Cycle World Up Front
CYCLE WORLD UP FRONT
ALLAN GIRDLER
Another way to San Jose
For 30 seconds, I was impressive. I'd pulled into a parking lot for a break. While I was adjusting my luggage, another bike rolled up. The guy walked over and eyed the fairing, the tank bag and saddlebags bulging with foul weather gear and emergency equipment. “Going on a trip?” “Yup.” “Where you going?” “San Jose.” “Oh.”
And he spun on his heel and walked away. Nor can I blame him. San Jose is 350 interstate miles from where we were. Call it six hours interrupted by one gas stop. No big deal, so obviously a man equipped to circumvent the globe while only crossing the street, so to speak, isn’t worth talking to.
Except in this case I was working on another way to San Jose. For the past few trips, Ed been thinking about a sign. It’s on a state highway linking two federal roads and it says “Bitterwater Valley.”
Hmm. Not quite the impact of the Mother Featherlegs Memorial, but still, historic. Western. So I looked on a map and discovered the road in from the north, comes out of the south. Or vice versa.
More Hmm. Enbolded by my unrivalled collection of county maps, I worked out a plan: ride to San Jose without going on the interstate, or the main state road, or even the all-tootourist route.
So there I was, on the Friday before race Sunday, riding the GR650 packed with tire kits and Totes and jumper cables, etc., on the proven superstition that if you pack it, you won’t need it.
When the beach ran out, I headed for the mountains, up little roads, past farms until I got to an unfranchised motel, as it were, near an unfranchised restaurant. Because time was of no concern, I arrived just as I was ready to feat and sack out.
Just after dawn, in a thin fog, I rolled across the pass, higher and higher until the fog fell back and I came out of the shadow into the sun, oh my and aren’t we glad we don’t have to sit in boxes twiddling the heat-defrost-vent-cool and wondering why all you can get on the radio is the same five songs.
Down the pass, across the farm country on a farm-to-market road, zig right left and I was at the south edge of the unexplored.
They don’t call it that. This isn’t a guided tour, but I can’t leave out this locale. It’s Earthquake Valley, west of the Temblor Range.
For good reason. If the plate tectonic theory is right, and what we call terra firma is really a bunch of giant rock islands floating atop the earth’s molten core, and if they read the clues correctly, where I was, was where the upraised eastern edge of the Pacific Plate, with the ocean on it like so much gravy on mashed potatoes, bumps into the western edge of the North American plate.
They call it the San Andreas Fault, as trembled over in song and story. They have a lot of earthquakes here. I rode along, thinking. I’ve always figured plates banging into each other and creating mountain ranges would be fun to watch ... if I had a place to watch from. Funny if Zippp! a crevass would open up right now, as I ride back and forth across the edge.
Didn’t happen. Sorry.
Instead, the thin asphalt turned to broken asphalt, to gravel and graded dirt. With sand at the inner apexes of the corners. Deep sand.
I think middleweight Twins should be able to handle light offroad work, and the GR did, but it didn’t like the deep sand corners much. It’s times like that I’m glad I believe in God, because at times like that it helps if you have Someone to talk to.
Great fun.
And I was alone, riding through cattle country, the blue hemisphere above, golden hills voluptuous as a Grant Wood painting scalloping the edges, nobody there. I went 50 miles in one hour and saw one pickup truck and a combine. Perfect, in that I didn’t want company but it was nice to know there were some others left on this earth.
I stopped for coffee at the general store at the north end of the valley. You never know about people. The kindly old gramps running the store was a retired blackjack dealer from Las Vegas. The rancher who came in for cigarettes used to run a truck line, and he used to ride a BSA. I had two cups of coffee and we solved the problems of cattle breeding, motorcycle riding, children today and the national economy, to our satisfaction at least.
Another jog, this time left-right and I arrived at Bitterwater Valley. Cattle country, a paved road for the most part, fenced, with stock tanks so the water can’t be that bad. The road wound around low hills, up and down. I could set my own pace. Not in the usual sense. Most times setting your own pace means any speed fast enough to keep you out of truck grilles and slow enough to keep you out of jail.
But here, alone, I could ride for conditions; slow enough to allow for surprises, fast enough to be entertained.
The Bitterwater Valley ended at a hamlet, just west of the junction where James Dean was killed. A Japanese fan paid for a memorial next to the cafe. I had lunch, then rode past the actual intersection. I headed toward the mountains again, up into a small town, across an antique bridge, to a dirt road that crosses a pass.
Bumping along uphill, I was distracted by a clanging sound. The brackets holding the fairing had cracked. Gulp. Tire patches, I had. Welding torch, no.
But I read Cycle World. The Suzuki GR650 has a plastic taillight. We somehow cracked it during the test. There were no replacements available so we wrapped the housing in duct tape.
Which meant I had a source of tape, as suggested in this publication. So I peeled off a supply, tore it into strips and made a splint. And it worked for the rest of the ride.
I was at the summit, so I shut off the engine and coasted. For seven miles, slow and quiet through the pines.
Back on the pavement I discovered the maps had misled me. Well, sort of. Because I saw a route number leading from the western main road into the park, and the same route number leading from the eastern main road into the park. I assumed there was a road through the park.
Wrong. The sun was low in the sky, the gas was low in the tank. But the map showed a dirt road back across the hills and this time, it was there. Up again, down again, and there was the main highway. I got to the motel about 6 p.m., the perfect time. By more luck, there was a Team Harley truck.
Bill Werner and I decided to get into trouble. Being the wild and crazy guys we are, the best we could do was dinner at the town’s leading, (there are two) Chinese restaurant.
However. In my fortune cookie was a useful message. “The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
I’ll ride to that.
