Monument Valley, but with much better riding. And the names of the towering sandstone formations are great too – Seven Sailors, Southern Lady and Battleship Butte. Dips and banked turns make this a must-ride for any journeyman. Not far from the trails we found the best way out of the valley was via the ancient Moki Dugway Trail. The Trail rises 335m in 3km.
BIG BUTTES
WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, STAYS IN VEGAS
Mmm. The peak of the trip would probably be riding through Monument Valley (I might also slip in the approach into Zion. That was awesome.)
The pit would have to be a storm that came in en-route from Vegas to Yosemite. Wind and snow forced the rangers to shut the Tioga Road gate. It meant replacing the scenic and direct route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains with a few extra hundred miles on a very flat detour via Bakersfield (nobody likes Bakersfield) to enter the Park from the West. All through howling winds, rain and icy roads.
South on Hwy 1 we hit the Big Sur, through the Red Forests, across the Bixby Creek Bridge and hugged the Central Coast hard until we reached a road closure due to landslides. It was a blessing in disguise as the detour delivered a bunch of fire roads that took us higher into the Santa Lucia ranges for a few hours of mountain magic.
The Pacific coastline gave us breathtaking views and dramatic cliff drops as we headed for Santa Cruz. Of course, we couldn’t resist
re-enacting the best scenes from ‘The Lost Boys’.
PEAKS AND PITS
The final coast stretch was broken by an afternoon beer stop in Malibu which prepared us for the last few hours of lane swapping through the gridlock of Los Angeles. Trip complete we pulled in with 5,034km (and a decent smile) on the dial. Epic!
COUNTING THE CLICKS
Sheesh I’m real busy. Watching MotoGP; discussing where to get brunch for 45mins, then ultimately giving up on brunch; collecting sports cards and movie cards (you know I have the only ‘Back To The Future 2’ sticker card rated 10 by PSA in existence. It could be worth $100 or $10,000…I’ll find out if I ever sell).
And in between making TV commercials with my company www.heypresto.com I’m making a short film that will hopefully get turned into a feature.
So….the next ride is still to be discovered. I suspect it’s in the European Alps. Trying to find it is the fun part.
NEXT TIME
MOTO AMORO
It’s what I love. The unknown. Not knowing what’s around the next bend.