Laguna: Prelude...

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you may be swept off to."
Bilbo Baggins

Laguna: Prelude...

posted 03/25/03
July 4, 2001
A 6 a.m. donut on a soft morning in Weaverville after a night of fireworks and small town fun. No state has more perfect mornings than California with air like silk and the heat of the day still only a promise. I talk to a retired U.S. Forest Service worker about the ascendency of tree-hugging in his state and he laughs as I tell him it took our local Port six years to get the permits to repair a public dock in Friday Harbor. His comment was, "At least you’re still building! By the time I retired from the USFS, we didn’t do forestry, we ‘studied’ it!"

Back at the motel, the rest of the Island Mob is awake and ready to go. Long day ahead as we motor down to Hwy 36 and head west. This starts as yet another wonderful curvy road but it has some surprises in store. Yesterday, I had been struck by the number of sport bikes as the day progressed. Like a vast multi-colored army invading the back roads of California, they became more numerous as the day progressed. Afternoon found every intersection crowded like members of a hive gathering to swarm.

Today was different. We were on our own. I didn’t think till later that maybe they knew something we didn’t. No matter, we were here for curves and we found them. Humboldt Hippies too! Stoned! Parked crosswise in the road around blind corners as they sit enraptured by the soaring hawks! Holy s**t that was close as the aging Baby Boomer reacts with glacial speed to 600#s of snarling bike and rider missing him by inches. To make matters worse, he pulls forward to the other lane, then back into our lane. All without turning his wheel. I’m the last bike through and in my mirror I see he’s still lost in the middle of the road.

Note to all readers of HighTimes magazine: heavy drug use WILL screw up the gears in your head! If you still insist on smoking, please do it off the highway so you don’t endanger those of us who like Real Life as opposed to you who like Stoned Life.

Shortly after that incident at the Humboldt County line Hwy 36 declares itself a paved one lane road replete with 10 mph marked curves. In Washington, we don’t pave these little suckers. It’s hard driving this road as the pavement lulls you into going faster and then the narrow corner from hell suddenly looms through the woods.

Eventually this ends and we scurry past the redwoods. Carefully, as the old accident report line of " the motorcycle left the road and struck a tree" lingers in my mind. These are not just trees. They are small worlds and I doubt that the birds in the top would even know if my XX slammed into the trunk. A few more miles and its down the coast to CA #1, mecca for sport bikes. What a treasure. Gorgeous views and turns followed by straight sections in a pattern designed to give a little rest before the next challenge. No billboards either! How do they do that? Roadside advertising is the scourge of Oregon's beautiful coast 101. As is development and that too is missing on CA 1. Laws? Magic? I don’t care, it’s a treasure.

We go on...and on...and on... somewhere around Manchester, CA 1 jumps the shark. My arms are whipped, my hands sore from counter steering a loaded ‘sport touring’ bike with short, ‘sport’ bike bars. The final straw is rounding a bend and finding a herd of cows contentedly laying in the middle of the road. The motel in Petaluma, 450 twisty miles from Weaverville looked mighty good.

The next morning there is a rebellion as Denny on his VFR wants to head down Skyline Blvd. to Alice’s Restaurant and play on the twisties some more. The rest of us are still tired and want to head right down the coast to Monterey. We all wish him well and agree to meet at the motel in Monterey. He takes off and the rest of us motor off across the Golden Gate in rush hour. Holy s**t these Californians drive fast! The road surface is cratered and the final turn to the bridge is out of a tunnel on a steep, diving, left-hander, bumper to bumper! At 70 mph, this is a real sphincter tightening moment.

Across the bridge, I lose my way in the fog and wind up...on Skyline...at Alice’s. Oh well, at least it’s at my pace and the rest of the trip is uneventful except for one little sign way up on a deserted stretch of ridge line. The sign proclaims: " Palo Alto City Limits" . But no city, no limits, just a thin tendril of Silicon Valley pushing into the real world. How disquieting.

The Races

I lived on this island for the past 28 years and that means that somethings mainlanders take for granted are strange to me. Believe it or not, motorcycle races are one of them. Its too hard to get to a race in Seattle. Overnight at least and so I just didn’t go. This is especially odd as I was set to race a BMW R90S way back in 1974 for Rose City Motorcycles of Portland. The bike and I were to be sponsored by the shop. And then I got a job up here and my life went from road racing to sailboat racing. OK, I like competition. A race is a race. When I was kid, I raced my horse at the fairs. In high school I was on the track team. Ran the 100 and the 220. Had a perfect season my senior year: I never lost! Eat yer heart out Gary Patron:-)

Lately, sport bikes have been fulfilling my need for speed. First the 1990 Hurricane 600. Now the XX. The trip to Laguna, no make that ‘the pilgrimage to Mecca’ was the culmination of several years of riding with other friends up here in the Pacific North Wet. Summer, California back roads, World Super Bikes. It all sounded good and I was looking forward to it but not yet " first date with a loose woman teenage boy" excited.

All that changed as we rounded the final turn on the road to Laguna! Brown rolling hills, California scrub brush and a gazillion bikes. I’m still life's uninvolved observer until I round the corner to the main grandstand. From rural to a 600 super sport race in 50 yards! There is a wall of noise as the bikes flash by on the straight 150’ away. The engines howl and the air rips at 150+mph. ALL GLANDS: SECRETE, SECRETE!!! What an adrenaline rush! What a show!

The infield scene with the smell of race gas in the air, the sound of motors moaning up the hill to the corkscrew turn add to this as the day goes by in a swirl of noise, dust and fumes. If you’ve never been, go. You have no idea what a party this is. This is an orgy of technology with frantic work in the pits as changes are made to accommodate the local conditions to optimize speed. With a pit pass, you get right into the working area. You see the racers and talk with them too. Colin Edwards impresses me as he comes over and signs posters for his fans. His wrist is sore from an earlier crash and his mechanics want his attention too but he’s willing to take some time for the kids and adults in an unscheduled autograph session. I didn’t have a poster but he signed my ticket :-)

Tip to all if you go and want souvenirs. Buy an 18" tube mailer at the PO in town. Take a sharpie marker. Grab the posters early. When you have all the autographs you want, mail it home.

Friday, I cell phone internet friend Graham so I can sit in the Corkscrew turn area with him, and others from the CBRList I sub to. He talks me in like an errant pilot lost in the fog as I wander the track looking for them. They give me tips on good locations for pictures and it's fun to chat face to face with people I’ve only e-mailed. At the VFR dinner in town on Friday, I meet more list members and on Cannery Row on ‘bike night’ yet more listers recognize the foot and a half long rubber squid on the back of my XX. It’s my totem and my " Harley bait" . The HD tribe just can’t resist trying to race when I troll it by them heh heh.

I used Friday and Saturday to get to know the track, pits, and displays because Sunday are the Super Bike races. For once in my sport bike life, I don’t feel like the odd man out at a Harley convention. 10’s of thousands of fans wander the grounds. The accents are international. This is not a NASCAR race bubba! There are people here from Japan and Germany. I know that this is a ‘big deal’ because the foods expensive AND bad! In ‘little deals’ like the small town fair three nights before in Weaverville, the food was also bad but at least it was cheap. Bad food... but good friends. A fair trade in my book.

Sunday was spent in the stands on the finish line straight. As the Superbikes thundered by, I dialed up my Fearless Wife and held the phone up to give her a sound bite as the leaders came past at 150+mph. Looking around, I see I’m not the only one with that idea as others do the same for stay-behinds. After the races, I’m spent, tired, happy, and rapidly going broke. Time to motor 1,500 miles back home.

There really isn’t anyway to describe how enjoyable this weekend was. All I can do is hope that if you haven’t gone yet, you will in the future. This is your Techno-Haj. The once in a lifetime pilgrimage that every true biker in the sportbike tribe makes makes. The Harley people have Sturgis and Daytona and they surely outnumber us in this country. Only at WSB at Laguna can you make the international connection and feel part of that larger community that exists otherwise in magazines, Speed channel shows, and after the season videos.

(to be finished next week)

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