Quotes to Big Bear

As I’m shifting my weight, sticking my knee out and pushing on the handlebars to counter steer, I have a quote from the movie Swingers running thru my mind. “You like a big bear, man…”. Of course when Trent was saying it to Mike he was referring to picking up women. To finish the quote, “and you have these claws and you don’t know how to kill the bunny”. Classic. But for me, today the bunny was the next curve coming up. And my claws are none other than my trusty Ducati Multistrada. Not that I didn’t know how to take the curve safely at a moderate speed, or rather “kill the bunny”. But Swingers is one of my favorite movies and I know that I have so much more to learn about the art of cornering.

Early Saturday morning Mike and I headed out for another motorcycle camping trip. This trip’s destination was Camp Serrano at Big Bear Lake (which is why I was thinking of the Swingers quote). One thing different about this trip is that we are meeting our families there. They are driving separately and leaving much later and meeting us at camp. Although we could of easily packed everything in the vehicles. Mike and I packed our bikes as if we were going alone. Two reasons. 1st, we are getting ready for our big ride in July when we are going to ride to Laguna Seca for the MotoGP and we are going to camp for the weekend. We wanted to see what we should bring and what would work and not work on loading the bikes. And 2nd, both of us are self-reliant and incase the families didn’t make it or had to turn around for some reason. We wouldn’t be stuck in the mountains without any gear.

Randy didn’t join us this time because it was his girlfriend’s sister’s friend’s aunt’s birthday party, or some other excuse. He really missed out. Hope you had an extra piece of cake, Randy.

Per our standards, Mike and I took the LONG WAY there. We met at our usual spot, the Coffee Bean in Irvine. For the first part of the trip we took our beaten path down to Temecula. Which is heading to Laguna to see the ocean along PCH. Then taking Ortega Hwy to Lake Elsinore. And then the back way around to Temecula. Since we were on sort of a time frame we didn’t take our favorite De Luz – Sandia Creek loop thru Fallbrook. But we did stop at the intersection to take a break.

So far it was a decent morning but we could tell it was going to be great day. While riding along the coast on Pacific Coast Highway there was a thick marine layer that hung like a blanket over us. But as we were riding thru Ortega, the sun broke thru with a vengeance and shined for the rest of the day. With it being the beginning of spring everything was starting to bloom. It was an amazing experience to smell the salt of the ocean, vineyards and orchards of Temecula, dirt of the desert, pines of the mountains and everything else along the way, all on one ride. Along with the scents, the bugs were in full force today. It was definitely a visor down type of day. And for every 10 or 15 bugs that hit my visor, one of them would get me in the neck. I don’t know how they do it, but there is less than an inch of exposed skin from the top of my collar to the bottom of the helmet. But those little peckers got me there at least 7 or 8 times. I started calling those bugs, the snipers.

Once past Temecula, the ride really picked up. It was one of the days that everything felt right. I was in a zone and became one with my bike. I was applying everything I learned on the track day and what a difference it made in my riding. The lyric from Fugazi’s song Blueprint popped in my head – “Cause what a difference, a little difference will make”. Thank you Matthias and Fastrack Riders for all that you do. Speaking of which I cant wait to get another track day fix on June 15th. But anyways, we were having such a great time riding and just moving at a good pace we didn’t want to stop a lot. So I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures of us riding. But here is Mike along Wilson Valley road.

I planned out the route on Microsoft’s Streets and Trips. I normally don’t boast about anything created by the evil empire. But that is one nice piece of software. Creating your own waypoints and calculating time, distance and gas needed. And it has everything from highways to dirt roads on it. It is a must have when planning obscure routes. Since we were taking a new route and I wasn’t about to bring my laptop. I wrote down some simple directions on a piece of paper and kept it in the sleeve of my suit. When we stopped on De Luz road, I must of dropped the directions because when we stopped for lunch in Anza, they were gone. And I couldn’t help but smile. It only added to the adventure. If we did get lost, chances are it would be on a cool road and we would get to do it twice. When I broke the news to Mike, he had the same reaction that I did. It was as if it was good news to us. Both of us like to plan and prepare for any trip as much as we can, but once it starts, just go with it. Everything good or bad is part of the adventure. To quote Charley Boorman from the book Long Way Round – “Imperfections in the journey is what makes the journey perfect”. Nail on the head there, Charley.

After lunch we continued down the 371 to the 74, hung a left and headed towards Lake Hemet. That is a really nice ride. Not full of twisties but dropping out of the high desert mountain of Cahuilla into a valley of pine trees, is a great change in scenery. Then we took the 243 up and through Idyllwild. We were planning on stopping there, but the pace was too good and neither of us needed to take a leak. So we headed down the backside of the mountain, or front side I guess, depends where you’re looking from. We did pull over before the final stretch down to Beaumont to take some pics. Mike also posed his new Dainese track suit he got. With the color scheme, he says he looks like a Power Ranger. Its hard to argue with him on that one.

The closer we got down to Beaumont, the hotter it became. The cool mountain air was being rapidly replaced with smog and feeling of being in an arm pit. I really do love the variety of California. We gassed up and started the final leg of the ride. We took Beaumont Ave north which turns into Oak Glen road. Holy Crap Batman, that was a cool road. Its fun if you go at a moderate pace. But if you’re on the throttle and on your toes, it becomes a very technical road. Really tight S-turns when you don’t expect them. A few 270 degree turns for your liking. Kinda narrow and not a whole lot of room for error. The road made my sweat and pulse increase even higher. You cant ask for much more.

Last but not least, we hopped on the 38 going up the mountain. At this point in the day, Mike and I had settled into a groove so deep, we weren’t coming out of it until we put our kickstands out. It was the type of the day that the mountains were speaking to you. There was no decipherable message, no words that I can repeat or write here. But the voice inside the mountain gave you the feeling of a little kid climbing all over his dad. Having the time of your life. The 38 is the fastest mountain road I have ever been on. Long wide sweepers, nice straights, S-turns with plenty of viz ahead. Great ending to a perfect day of riding.

By the time we had finally arrived at camp it was 2:30pm. Our families had pulled up 20 minutes before us and made it ok. We were beat and ready to take off the boots. It was one of those rides that makes you say “That was awesome but I’m glad its finally over, and I cant wait to get up tomorrow and ride again”.

Camp Serrano is a really nice campground. A little pricey, but they do have clean bathrooms and showers (if you need those types of facilities) and it is a short hike to the lake.

The ride back home the next day was far less epic. We didn’t hit the road until almost 2:30. So we took the quick way home and only stopped once for gas and once for a last picture. But we did load all our gear into the vehicles so we were lighter and more nimble. It almost made us want to take the long way back, but we both had things to take care of before dragging our sorry butts back to work the next day.

I will end this mini-novel with a quote from Neil Peart’s book Road Show – “When I’m riding my motorcycle, I’m glad to be alive. When I stop riding my motorcycle, I’m glad to be alive”.

PS - I don’t know how that turned out so long but my fingers are tired from all that jibber-jabbering. My next post will be in 2 weeks from the small island of Bonaire, off the coast of Venezuela. I’m back in the water for a week of testing fins with ScubaDiving magazine.