California Tour to Begin | GTAMotorcycle.com

California Tour to Begin

Thom

Thom

Well-known member
Flying to San Diego on Wednesday this week with touring buddy Jeff. Renting a couple of bikes and hitting the roads for a week. No set routes, although aiming for coastal highway north of LA and some southern valley riding. Will depend on the temps and possibility of snow at some of the higher altitudes. Will be doing a lot of day to day route planning. Avoiding freeways and hitting the back roads as much as possible.

Any suggested routes are welcome!

Thom
 
Highway 2 in the Angles Forrest mountains just north of Glendale if it hasn't snowed too much.
 
Ortega Highway from San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinore. If you're heading north from San Diego to LA it's a bit more than half way. This road kind of connects I-5 with I-15. You're gonna love California!
 
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Lightcycle said:
If you're headed north of LA, Hwy 33 north of Ventura through Ojai up into the mountains of Los Padres National Forest is an amazing twisty road, nice high speed sweepers and the pavement is great. You can go and down it, or it meets up with I5 on the east side for a round-trip.
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That is a very nice area as well. We camped there one night. It gets pretty cold even in the middle of the summer tho.
 
Sorry, I don't have routes for you but I hope your having a blast Thom.

More importantly I hope to hear a good report on what you found. What did you end up renting and what did it cost?
 
I'm heading to Cali with three friends on march 13 - 19, renting bikes from eagle rider in Los Angeles and heading out from there.. South to San Diego then east along the border to el centro and salton sea. North to Joshua tree national park and Palm Springs. Then north again to Barstow, west and south to Santa Barbara and back to LA.
 
Am back! A fantastic 7 days of riding. I will post pics when I get a chance but in the meantime...
Days were not long as my ridding buddy is recently off a nasty surgery and could only handle 4 hrs/day max. (we are both 65) This meant for a relaxed pace and some sight seeing at some overnight spots. Weather was fantastic all the way. Highs were low 70s first four days, 58-60 last three. I have a nasty sun/wind burn on my face from the last three days. Should have used sunscreen.
- flew to San Diego
- rented two Harley Electragide Limiteds from SD Harley. They have 100 rental bikes on hand!! $932 for the week (7 days) each, including all taxes, and insurance with zero deductable
- at last minute decided to head north to avoid high areas (cold & snow) and to make a surprise visit on my brother
- rode the freeway north, though LA (HEAVY dense traffic, but 65 mph) to Malibu and up the Pacific Coast highway (spectacular!)
- headed inland before San Jose and to Sacramento where my brother was totally blown away when we pulled up
- down the valley from Sacramento (fruit and vegetable tree orchards almost all the way) to Pasadena. Lotsa low mountain areas. Beautiful.
- skirted LA this time and back to San Diego

Still unpacking and doing laundry but hope to get pics up later today.

Thom
 
We did almost a week in southern California on rented BMW 1200 GSs - incredible! For anyone considering a ride in southern California, DO NOT hesitate - it's incredible, the roads are smooth as glass, the turns are banked (and not decreasing in radius to deter speeding) and the people are incredibly bike-friendly to the point where they actually move over onto shoulders to let you by or lane-split (yes, responsible lane splitting is legal in California). We basically went from LA south along the Pacific Highway through La Jolla and San Diego and turned south and east along a secondary road into El Centro for the night. From there went went north along the Salton Sea, into Joshua Tree National Park , Yukka Valley and Palm Desert and stayed in Palm Springs for the night. Onto Barstow Beaumont and Santa Barbara, Mlibu, Ventura and Santa Monica then back to LA. Google or Youtube roads such as: California 74 or 234 as well as Mulholland Drive. 74 and 234 took us from sea level up to nearly 9000 feet of elevation along thousands of switchbacks and mountain passes - it was unbelievable...tons of bikes of all sorts and sport cars as well. I will update with pictures later on but in the meantime, if anyone is planning something similar, feel free to shoot me an email at alongat.gat@gmail.com for routes, lodging and food suggestions (for food, we basically searched all possible dives and drive-ins for local, home made food and we never had one single bad meal). I am in love with California...
 
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