Coming to America

As I lay prone on the floor of my bedroom, unable to move or breathe, 8 hours before my flight to America was due to depart, partying in Las Vegas was the last thing on my mind. About 30 seconds earlier, I’d been the happiest man in the world. Heading over to America on a boys trip to Vegas, to be followed by motorcycling around the beautiful mountains and deserts of South-West America. What was not to like?! Then I bent down to pick up a pair of undies to throw in my bag and TWANG! Something just gave way in my lower back and the pain knocked the wind out of me. I fell face forward unable to support myself. 30 seconds later, as I tried to move my right leg an inch to the right, I stifled a scream and knew this was serious.

I was still there at 3AM, asking my wife to bring me a cup large enough to hold the substantial amount of urine that had collected in my bladder and was now threatening to burst its banks.
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I didn’t want to be the guy that got taken to hospital for a muscle strain but by 4AM, unable to move and dreading having to shit in that position, I gave up. The ambulance arrived and the medics were extremely sympathetic. They helped me stand, which was bloody painful but a huge relief. I couldn’t even scream as I didn’t want to wake up the kids sleeping in the next room. They took me to the hospital where I was the butt of many jokes as my tragic story of the boys trip to Vegas that was not to be was told and re-told to every nurse within a hundred metres. Random nurses walked up to me and asked “So where were you off to?” before stifling a laugh and hurrying away. Yeah very funny. Giz the morphine and piss off. Which is what they eventually did. ​

Not a word about the socks. Not a word.

I had a severe muscle spasm the doctor said and it would take a few days to settle down. I needed to walk and keep moving, avoid sitting and take it easy for the next few days. None of that sounded compatible with catching a 14 hour flight, carrying a backpack with camping equipment and then motorcycling and camping around south-west USA. But I didn’t tell my wife that, I told her the doctor said I was fine to fly. My wife, I must confess, was a champion through the whole thing. When I was lying on the floor, broken, having abandoned all plans of the trip, she encouraged me and said I must go. She changed my flight to the next day, called the ambulance and basically kicked my butt to make a fight for it. I repaid her by partying like a Mofo in Vegas. It would’ve been wrong not to.

My 8 days in America can be split neatly into 2 distinct timeframes. 4 days in Las Vegas, full throttle partying. 4 days on the road, full throttle motorcycling. I did nothing else. In Vegas I was either drunk or hungover or somewhere in between for 100% of my waking hours and then I crashed, only to wake up to a beer after 2 hours of sleep. While motorcycling, I started my day in the saddle around 8AM and didn’t stop till 8PM (10PM once) and then I crashed (not the bike!).

Los Angeles
You know you’re somewhere cool when you’re doing 10Ks over the limit down a city freeway through traffic and a motorcycle cop passes you, in your lane, nonchalantly flicks you a sideways glance and continues on, splitting traffic at 100KMPH. This is LA. And it’s Mad.

The sheer weight of humanity on the roads of this urban jungle is mind-boggling. And this is coming from me, who grew up in one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world, Delhi.

LA’s roads are immense, all-conquering sinews of tarmac that can move a grown man to stage-fright and ingest the unworthy, whole and unchewed. Giving directions to someone goes something like “Get on the 139, then exit on 447 West for 14 miles, take the I5 till you hit the I3 North on exit 130, which will take you to Hollywood”. And this is just to navigate the same general area of the city. God forbid, if you have to make your way from the South-West to the North-east of the city. Such a journey could cover 200KMs and take over 3 hours. Yet you’d still be in greater Los Angeles, home to almost 15 million people. The airport is sheer madness, there’s cars, trucks, buses, forklits, tractors, pedestrians and aeroplanes, sharing the runway. There’s more vehicular traffic on the runway than on most inner city roads in Australia. And when a plane is landing or taking off, everyone hurriedly gets off the runway, only to get on it again as soon as the runway is clear of planes. How the fuck they’re not all colliding with each other regularly is a mystery. 

I forget sometimes, that the USA is the 3rd most populous country in the world, after China and India. And in LA, it’s easy to believe. Yet, 100 KM east of the city, where the Sierra Madre mountains rise steeply to over 10,000 ft, wild bears and deer roam in alpine wilderness. And another 50KM further east, you’re in a desert as empty and parched as the Sahara.
I found Los Angeles fascinating. It’s harsh, raw and seems to function only through sheer, forceful will of humanity.

Which is something that can also be said of Las Vegas. “The Meadows”, is what Las Vegas translates as in Spanish. What fucking meadows? It’s the middle of the desert. The city, with its fountains and swimming pools has been created by sheer force of human greed. But what a city it is. If there is a place on this planet where “anything goes”, this is it. To me, Vegas is a giant mirror that reflects back whatever you want to see in it. You want to see the richest, most handsome man in the world, irresistible to women? Then that’s what you will see. Provided you tip enough cash in the box before the mirror lights up. A place where you can live in an alternative reality and become whoever you want to be. No-one gives a shit. You’re just one more crazy on a trip.

Who we really are

Who we became in Vegas!

​When I flew from Vegas to LA after 3 days and nights of non-stop partying I could barely speak. I’d lost my voice to the drinking, shouting and generally pushing my vocal cords beyond their design brief. I tried to speak but all that bubbled up from the recesses of my throat was erratic bursts of hissing air and the odd, jarring squeak. I hoped airport security did not find any reason to speak with me. Can you imagine me trying to explain the positive drug reading on my backpack in a hoarse whisper accented richly with an Indian lilt accompanied by frenzied head wobbling?

It was amazing meeting my old mates. People with whom I'd taken my first steps from adolescence into adulthood many years ago. We hadn't met in over 10 years but in those 4 days we spent together, it was like we were 21 again and nothing had changed. We forgot that we were a bit fatter, a little balder and a lot richer than the last time we had shared drinks together.

​Friends like that are to be treasured and never taken for granted.

You can be whoever you want to be.

But it’s good to be back to who you are.

My mate Guy had kindly lent me his Suzuki V-Strom 1000 motorcycle to use in America. Marsh, who holds the key to Guy’s bike in LA, is a champion bloke. Neither of us knew that the other was well acquainted with BikeMe people. So we were pleasantly surprised when we discovered that we had a lot of friends in common – Guy, Canning, Klavdy... It’s always funny to hear about people’s first ride with Canning. Because Canning is such an unassuming gentleman. And then he gets on a motorcycle and you cant believe how fast he rides. Remembering Marsh’s expression, as he told me the story, is cracking me up as I write this. hahaha. It’s something that mere mortals, the world over, can bond over. Then we shared Klavdy stories over drinks later, which are somewhat more divisive, though undeniably funnier.

And I realized that when you become part of BikeMe and are friends with these people who are held in such high regard and esteem the world over, you are automatically given a position of trust and privilege, simply because you have broken bread and ridden miles with these people. 

I left Marsh’s place around 10AM on the 4th and returned around 5PM on the 7th. I covered 1200 miles over the next 4 days, over half of it through magnificent mountain roads.

There are many fantastic mountain roads (or canyon roads as the murkins call em) near LA. I did the Angeles Crest Highway, a superb piece of tarmac that climbs high into the pine forests of the San Gabriel Mountains and then descends into dry, desert canyons twisting and turning in neat, predictable corners on a fantastic bitumen surface. I missed my Monster. The V-Strom, while a capable all-rounder, was too soft, heavy and floaty to really attack corners. Dat top box is practical but.
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I headed through the desert to Mojave where a ferocious wind picked up from the east, forcing me to ride tilted at a 30 degree angle to make northerly progress in a straight line. The friendly native American girl at the fuel station in Mojave took pity on me and gave me some route advice to try and keep the wind on my back. She musta said “stay safe” at least 10 times before she let me go, while trying to convince me to “party” in Mojave before moving on. Mojave is a dusty dump in the middle of the desert so you’d have to do some pretty serious drugs to even get in the mood to party there but apparently there’s no dearth of drugs in America, especially on Native reservations.
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I followed her advice and hit some dirt roads that tracked north-west and eventually came out on the northerly approach to Death Valley, which is where I was heading. I hit some really awesome middle of nowhere roads in the desert that went up and down and swept around like a roller coaster. Mojo-inducing fun! The fabled Mojave desert, I was in it. It was all like a dream. Then as the sun was setting I hit a little town called Trona, whose existence seemed owed to a monstrous Borax processing plant. Now, I’ve been to some pretty rough towns in remote areas of many countries but either I’m getting soft or Trona, California is the arsehole of the world, this place scared me. There was 1 motel in town, 2 of the rooms had their doors broken down, windows were shattered and needles lay around like twigs. Rough, bare-chested men walked around looking for trouble and I decided I was not ready for this. Not today. I high tailed it 30 miles in the dark, in the wrong direction to get to Ridgecrest, a decent sized town where I could disappear without disruption.

During the night I got a text from a cousin of mine who I hadn’t seen in years. Apparently he lived in LA and it would be rude not to catch up with him. So I decided to skip Death Valley and continue my march north towards Yosemite National Park. This would hopefully give me enough time to get back to LA 3 days later in time to spend a few hours with him before flying out.

Yosemite. I’d dreamed of visiting this place ever since I’d first seen pictures of it in a rock climbing magazine as an impressionable 19 year old rock climbing wannabe. I’d built it up in my mind as this mythical land of adventures that there was no way the real thing was going to match up. But it did. And more. Yosemite. The place is just magic. One of the most powerful places in all of nature. If you can look past the tourists and the noise and the commercialisation, the silence and the stillness in Yosemite valley, in the shadow of the giants, is breathtaking. As I lay in a meadow, all alone, looking up through fields of wild barley at Half Dome in the brunt of the setting sun, I connected. 
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Suddenly I didn’t care how far I needed to ride that day, where I was going to sleep and whether I had “ticked off” all the big attractions of Yosemite. Then I walked to the base of El Capitan, the genesis of big wall rock climbing in the world. ​

I touched El Capitan and closed my eyes in prayer. I had a strong urge to climb some of it so I did. 5 metres up and I suddenly slipped and fell. The back of my right hand was bloody and gouged, there was skin missing. I smiled. It was somehow fitting. I left some skin at El Capitan. There’s a t-shirt in that.

Those dots are climbers on El Capitan.

I didn’t hang around the base of El Capitan too long though because it takes most climbers at least a week to the climb it. And I’m pretty sure there’s no toilets on the wall.

I rode through the park at night, beautiful gloriously twisty roads that were so much nicer to ride when the tourist traffic was gone. I’d been so mesmerised by Yosemite that I’d forgotten about my fuel situation and was shocked to notice the fuel light flashing at me in the middle of nowhere. I was strangely calm though, a night in the open in Yosemite seemed almost inviting. It was freezing of course, with sub-zero nightly temperatures so just as well that I did manage to find fuel at the park exit at Wawona and then found a cosy cabin to sleep in at around 9:30PM at Fish Camp, a few Ks out of Yosemite’s southern entrance.
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The next day I needed to end up somewhere within a couple of hours from LA so that the day after I could meet my cousin, then ride back to Marsh’s place to return the bike and then go to the airport to catch my flight at 11PM. So I headed south, meandering through scenic back roads, avoiding the highway. The day really began to take shape as I headed up Squaw Valley towards Sequoia National Park. 
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The sign is misleading. No Indians were being traded inside. I was hoping to trade myself in for a redneck hillbilly.

This was the start of the best motorcycle road I have ever ridden on. Yes, Best. 
​It’s called the General’s Highway, California route no 198. It has character this road. It doesn’t have the best corners I’ve ever ridden or the best scenery or the most floral diversity or the least traffic. But it has a mix of all of that in such abundance that the character of the road is undeniable. The road climbs from 1000ft to 12,000ft and then back down, loops through the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, all in the space of a hundred KMs. Both parks are superlatives of the American landscape. Kings Canyon is the deepest canyon in America while the Sequoia National Park contains the largest tree in the world and the highest peak in America (outside Alaska). ​

The first part of the General’s Highway climbs up the dry tussock hills of Squaw Valley, higher and higher the road twists endlessly till you enter the national park and you dramatically enter a shady pine forest. The next 20 odd kilometres climbs up a ridge and then winds along the top giving occasional glimpses of endless, misty mountain ranges. Then the woods deepen further, the trees become bigger, the road becomes narrower and the corners get sharper. There are occasional meadows where you can spy deer, or a bear if you’re lucky. Then there’s a sign saying “Entering the Giant Forest” and your heart skips a beat. I remember readin in school about the giant redwood trees of the east coast of the United States. The largest trees in the world. But nothing prepares you for the size of these behemoths. 300ft tall and 30M in circumference, the General Sherman Tree is the largest tree in the world. And there’s hundreds of such giants around. Thank fuck for that! The loggers wanted to get all of it for timber.

The General Sherman Tree. The largest tree in the world.

Walking amongst these giants is humbling. You can imagine the earth quaking and men and animals running in fear as one of these came crashing down in a thunderstorm. Photos will never do these things justice. I would highly recommend the trip up to see them if you’re ever in California.
The road changes character again after the Forest of the Giants. For a few Ks you ride through massive trees that are right on the adge of the road. ​

In fact, many corners are basically going round the circumference of giant Sequoia trees! At one point the road actually splits between 4 giant trees. It’s a bit bizzare but super cool. ​

All the time, the road is descending. Over the next 30 odd Ks, it descends from 10K ft to 1Kft. That means, steep, tight corner after corner after corner. Motion sickness victims need not apply. It was a stunning ride. Smooth and grippy for the most part, narrow and blind always. All the corners are between 10 – 30MPH signposted and all of them are bloody fantastic! ​

Then you hit the Kaweah river canyon and the road winds along the canyon most pleasantly, finally straightening out in the valley past Three Rivers.

I hadn’t eaten anything all day and it was 3PM. I stopped at a pretty lodge next to the river and there was a big custom Harley thing parked outside. It belonged to Josh Van Leeuyem. He was a friendly motorcyclist and started chatting by remarking that my bike looked very comfortable. I said his bike looked cool. He smirked and said only while standing still. It had no rear suspension and his balls had been re-arranged in the 20 odd miles he’d ridden that day. He had a gixxer thousand as his daily ride so basically he was a Harleyfag and a Gixxerfag. I felt sorry for the guy so had a drink with him.

We chatted for a while about America and Australia and motorcycles and people and family and guns. And then he got up to go, leaving me his number and an invite to come stay at his ranch in Northern California where there were even more awesome riding roads.

It was getting late now and I was still hundreds of miles from LA so I decided to slab it down and make some distance. The water and sediment coming down from the Sierras makes the land fertile and this part of California is the fruit basket of the country. Giant citrus groves extended for miles in every direction. And all the labour was, of course, Mexican. So the place had a distinctly Mexican working class flavour with lots of little corner shacks. 

I marked my territory in one of them Orange groves. Just to show the Mexicans who’s boss

Despite my best intentions, I just couldn’t handle the straight, boring highway road. I live for twisty backroads. It kills my soul, the highway. I cannot do it. I stopped. The Sierras taunted me by glowing purple in the fading sun, making them even more irresistible. I looked at the map. There’s got to be a way over them that still heads south. Then I saw it. Woody. 2 weeks before I left for America I did a run down to MacPass. There I met a guy on a VFR800 and started chatting. When I told him I was heading to ride a motorcycle in California, his eyes glazed over and he started talking about his own trip. And the thing he said most emphatically was "you must do this road. It goes over the Sierras through a place called Woody. And when you top out, there’s a view of green valleys on the one hand and dry desert on the other." And right there, off the highway I was on, was the road to Woody. Fuck it, I turned left!

And I am so glad I did. This was one of the most technically twisty road I’ve ever been on. Immediately reminded me of the Omeo Highway out of Mitta Mitta in the Snowy Mountains of Australia. Tight, twisty, with steep dropoffs, gravel on the edges, beautiful mountain scenery and I had the sun on my back. There was not a single vehicle or person or animal on the road. It was like my own private racetrack and I took advantage. It was tricky though as there was gravel on the edges and sometimes in the middle of the road. And I was reminded a couple of times that I was on a V-Strom and not my Monster, which immediately also reminded me that I was in the middle of nowhere America and had a flight to catch back to my loving family, who were counting on me to get back to them in one piece. I backed off and enjoyed the road at a more sedate pace. But the memory of that ride is etched in my mind and I thank that unknown rider I met at MacPass.

I reached Lake Isabella as it turned dark and as pretty and inviting as the place was, it was too far from LA for my purposes. I needed to cover at least another couple of hours closer. So after a couple of enquiries, I set off on a back road heading south. This road went over a pass and I’m sure the view would’ve been lovely if there was daylight to see. I was in the desert again though and heading to Mojave, which was familiar territory for me.

The night was spent sprawled out in a shitty but not uncomfortable motel run a little Indian (real Indian not native Indian) lady who didn’t give me a discount for me being of same colour but did share the wifi password. We both considered it a good deal. Dealings amongst Indians must always culminate in the satisfaction of both parties, otherwise its bad karma and will come back and bite you in the arse. The lady didn’t look like she wanted Karma to bite her in the arse. I’ve been bitten many times and am rather immune to it.
I celebrated my last night in America, eating a humungous dominos pizza sitting in the middle of the desert, taking it all in (the desert, not the pizza. I could only finish half of that).

It has character, the american outback. Just like ours in Australia. And I definitely want to come back and camp in it.

The next day was a slog on highways and city freeways. Drinks were had and stories shared. With old relatives and new friends. And before long Marsh was driving me to the airport. It took us 2 hours in the LA traffic and I still had to walk the last half KM to the terminal because it was faster than the car! LA. It’s mad. Marsh had made sure I had enough alcohol in me to last the flight and I was out like a light as soon as my head hit that airplane seat.

PS – Massive thanks to Guy for lending me his bike, it was the best way to see America and I definitely wouldn’t have seen everything I have seen if I didn’t have a bike there already. I owe you big time. I have ridden the bike of those hideous chicken strips now though so consider that as part payment.

​Massive thanks also to Marsh, Guy’s mate in LA. He’s a true gentleman and incredibly generous. And a real motorbike fanatic too.