Motorcycle Playground

* Under certain conditions

Trigger Warning: Harsh language, written and spoken, ahead.

Last Thursday, I sent out an invitation to the dirt riders amongst the BMWOCSD folks, and four brave souls replied: Favored riding buddy Perry, Sim, whom I have met once but never ridden with, and two people I’d never met in my life. I hoped they knew what they were in for with me.

Sim, a friend from Instagram, had graciously had a few of us over to his home for dinner and socializing. He introduced me to a Scotch that I could not only drink, but enjoy. My esteem of him may have dipped slightly when he insisted upon a 6am start from Ramona… really? Ok, ok – let’s beat the heat. Good idea. Yes. Correct.

I set my alarm for 4am and woke up 1 minute before it went off. 

Originally, I’d planned to bring the KTM 690 Enduro R on the excursion, having (rather unsuccessfully) previously tangled with one particular section of Black Mountain. However, when I got up at 4am that morning, it was a weeeeeee bit chilly – even with the Forecast shell on over the Avalon jacket, I’d have been too cold to enjoy the 40-minute, pre-dawn ride to Ramona. GS it was – what could go wrong?  (If you have to ask…)

I tend to arrive early when meeting others; I don’t usually mind waiting, but I hate being waited on. I don’t want to That Person. Thus, I wandered into the good ol’ Dunkin Donuts at about 0545, grabbed a breakfast sandwich and a coffee, and soon my beloved Perry showed up. Perry knows what to expect when riding offroad with me (usually unmitigated chaos and a lot of laughing near/at me,) and I hoped everyone would be patient (and they absolutely were.)

I’ve been so fortunate to have riding friends in my world who extend nothing but patience, support, and good advice. Wade, Edward, Perry, Nick, and others remind me that they all have “spider legs” that easily reach the ground, whereas I am “five-foot-nothing” (SIX, thank you, five-foot-six!) and struggle on that front. 

Compounding the fact I cannot lift my bike by myself is one other niggling detail: I am not medically cleared for off-roading at all, in any way, due to some serious issues with my lower back. Recently, my doctor gave me the all-clear for such grueling activities as:

Walking
(That is the only item on this list.)

So, I basically stand around like a total asshole while other people literally do the heavy lifting for me. I hate that. But bless their hearts, every one.

Soon, Kunal and Josh arrived, also somewhat new dirt riders, and we then waited for the gentleman whose idea it had been to be ready at 0600 (Adrien Cronauer echoes in my head, “What does the ‘0’ stand for? ‘OH MY GOD, IT’S EARLY!'”) 0615 rolled around, and so did Sim. Sim is such a jovial, warm, and wonderful person, it’s impossible to even start getting cross with him.

We got ourselves sorted, got gas for one person who’d forgotten it, and off we went into the cloudy Ramona morning.

We took Magnolia Avenue to Black Canyon Road, where we soon found ourselves riding through the morning cloud layers, which adhered themselves to my shield, to my glasses, and to my GoPro lens.

It was a beautiful pre-sunrise sojourn, however, with shades of pink, blue, orange, and gray all around us.

Soon enough, we were at the Santa Ysabel gate, regrouping briefly, and then we began the trail.

The wonderful spring rains of the Superbloom are but a distant and pleasant memory at this point, but it still seems as if the hillsides are greener this year than they were last. Many still-lovely dried flowers attest to the splendor we had this past spring, however. 

The Santa Ysabel and Black Mountain Truck Trails were not in great shape: Each was strewn with copious amounts of sand and what my buddy Wade calls “fuck-you rocks,” as well as having sections of gnarly ruts and assorted other hazards.

Now, understand that when I say “copious amounts of sand,” other riders might say, “…there was sand? Really?” Ok, it’s not so much they might say that, as they have.

When I say “sand,” I also include these other sand-like things: Decomposed granite, silt, and anything with a base composition of less than a millimeter in size.  Take, for example, this first turn coming down from Piney Top; experienced riders look at this and scoff, whereas my newbie self sees SAND, and a steeply inclined (and off-camber) sharp turn that is strewn with rocks.

Everyone else in the party navigated this Just Fine, and, to be honest, I was pleased not to have fallen down myself. The video of that is toward the end of this story.

Some people are graced with a finely attuned sense of smell, others strong courage, others a great sense of direction, and so forth. Me? I have a fine-tuned sense of traction, and an overly developed fear of its loss; twenty-mumble years of street riding with nary any dirt has made maintaining grip a part of my DNA. Loss of traction == Bad. Thus, “letting the rear end swing around as needed” is a concept as foreign as “lean toward the outside of the bike in a turn.” WHAT?!

Up is down, left is right, dogs and cats living together.

My fear of riding downhill on loose substrate falls somewhere between “irrational” and “well-informed.” My experience heretofore has been largely one of falling down – a lot – under certain conditions.

Therefore, I have accidentally, yet very firmly, ingrained Phil’s Motto (trademark pending) into my own subconscious mind: DIRT IS BAD. Ok, perhaps that’s overstating things, because I frickin’ love riding dirt – I’m just very not good at it, and so my brain has learned to anticipate falling down.

A Lot.

Take, for example, this clip from a few months back. I’m coasting along a gentle downhill, minding my own business, avoiding ruts, when suddenly fuck-you-sand-thud.

Thus, I have a healthy fear of sand.

Normally, I love the Santa Ysabel Truck Trail; she has beautiful vistas, a few technical bits, and is generally just about perfect for an intermediate-at-best rider like me. All of that changed, apparently, with the recent rains that brought too much sand into her domain, and (apparently) the clean-up/sweeper crew hadn’t gotten their brooms and dust pans up there just yet (ah, if only that were A Thing.)

Sim took the lead, I followed, then Josh, Kunal, and Perry bringing up the rear. Sim is a far more skilled rider than I, and he quickly left me in the literal dust, though he waited for me to catch up quite often.

Many disparage the R1200GS or GSA as an off-road bike. To these nay-sayers, I retort: Any bike that makes it possible for me to handle it under intermediate conditions, and for experienced dirt riders to handle it under damn near any other conditions, must do pretty stinkin’ well. It is not a skinny bike, but I know more than a few riders who throw it around like it is. It is a joy to ride on-road and off, and I am its biggest liability by orders of magnitude.

My GS is an abuse sponge; I have thrown her down and around in all manner of situations, and she has never once left me stranded. She barely complains unless something somewhat dire is wrong (fouled plug, for instance.) The KTM has seen far fewer miles and unscheduled get-offs, but is somewhat unhappy with me, anyhow, wanting to push her brake pedal through the case, or jack up her hand guards, or break her levers. The GS? None of that nonsense, my friends. None. And you’ve seen what I do to her.

We arrived at the wide, red LZ/plateau/vista point.

We paused briefly to check in and see how our newer riders were feeling about tackling a potentially much more challenging path – the Black Mountain Truck Trail.

Everyone was game – sweet!

Black Mountain starts out easily enough like this, and then gets progressively more challenging:

Easing us into:

Then, sometimes, it creeps up on you and goes a little something like this:

(I don’t have an ADV-style rear brake pedal step-up, so standing and braking with any finesse is impossible for me. Thus, when I need to hit the brakes, I tend to sit.) Frankly, I was thrilled not to have dropped it.

Only Perry and Sim made it through that one with any grace. In fact, Sim did it twice, rescuing our KTM rider who’d gotten a little stuck.

We were most of the way up at this point, but Sim had forgotten one crucial detail about the path ahead: My White Whale. The hill upon which my pride died a grisly death once before. A steep, rutted, sloped, sandy, motherfucker of a hill. I knew it was coming, ohhhh yes; yes indeed. I’d been thinking about it since we planned the ride. I knew what to expect, I was ready. All I had to do was stay to the left, focus, keep my eyes up, and commit like whoa. I was confident. I felt … not good, per se, but like I had a good shot at making it to the top on the first try. I’d have my momentum, which was a huge factor to success.

Well.

I came around the corner, knowing full well what was on the other side. In the video below, you can hear me saying “here we go!” followed by “oh God…” and then I begin my ascent, starting on the right, ready to move to the left as soon as I get over this OH MY FUCKING HELL NO NO NO SIM AND PERRY ARE STOPPED HALFWAY UP SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT.

To my complete surprise, I did not topple over when I came to a sudden stop. I knew my victory would be short-lived, however, because now… now we were in the shit. Halfway up the hill with the worst directly in front of us. There would be no “momentum,” there would be no “eyes up, focus, commit,” no. No, none of that for us this day.

Our stalwart, fearless lead had taken the line to the right, which seemed perfectly safe and passable until oh fuck oh shit what the hell sand sucks you in, slows you down, takes you off-balance, and generally ensnares you like a Black Mountain. “Widow,” sorry; that should read “Black Widow.”

It took the whole team, but Sim got up the hill and trudged back down to help the rest of us sorry sunsabitches. Perry went next, and he killed it. It was then My Turn. I would not kill it. No, I wouldn’t even smack it around a little bit. Instead, I would literally roll over onto my back with my legs in the air, which (shockingly) didn’t intimidate the widow… mountain… one little bit.

One-photo summary? Sure, here:

Or, as my so-called friend Nick added:

I still have no idea how this happened: It’s like the bike said NOPE I’M GOING OVER HERE, and I said FINE, YOU DO YOU, BOO, TAKE A NAP NOW and boom. Bless Sim’s heart, though – he didn’t know whether to help me or turn off the bike. I was hollering “GET THE BIKE” because #Priorities

Josh got up with nary a hitch, and Kunal made it up once he really got going, too.

After my… dislodgment… I truly wanted to try again, but even more than that, I truly did not want to have everyone laboring to pick it up again. As Sim mounted up to ride the GS the rest of the way, I admonished mim not to put so much as a single scratch on my pristine bike. He promised to do his best, but remarked the tank bag was bumping into his armor boobs a bit much to make any guarantees.

The full, 12-minute video of the entire White Whale escapade is here: Black Mountain, White Wale.

For those who don’t wish to endure all that torture, here is the one-minute TLDR:

 I noticed something when the back of my head hit the ground: My Schuberth E1’s chinbar popped up. #WellShit

My helmet has seen better days, friends. It has been run over by a motorcycle trailer, fallen off the bike numerous times, suffered the indigity of having a Sena mic boom repeatedly shut into its closure, and has generally been thoroughly abused – a trip up to Schuberth’s joint in Laguna Nigel is due pretty much immediately to have it “refreshed.”

The sun visor is missing its attachment on one side, the main visor’s notches are so worn down as to be unable to stay raised in the face of a slight breeze or bump, and so on. This resulted in a very dusty shield slamming down at the least-opportune moments, such as when entering a shaded portion of the trail coming from the sun, or vice-versa – all detail was obscured. “Oh, there’s a giant rut there,” “Oh hey, suddenly, fuck-you rock,” WHAM.

We caught our breath, and began the final push to the summit. Only one tricky bit remained, and that was the final turn about 50 yards from the top. It’s generally less an issue going up than down, and everyone made it up safely, feeling pretty chuffed about conquering the mountain on our big-assed Adventure bikes.

The view is very worth the effort.

We lamented the asshats who tried to chop down a perfectly healthy tree with an ax:

My nerves were turned up to 11 as we began our return trip and its descent. It did not help matters that the very first obstacle to negotiate was a very sharp, very steep, quite sandy and rocky, left-hand turn that looks like this:

I realized, as I teetered on its edge, that I just had to let science do its thing and go with gravity and motion. Thankfully, that went well – Add one notch in the “learned something positive” column for the day.

The Two-Wheel Cowboy always says, “moderate speed is your friend off-road.” He also says, “you gotta be careful with speed offroad; you’ll be ripping along just fine, and then you’re not fine because the road conditions suddenly changed without warning and now you’re going too fast and you’re being airlifted out and you’ve ruined everyone’s day.”

I’m still learning what “moderate speed” and “too fast” are in various conditions, so I tend to err on the slow side. While slightly less dangerous to body and bike, perhaps, it does make me prone to more unscheduled trail/bike departures because I’m not going fast enough to overcome whatever obstacle has presented itself. 

Something, for example, like this water crossing with the Cowboy and Wade:

I don’t mind falling down when trying something hard; it’s the falling down doing something incredibly stupid or wrong that bothers me. 

As we reached The Dreaded Spot where I’d eaten it so spectacularly not an hour before, I was about as loose and relaxed as a pre-race thoroughbred at the Downs, man. A small part of me felt like clawing off my helmet to get more Oxygen on-board, but that was all psychological., of course.

Sim went first, followed after a few moments by Perry. Josh went next, allowing a grace period in case something went wrong for Perry. Then, I watched Josh’s helmet disappear over the crest.

It was my turn. As I stared down the barrel of this Gauntlet of Death, the site which has seen at least one LifeFlight to rescue a downed rider, the site which has now claimed my pride not once, but twice, my pulse was about 6,000. I vaguely wondered if I’d pee myself if I went flying over the edge and down the (most likely non-lethal) slope.

I was going to DO THIS, however, and I was going to do it on my own – at least until I fell over and couldn’t pick the bike up again, right?

Right.

Remembering the lesson from only a few moments ago about just surrendering and letting physics and the bike work harmoniously, I turned up my music and more or less went with it. There were a few times when I firmly believed I was about to either eat it again or go plummeting over the edge, but – happily – neither of those things happened, and it was reasonably smooth (if harrowing) sailing. 

I fully expected a complete marching band reception when I reached my three compatriots at the bottom, but alas, there was a bit of polite cheering, and then we waited for Kunal to appear. Miraculously, all of us made it down without any tip-overs. GO TEAM! Further Together! And so on.

This led to a bit more confidence, and I careened down the rest of the mountain at break-neck speeds.

Now, I say “careened” and “break-neck,” but that’s just what it felt like to me: It was actually more a pace most seasoned (and even newer) riders would think “Careful and circumspect. Meticulous.”

We all arrived safely at the bottom, blasted out Pamo Road to Ramona, and had a lovely breakfast at the fantastic Ramona Cafe. The day was not yet hot, one perk of having started our adventure at negative o’clock. The main Ramona drag was lively and well-traveled on foot, by car, and… by Harley Davidsons with straight pipes. So. Many. It was embarrassing to be sitting with our motorcycle gear – I just wanted to stand up and apologize and explain. Still, a few folks stopped to chat a bit, which was nice.

All in all, a wonderful day – new friends, fun trails, good stories, topped off by good food, and home in time for lunch.

Perfection.

Now: Where does that road go?