| Written by Steve Thornton on Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
 Canadians Brian Bosworth and Michael Sanders are the authors
and publishers of a growing series of books called Destination
Highways, which describe the best motorcycling roads in British
Columbia, Washington state, and most recently, northern California.
Bosworth and Sanders doing the next Destination Highway
Now, as they work on book number four — southern
California — they've asked me to lend a hand. And who would say no to
being flown down to L.A., stuck on a 2002 VFR800 Honda, and taken out
in search of the best roads in southern California?
As it turned out, this endeavour wasn't all milk and cookies. There was
a lot of work involved, some discomfort, and even serious danger. And
there were moments of baffling frustration — Bosworth's nightly hunt
for a gourmet dinner, for instance, was sometimes conducted with all
the grace and turmoil of a cartoon sword-fight.
But it was still a hell
of a way to spend 10 days in the middle of March.
DH METHOD
Thornton gets it on the nose
In order to write about these roads, we would need to remember what
they were like, so we would videotape them. Cameras were stuck to
helmets, mini-VCRs were strapped to our sides, and microphones were
placed here and there.
Some
of these accouterments were attached by means of Velcro, which caused
the only injury I experienced during that trip, when the strip of
Velcro in my helmet tore bits of skin off the end of my nose — every
single time I put the helmet on.
During the first couple of days, I had no sense of place. We would be
on some road, riding toward some destination, Bosworth and Sanders far
ahead of me, and I couldn’t have been more specific about my own
location than that it was “somewhere.”
Soon, they began sending me out on my own, and if I did not get
completely lost, it was only because a certain amount of luck attends
any traveller, so somehow, by the end of the day, we’d meet up again.
"Where the feck is Steve?"
My tendency to misplace my riding companions grew so pronounced,
however, that they developed an addendum to their regular checklist:
Where are we going next? How are we going to get there? And where the
feck is Steve?
Where indeed.
When done right, a DH exploration is a moving panorama and a
running commentary on all things relevant to a motorcyclist on any
particular road. You ride this potential DH like most motorcyclists
would; however, instead of just enjoying it, you talk about it into
your helmet mic and you analyze it for Destination Highway attributes:
Twistiness, Pavement, Engineering, Remoteness, Scenery, and Character.
So you're observing and babbling about the feeling of the pavement,
the camber in a curve, the width of the shoulders, the kinds of scenery
surrounding it, the general feeling you get while riding it, the rise
or fall in temperature, the abundance of crack sealer — all these
things that a normal motorcycle ride absorbs in passing.
You could not possibly remember
this feast of impressions — especially after doing 20 or 30 such roads
— if you didn't have an hour's worth of digital videotape to watch with
all your comments yelled into the mike as the pavement unfolds on your
TV screen, to be transferred into notes, into the next book.
SoCal roads are dreamy
But I did get a ways down some entertaining roads. The long ride out
to Joshua Tree, for example, with its constantly varied scenery — the
tufted joshua trees standing out there in the Mojave desert, each apart
from the other, plentiful and antisocial, and the desert floor abloom
with yellow and blue flowers.
This was March, and I think this must be
the best time to be in southern California; the state is luke warm and
blooming.
While I was off riding by myself, Bosworth and Sanders would be out
exploring some new tangle of roads, sometimes getting lost in what they
call "T.E. hell," which is a bundle of small "Twisted Edge" roads that
are like appetizers to the main course DH's.
It was necessary to ride
these and sort out routes worth including in the book, but hours would
be spent going up one small, twisty road and down another, and it
amazed me that they knew where they were, and were able to find me at
the end of the day.
DONE LIKE DINNER
Trying to find dinner could end up anywhere but ...
And then, of course, it was dinner time. Having ridden all day,
missed lunch, and found a place to stay for the night, we would begin
our search for food. Or rather, Bosworth would, and Sanders and I would
follow him.
If we were lucky, we'd end up at a good restaurant,
drinking some decent California wine and eating a meal that lets you
forget how sore your wrists were and how hot your helmet was, but if we
weren't, we'd run 15 blocks as one restaurant after another closed
almost directly in front of us, finally landing at Denny's because
there was no other choice.
One night, after Bosworth burst into my motel room and said, "We've got
10 minutes to get there before they close," and then led me off on a
wild chase through San Bernardino, I simply gave up.
Is there a better way to start a day?
He went one way on
his bike, I went the other on mine, and eventually I found my way back
to my motel room, where I opened a bottle of American whisky, phoned my
girlfriend, and enjoyed a few minutes of very pleasant relaxation.
Alone.
When Bosworth's chase for the ultimate meal worked, it was
fantastic. He would question the waitress nearly to death about the
family history of the salmon he was about to order, while Sanders and I
would look on and drink wine from glasses that were allowed to be
filled no more than half an inch, so the wine would breathe, and
eventually Bosworth would order the linguine.
We would talk about the road, about the absolute bliss of March in
southern California, or about women we'd known and mistakes we'd made
with them – and the following morning, I would look out the door of
some small town California motel bungalow, and I'd feel like no day had
ever had a better start.
For more information on Destination Highways, check out their
website at www.destinationhighways.com
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