Dual-Sport Riding in Big Sur

It is curious how dual-sport riders are willing to ride for an hour or two on good pavement just to get to a couple dozen miles of bad dirt road. A couple of friends had never had the dubious pleasure of riding up the old South Coast Ridge Road–a rare opportunity for dual-sport riding in Big Sur, so Kurt and I decided we would take them up one summer morning. As Mark Twain once observed, “The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.” And Big Sur has the same foggy climate.

Counting heads at Gorda; last chance for gas.

We met up in Cambria, at the south end of Big Sur, with two Suzuki DR650s, a Kawasaki KLR650 and a BMW R100GS…average age of the four bikes was over 15 years. Which is quite suitable, as no one sensible wants to bang up something new and shiny. It was overcast, the fog about 1,000 feet above our heads. And downright chilly, in the 50s.

We rode 40 miles north to the gas station/restaurant/motel complex at Gorda, then another mile to the turn-off for Los Burros Road and 23 miles of dirt, mostly in pretty acceptable shape. This was built long ago to haul supplies from where ships would off-load them at Cape San Martin to the mining town of Manchester. That town was the center of the Big Sur gold rush back in the 1880s, played out by 1900, the remnants destroyed in a forest fire in the 1970s. After a couple of steep miles we got into the fog, and after another two miles had risen above it. We passed the turn-off for Alder Creek campground, a steep downhill road going to the few remains of the old Manchester.

Coming out of the fog on Los Burros Road at about 2,000 feet.

A couple more miles and Los Burros Road turned into South Coast Ridge Road, built to supply the miners from the Salinas Valley – it would have been a long haul in an ox-powered wagon. The ridge road twists up and down and around, a delight to ride. We arrived at the turn to Prewitt Ridge, where the Los Padres forest service has a campground – no facilities, but at 3,300 feet right above the Pacific Ocean it is a wonderful place to spend the night. Though all we could see that morning was fog.

Another five miles along the ridge road, and we were on the pavement of the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road, which connects the coast with the Salinas Valley. This road goes through Fort Hunter Liggett, a 165,000-acre US Army training site, and then comes out on County Road G14, which led us to Lockwood township and the Lockwood Diner. The temperature was now in the 80s, and the lunch and iced tea was well-appreciated.

Where Los Burros Road ends, butting into South Coast Ridge Road.

Standing atop Prewitt Ridge at 3,300 feet.

Fording the Nacimiento River in Fort Hunter Liggett.

The Lockwood Diner, at the intersection of Monterey County roads G14 and G18.

Paso Robles 3rd Annual Sidecar Show

Sidecar people are enthusiastic people, and they love to gather and swap technical advice and stories, and probably a few fibs. Back in 2008 Karyl Lammers convinced the Paso Robles (California) Chamber of Commerce that it would be fun, and perhaps profitable, to have a gathering of sidecars in the city’s park in April, along with the traditional Arts & Crafts show. Karyl owns, along with her husband, a shop called American Motorcycle Stuff (805-459-6235) and she does all the considerable leg and telephone work. This year over 40 outfits showed up, and everybody patronized the local restaurants — there is the profit. And fun? You bet, especially for the people who wandered over from the arts show and thought these rigs were pretty darn cool. Maybe even got a few of them interested.

Judy Muetz knows her sidecar technicals, and was quite happy putting an Earles-type front end on her 1968 Honda 175, and then bolting a Cozy chair on the side.

Mr. Sidecar himself, Doug Bingham, who rode up from Los Angeles on his 1971 Honda 450 with a Globe sidecar attached; Doug puts on the big Griffith Park Sidecar Rally in LA every year.

The Indian Royal Enfield company will sell you a complete sidecar outfit; this one is owned by Otto Lindegaard. Only two other companies today offer sidecars for their motorcycles, the American Harley and the Russian Ural.

That's event organizer Karyl Lammers, sitting on friend Dave Hanson's 1947 Harley-Davidson outfit. This is the 3rd year of the pleasantly low-key sidecar affair where you just show up, park your rig next to the others and then go gossip.

No, you have to sit on the 1980 Yamaha XS1100 to drive this rig, but inventor Chito Pastor built this battery-powered sidecar that allows the gas-consuming motorcycle to be turned off when rolling down the road. This gives new meaning to the hybrid concept.

Steve Wilson tucked a 1982 BMW R100 engine into a 1966 BMW chassis, with a Steib sidcar sitting off on the right side. The 1000cc motor is a lot more powerful than the original 600cc unit.

That 1943 BMW 750 outfit survived World War II, and has been kept in excellent running condition by Paso Roblean Tom Weiss. It should be noted that the American 4WD jeep put the three-wheel sidecar out of business as a useful military concept.

The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!

On the last day of March a big plane landed in Los Angeles and 22 Brits — English, Scottish and Welsh — arrived in the U.S. Next day they went down to the Long Beach seaport and liberated 21 motorcycles — 19 Triumphs and two Other Brands. And set off on a four-week adventure, beginning with a trip up the coast to San Francisco. This was all the doing of the Social Secretary of the South Essex branch of the Triumph Owners Motor Cycle Club, one Martin Kerwin. He had bought a container, outfitted it to carry 21 motorcycles, and club members rapidly filled it up. Since the container was going by sea, the bikes had to be in place by January 15th — but nobody with any sense is riding in England in mid-January. I met them when they overnighted in Morro Bay, and they were headed up to Big Sur for lunch, then to Carmel to meet Craig Vetter who was throwing a party for them that evening. [Read more]

San Jose Vintage Bike Show

Spring has sprung, and the motorcycle season is in full swing — as shown by the 23rd Annual Clubman’s All-British Motorcycle Weekend held at the fairgrounds in San Jose, California, the last weekend in March. Along with the 3rd Eur-Asian show, and the 1st American bike show. All vintage, of course. The Limey Lovers have put on a great show for all these years, and this time the BSA and Triumph triples were the featured models. A little, or a lot, of everything else from Ariel to Velocette was on hand, plus a good swap-meet. Three years ago somebody came up with the idea of adding old European and Asian bikes to the show, and the fairgrounds had an extra exhibition hall to rent. This year the aged Indians and Harleys showed up in yet another hall. A three-ring circus, so to speak, with scrambles bikes roaring around in the background. [Read more]

Welcome to Spring

In a country this large we all realize that while some hardy folk are still battling snowdrifts, flooding, painful basketball defeats, and motorcycles still parked in the living room, a fortunate few are already keeping the shiny side up. On this first Sunday of spring a local (Atascadero) tradition is to gather a few friends and ride out to a pleasant meadow to have a picnic. [Read more]

Revenue Agents

The photo here may be the first wherein an official photographer (Adam Campbell) at a new-model introduction snapped a picture of an invited moto-journalist (yours truly) about to get a speeding ticket. Speeding tickets are not unknown at such events, but never before with official photographic evidence. The intro was of the Kawasaki Vulcan 1700 held up in northern California in April of 2009. [Read more]

SLO County’s Christmas Toy Run: Doing Good While Having Fun

That sort of rhymes. Sort of. Anyway…way, way back in 1980 the folks at Bernard’s Cycle Specialties, an aftermarket Harley shop in Oceano, a coastal town in California’s San Luis Obispo County, decided that their clientele should get on the road more often, wear out tires and chains and things, and organized a Christmas toy run. This was before every motorcycle club in the country put one on. The idea was to get a few of the boys and girls together, tell them all to bring a toy, go for a little ride, end up with a barbecue, a pin and a stack of stuffed animals and games that would be donated to an outfit that helped needy kids. [Read more]

San Mateo International Motorcycle Show

It was a perfect day for the show–sunny, warm, unusually clear sky, with the view right across the San Francisco Bay to Mount Hamilton nigh on perfect. The motorcyclists arrived in force at the San Mateo county event center. Free parking for the bikes, $8 for the silly people who arrived in cars. The IMS is always an occasion, no matter where it takes place. This was the second of 12 three-day events, with the first having been in Texas, the last going to be in Daytona during Bike Week, March 3-5, 2010.

Out in the parking area the demo fleets were set up, with Harley and Kawasaki and Yamaha/Star and Can-Am Spyder filling their rosters early on. The day was gorgeous, and to ride off into the hills on someone else’s motorcycle was a dream; unfortunately, you had to bring the bike back just when you were just getting used to it. The number of OEMs running demos was down a bit, since it is a very expensive operation and some companies were being overly nervous, but we trust that the economy should rectify itself in a few months. Remember, that old car will do for another couple of years, but you will need a new motorcycle soon.

The exhibitors filled the two big halls–and they are big–with a third, smaller arena housing vintage bike displays and a very attractive women-riders section, allowing the distaff side to see what the industry has in the way of genderized information, clothes, motorcycles, et cetera. The single biggest draw was at the Honda display, where the new VFR1200F was sitting on a revolving platform and lust was in the eyes of many viewers. BMW did not have its prototype six-cylinder bike on display, much to the chagrin of many, but the go-extremely-fast S1000RR almost made up for the absence, especially with the equally riveting high-heeled attendants on hand.

Along with big displays put on by nine manufacturers, there were dozens of booths showing the latest in helmets and clothing and luggage and anything you can imagine to enhance the motorcycling life. Lots of Northern California motorcycle businesses were present, from the San Francisco monthly City Bike magazine selling T-shirts to local leather vendors offering great discounts. And food was quite available for those who spent eight or more hours at the event.

One of these shows should come within a hundred miles of your house; check dates and places at www.motorcycleshows.com. However, at Chicago in February there will be no demo rides but those ice-bound mid-westerners will thoroughly appreciate the opportunity to wander the halls and dream of spring.

Why I Don’t Fix My Own Tubeless Tires

As the first photo shows, I used to fix my own flat tires. This happened to be on a dirt road in the Himalayas and the only work place was atop this stone version of an Armco barrier. Take the wheel off, take the tire half off, take the tube out, patch the tube, put tube back in, put the tire back on (careful not to pinch the tube), inflate. I still can do that when I have a tubed tire that goes flat, but 90+ percent of my miles are now on tubeless tires.

The man-cave where Chris the tech guy hangs out.

Like on my Honda ST1100. I hadn’t used it for a week, and the rear tire was flat. A close inspection found a nail with the head long since worn away. Apparently it was a slow leak, so I left the nail in place, pumped the tire up and rode the five miles to Chris Sidah’s mountain man-cave. External plugs are handy devices to get a holed tubeless tire back on the road temporarily until you can get to a shop that can fix the tire from the inside. But I never trust the external plugs for the long haul. Since this was a relatively new Avon Storm, I wanted a proper fix.

Just getting the wheel off a modern bike can be a problem, and the work is much easier done on a lift than with me crawling around on the ground. On the ST: remove fender extension, take off axle nut and loosen axle clamp, loosen bolt holding brake caliper and move caliper, find that axle won’t clear muffler unless you remove the muffler bolt and lift the muffler a half inch, pull out axle, do not lose spacer, remove wheel.

Blessed is he who invented the tire-removal machine.

Break the tire bead: no easy task, unless you have a hefty tire-bead breaker. On my DR650′s tube tire I can get the tire off the rim with the heel of my boot, but not on my ST’s tire. Chris’s machine provides a lot of pressure and the bead reluctantly gives way. Then he has a machine that greatly, greatly simplifies the task of removing the tire from the wheel, without having to use all those pesky tire irons.

Tire off, hole is located, and a Stop & Go Inside/Out Patch/Plug is used; this both plugs the hole and puts a patch over the hole. Put the tire back on the wheel, inflate, spray some water on the hole site to see if any air is escaping (nope), remount wheel, put axle back in (don’t forget the spacer), snug, only snug, axle nut, spin wheel to make sure all bearings are happy, tighten clamp, tighten axle nut, tighten caliper, replace muffler bolt, reattach fender bit.

Not a job I would care to do by the side of the road. Unless there was a chase with all the appropriate machinery.

Avila Beach Concours D’Elegance (ABCDE)

These car guys are beginning to get it…motorcycles are an asset to any automotive show. First those Pebble Beach fellows allowed motorcycles in earlier this year, and now the Avila Beach crowd has done the same. On Sunday October 25th some two dozen magnificent examples of motorcycle art rolled on to the 18th green at California’s Avila Beach golf course, ranging in age from the truly antique to the heyday of the classics in the sixties and seventies. [Read more]

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