Our first day on the road

We got away reasonably early from our motel this morning. A fond farewell to Ajay at the Carlton Motel, Long Beach, who accommodated all our needs. First stop was Long Beach Airport where we dropped off the hire car. With both of us on the bike we headed south to pick up the Pacific Coast Highway where we turned west and headed for the hills (literally). It seemed to take forever to clear the suburbs, but eventually we found ourselves on a reasonably clear road heading towards Malibu Beach. No one swimming yet.

At Topanga Beach we hooked right to go up the Topanga Canyon Road and instantly found ourselves in a completely different and motorbike friendly environment, with the road constantly twisting as we climbed into the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu. At the town of Topanga we turned left onto the Old Topanga Canyon Road for more enjoyable riding. A clear, cool, hazy, spring day. The roads twisted around the valleys so that you could see where you came from on the other side. Yellow and white flora on deep green vegetation, most of it less than two metre high, except for the odd spindly pine in the valleys. At the end of this road we turned onto Mullholland Highway and headed to the Rock Store, with its fantastic supply of heart warming food, (pancakes, cookies as big as a plate, burgers of any description). It's a popular destination for bikers, especially on weekends. (See http://www.rock-store.com/).

The old codgers keenly discussed their bikes, just as the men in our bike club do. A young bloke dropped his R1150RT as he pulled in. Everyone rallied to help him pick it up and get it away from the road. Today being Friday things were fairly quiet with less than a dozen bikes there. It was lunch time, so we ate there before heading off deeper into the mountains on some of the windiest roads we have ever ridden, with many corners posted with 10, 15 and 20 mph advisory signs, and sheer drops. The properties in the valleys were large, lavish and manicured. The Spanish designs particularly, suited the area. Sigh!!!

From the Rock Store we set our GPS to take us to Ojai (pronounced O-hi). It sent us onto Highway 101 for some distance - enough to confirm we don't really want to take freeways if we can avoid them. At Ventura we finally turned off 101 and headed north to Ojia where we had another rest break before tackling the spectacularly beautiful Maricopa Highway. There were horses, bronze horse statues on the gates, runaway cattle to avoid and small creeks to cross (obviously huge rivers a while ago with the rubble they brought down).  After crossing Pine Mount summit at 5084 ft we turned right onto the Lockwood Valley Road that took us across another pass at 5516 ft before descending into Lebec, a quiet little town sitting smack bang on top of a junction between the San Andreas and another major fault line. Spring was just taking off the last of the winter chill. Clean, crisp snow country in a deep valley with a strange variety of hills formed by earthquakes as the faults rubbed, each in opposite directions. Interstate 5 that cuts the town in two runs along the fault line.

This was our planned destination for the night and it was about 5 pm when we got there, so we found the nearest motel and booked in for the night. It is more up-market than we had hoped, but very comfortable. Our bike's trip computer tells us we have covered 201 miles at an average speed of 30.4 mph and achieved a fuel economy of 43.5 mpg.

Shep, the friendly silver haired gentleman(and unpaid tour guide) at the front desk recommend several restaurants. We settled for Mexican. I wish I could have their recipe for salsa.

Shep told us it's due to snow next Tuesday. We had better move on.