Mid-Life Rider

Bishop, CA 300 miles

“Why do people live here?”

I find myself asking that question often on this trip. In Ely, it felt like a legitimate question in the sense that I was really curious. It’s a cute town in a rugged but beautiful corner of the American West. I really wanted to know.

Pounding up Hwy 15 from Temecula towards Bastow in order to escape the clutches of LA and its numbing traffic I asked the same question. More rhetorically this time as there was nobody to ask and I didn’t really care about the answer.

Later as I pounding up route 395 past Victorville, I asked nobody the same question again: “Why would anybody live here?” Here, in this case, is in track homes vomited out onto a featureless landscape hard on the edge of the Mojave desert. The names of the developments are ludicrous: Amber Valley, Pacific Lane, Willowbrook. They looks like someone emptied out a monopoly box all over the desert. It’s really grim on this 99 degree afternoon. Maybe it’s nicer in the winter.

What I do know is that I’ve done a lot of desert riding in the past two weeks and the site of cookie cutter houses lined up towards the horizon make less sense to me than the cows in the Imperial Valley. Based on the large signs advertising the opportunity to rent a brand new, never lived in house for just $995, I’m guessing I’m not the only one to hold this opinion. Noting is alive. There isn’t a hint of shamanic energies. There’s no vitality; everything is dead.

I’ve just spent the last three days burrowed into a lovely bungalow at the South Coast Winery Spa and Resort for the purpose of doing some decision quality training with a favorite client. Everything about the place was a little slice of heaven.The contrast between the lovely faux old country vineyard and the faux civilization clinging to the hard mojave soil is startling.

I’ve been back and forth on the route home from Southern California: Every route north has a significant flaw; each requires a trade-off. One possibility is to hew close to the coast, taking either Highway 1 or 101. People wax rhapsodic about the vistas and curvy asphalt, but not anyone actually trying to get anywhere. It’s Friday at 3:00 PM by the time I leave and the weather is lovely. There is no chance of maintaining the kind of pace I need in order to get home by Sunday night.

Inland is Highway 5, the main north/south arterial. I more dulling road I can’t imagine. It bludgeons you into submission in a car. Riding it on a motorcycle simply makes no sense. Friday traffic would just make it that much worse. So score a point for “most direct route,” and another for “high average speed” and take away ten for boredom beyond countenance. The point of riding a bike isn’t getting there, it’s what you get to see and do along the way.

Route 99 is moderately more interesting than 5 as it runs closer to Yosemite and the Sierras. It also goes through every town in the Central Valley. A possibility if I didn’t want to get home and were driving a 67 Chevy pick-up truck.

That leaves 395. From 15 North to Bishop it’s really not that much better than 99: No turns you notice, difficult passing, but a decent posted speed limit. Plus, and this is really the pay-off, the ride up out of Bishop includes route 6, one of my favorite roads in the West. So mark it down for adding miles to the trip, but give it make brownie points for getting me into something worth riding.

Somewhere along the way I became aware of a stumbling feeling, a hitch in my bike’s giddyup. The FJR has problems with fueling at altitude on a steady throttle, so it could be that. I’ve had the new ECU installed. I keep pulling in the clutch, and even cut the engine, to see if that could be the problem. It doesn’t seem to be.

Another possibility is something to do with the front tire. I don’t see a balancing weight on the wheel so I wonder if it has fallen off. The tread looks fine, so no flat spots that I can see. There is a Yamaha dealer in Reno which is where I’m headed so I may stop in there.

My night finishes in the Creekside Inn, in Bishop: a Best Western property. Unlike the wistfully named developments in Victorville, there actually is a creek here. It’s a fine enough property, made better by a lovely collection of Galen Rowell photos. I took classes from Galen some years back. Later, he and his wife were killed in a plane crash. His gallery is still here in Bishop. I liked him.

Tags: Barstow, Bishop, Temecula, Victorville, Pacific Lane, Amber Valley, South Coast Winery, Galen Rowell, Mountain Light Gallery