She started. Not startled I departed as early as possible in order to have a small chance of getting to Mark at Moto Guzzi Classics in LA before he closed at 5 pm. It was a long shot, over 300 miles and around 6 hours in the saddle longer if I stopped to wonder at things like this.
Out in the middle of nowhere sand dunes rose up from the harsh rugged landscape and drifted across the road. The North Algodones Dunes attracted buggies of excessive, singleminded, horsepower.
A cool crowd but friendly, not minding my attention as they prepared to shatter the calm of the morning with automotive mayhem.
Time was pressing so I pressed on. Delayed by a road block orchestrated by border security looking, like the tourists at Roswell, for aliens. They waved me through but in the anxious moments I missed my turn and ended up seeing more of the Salton Sea than planned. It sits on top of the San Andreas fault and is seriously salty.
I phoned ahead to give Mark the heads-up that I’d be there tomorrow with a duff linked brake and to enquire about spoked wheels, he was helpful as ever and said that they had loads of brake pipes and could fit one tomorrow.
More often than not getting lost puts me on an interesting route, not getting lost might have too but the frustration spices the joy of an unexpected vista or challenging mountain pass. If I hadn’t missed my turn I would have missed this on the climb into San Diago County.
In other news, 3750 miles of solo riding on a 42 year old Italian ‘Superbike’ brought me to the point where I could no longer go on, at least not straight on.
I took a moment to take it in then trundled up the coast a ways to check in, drink Guinness outside a sterile Irish pub and sleep.
Le Mans man 