SHOOTING THE COAST II / ISSUE 3 2019 / 61I wasn’t exactly dragging my knee pucks, of course—as
I was still recovering from a pretty good dirt bike crash
about a month earlier in Big Bend Park in Texas—but at
a brisk older gentleman’s pace, this was a bike that made
you want to stay out on the track until dark. It’s the great
white shark of sport-touring bikes.
The ride home Sunday was pleasantly relaxing be-
cause we took two days to get back to Orange County,
with an overnight stay at the charming old Paso Robles
Inn. A visit to the Asuncion Ridge Vineyards tasting room
helped us get our electrolytes back in balance, and the
next morning we blitzed straight home through L.A. traf-
fic in the HOV lane before evening commuter traffic had
time to thicken and gel.
Perhaps the best part of the ride home was the Coast
Highway, back down through Big Sur again, past Nepen-
the, a famous restaurant built upon the remains of a small
cabin that was once a romantic weekend retreat for Orson
Welles and his wife Rita Hayworth. “Nepenthe,” incidental-
ly, is an ancient Greek word for a fictional potion that ban-
ishes worry and sorrow from the mind. Just like the road
and the coastline. We cruised over the road repairs from
many recent landslides, onward past the Hearst Estate at
San Simeon, then all the way to Highway 46.
On many previous trips, Barb and I would hustle down
this road at a crazy pace to get home in one day. But this
time we cruised along at a relaxed-tourist speed, savoring
the scenery. And I was reminded—for the first time since
our laid-back Harley trip—why this has always been a fa-
vorite landscape of Beat and Zen poets, and other search-
ers with a meditative bent. To include motorcyclists.
When you take the time to look out at its mists, rocky
crags and crashing surf, the effect is so absorbing that
there’s not much time for the mind to wander off course
and think about anything except where you are at the
exact moment. Combined with the flow of motorcycle
motion along the mountainside curves, there’s almost no
chance you’ll wonder if you left the coffee pot plugged in
or paid the Visa bill. Nepenthe, indeed.
That elixir worked for us with the Harley FLH almost
four decades ago, and it works for us with the BMW now.
The bikes have changed, but not this magical place or
the reasons we ride. If this were a comparison test, both
bikes would win, dead equal in the pleasure they bring. nIt’s the great
white shark of
sport-touring bikes.