Epic Ride, part 2
by Titus Gee
(Big D and I continue the adventure we started in Epic Ride, part 1.)
A weathered Mazda convertible from sometime in the early ’90s rounded the hill and crept toward us. The driver crawled it over the heaps and creases of dirt washed across the pavement and splashed through the little stream that ran crosswise behind the “ROAD CLOSED” sign. The car pulled up to us, and the window powered down.
A hefty, slightly grizzled couple in their late fifties grinned up at us, eyes alight. (Well, she grinned. He kinda twinkled grudgingly.) They already knew our question . . .
“How’s the road? Passable?”
“O yeah,” the man started to say.
“Beautiful!” piped in the woman. “We had it all to ourselves. You should see it!”
“You come from the other end?”
“All the way,” he said, then holding one hand about a foot above the other. “Couple of places it’s about that deep.”
“Three or four places!” the woman said.
“But you came through all right?” I looked at his ground clearance, six inches, maybe eight.
“Ah sure,” he said.
“It’s worth it!” she said. “It’s so beautiful!”
“It’s worth it,” he said, with a little nod.
We thanked them, and the little car pulled past us. We didn’t watch them go. For all we know, they evaporated right behind us. Our eyes had already turned back to the road.
Alone, either of us probably would have turned away.
“Think we should try it?”
“Let’s try it,” Big D said.
(Later he admitted that his brain said ‘no,’ but ‘let’s try it’ came out all on its own.)
We hustled back to the Idol and the War Horse before we could change our minds. Our front tires stopped next to each other at the edge of the little stream.
“I’ll go first,” I said, and splashed across.
We picked our way across the washed-out road and round the bend. Instead of more twisting canyon road, we found ourselves on a high rolling plain dotted with farmhouses and tree-lined lanes, and hushed by a thick blanket of new snow. Except for our motors, the world seemed perfectly still. The road had been plowed and stretched out, dry and dark, across the dips and rises of the snowbound valley. Clouds echoed the landscape, bunching and spreading in hills and valleys of their own. I had to stop a minute just to drink it all in.
Guess the Sage of the Mazda was right.
Big D took point again.
We climbed on tarmac cut deeply into the hillsides and mostly clean, washed by rain and melting snow. We took it easy in the muddy corners. Above, the sky grew ever more dramatic, and the hilltops brought sweeping views.
The Idol’s brake light flashed on as Big D disappeared over a rise, and I slowed to the crest. There, below, a rushing torrent flowed across our path left to right — milk chocolate brown, relentlessly swift, and at least 50 yards wide. At the right, the asphalt’s edge turned it into a cataract. Big D idled at the near bank, facing front.
I eased up next to him. It looked to be a foot or two deep, but who could tell?
His helmet cocked slightly toward me. Once again, someone had to go first.
We glanced down at the Idol — its new tires barely smeared with mud, its tailpipe cocked high and guarded by a metal pannier, the showroom finish of its chrome and plastic panels.
“I’m going,” Big D said.
I said nothing.
He twisted the throttle and a second later he was knee-deep. The water surged up around him, parting in two great, horizontal cyclones, spinning nearly to his shoulders, then rushing back together in his wake. The Idol’s taillight dimmed, and Big D actually grew small in the distance. I tensed in my saddle, kickstand down, suddenly ready to leap in after him if it all went sideways. The image flashed in my brain, and then he was out. His taillight glowed in the distance. His hands shot up, and I heard his bark of triumph above the din of the water.
My turn.
Kickstand. Clutch-gear-clutch-throttle. The road disappeared, then my front tire, replaced by a brown bow wave. My tires met smooth, hard ground. The flood rushed around my feet and shoved me toward the downstream edge of the road. Two-thirds of the way across, the water rose higher and pushed harder just as the road turned to gravel. My front tire tugged right.
Lean into it and throttle, throttle, throttle. (Solid, steady throttle, that’s the cardinal rule for high water and loose ground alike). The back tire bit deep, and I clawed up and out the other side. Then it was my turn to yell. The joy jumped out of my chest and into the air in one great whoop!
Then it was laughing and high-fives, and eyes alight and tires itchy for more.
In that moment, we had a taste of Charley and Ewan making their first crossing in Kazakhstan. We felt a shadow of Lewis and Clark stepping out onto the Great Plains. We were men and brothers and exultant in a way reserved exclusively for those who have done something dangerous and probably very foolish, but together and with total success. We gunned our engines out of the gully and onward.
The second crossing caught us by surprise. I came bombing over a rise and skidded down the backside to stop next to Big D. It stretched as wide as the first, but calmer and not as deep. By now any pang of worry had gone. I went first, and the road held smooth all the way across. I sloshed out the other side, my bow wave spreading ahead of me up the shallow slope then sliding back into the torrent. I turned to watch the D make his run — one smooth, steady whoosh — and we laughed and crowed and gunned for the next hill.
By the third crossing we were pros and hardly slowed, splashing across in quick succession. After that the streams got smaller. An hour ago, they would have stopped us, maybe, but now we knew ourselves better.
Lockwood Valley Road continued to climb. The cloud cover deepened, and patches of snow spread out from the shadows to become a solid winterscape of boulders and evergreens. We pulled off just to look at it all, examining the thorough coating of mud on the Idol and the War Horse, staring into a valley, and listening to the snow-dampened silence.
Next came a high plain deep with snow and stretching nearly to the horizon, crosshatched with long driveways leading out from our one dark ribbon of road to distant houses. Here our path ran dead straight, rising and falling over gentle hills for miles and miles, and not another vehicle or soul as far as we could see. The perfect, empty straightaways begged speed, and we made a couple more short sprints, the War Horse just keeping pace as Big D cautiously tried out the Idol’s power.
We passed a solitary crew repairing power lines — perched on their truck, like a ship at sea, and looking oddly out of place after so many miles of empty road. We cruised by with a nod, and one of them waved, the curt flick of another biker.
I could feel the temperature falling. Spring shadows spread across the snow.
Suddenly, we came to the crossroads at Frazier Mountain Park Road. To the west lay the rest of Big D’s planned route — more than 100 miles further, past Santa Maria. To the east a short jog offered civilization and the mighty Golden State Freeway toward home. In the fading afternoon, with nearly two hours between us and our respective beds, we turned east.
A truck stop in Frazier Park furnished a little shelter and an almost edible burger and fries. We stripped out of our gear for a few minutes and began the first of what will likely be many recountings of the day, swapping the exclamations we couldn’t share while riding.
By the time we got back to the parking lot, full darkness had fallen. Our breath puffed out in clouds, and the chill found every corner of moisture in our gear. Still we lingered a bit. From here it was all freeways back home, more commuting than riding, really. Somewhere in the traffic our paths would diverge. I might not see Big D again before his U-Haul headed north.
“Well, we didn’t get as far as you wanted.”
He waved a hand.
“Epic.” He grinned. “That’s what I wanted.”
I grinned back.
For the day’s final adventure, the War Horse showed its age by objecting to the cold, and Big D helped me push it back into life.
Then came the freeway and traffic in the dark, and we were city riders again. We held formation, guarding each other’s lane and trading off the lead. At Newhall, an old stomping ground of ours, I tried to signal him to pull off, but he misunderstood and pulled ahead.
Ten minutes later we honked a farewell. Big D shot away down his freeway and I down mine.
As he disappeared, I muttered to the wind:
Keep the shiny side up, my friend, and the rubber side down.
