Musings from one who writes, and rides…
Originally published in RoadRUNNER magazine. Halfway between the Northern California coastal towns of Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, at the nexus of some of the best motorcycle roads on the planet, lies the somnolent town of Pescadero. It just might be the coolest coastal burg that no one has heard of. So please, don’t go…
Originally published in Rider Magazine. Recently I visited one of my favorite cafes, a short ride up the Pacific Coast from my Santa Cruz, California, home. Called Downtown Local, the place is a syrupy mix of old motorcycles, vintage gas tanks stacked on shelves like cordwood, and decades worth of vinyl, which sound a little…
Originally published in RoadRUNNER Magazine. I’ve logged a lot of motorcycle miles with my wife, Meredith, riding pillion, but I’ve never seen this before: she’s back there snapping photos of a straight, four-lane interstate, as if we’re riding god’s own highway. “What’s up?” I ask her. “Well,” she says, “It’s the most amazing thing. I’m looking…
Originally published in RoadRUNNER Motorcycle Touring & Travel Magazine. Rain slants down outside my garage as utility trucks scurry about, fixing downed power lines. A fire truck screams past, heading up the canyon to deal with the latest meetup of a car and tree. Meanwhile, a dull glow emanates from my garage shop, like an ember—I’m in there…
This article was originally published on Motorcycle.com. Photos by Randy Wilder. Forty sweaty high school kids are on a group mountain bike ride in the Fort Ord National Monument, outside Salinas, California. They don’t seem to know, or care, about the identity of the tall guy in their midst. To them, he’s just another well-meaning…
Originally published in the BMW MOA Magazine. Call me grumpy, but as the saying goes, the more people I meet, the better I like my dog. Or my motorcycle. In other words, when it comes to crowds and motorcycling, my general impulse is to go as fast as possible in the opposite direction. And so it…
Note: This article was originally published on Motorcycle.com. Harry “Doc” Wong is addressing the faithful from his small chiropractic office in Belmont, California. He’s been leading free motorcycle riding clinics since 1994—but this one is special. “Good morning,” he says. “Today we’re going to have rain, wind, flash floods, and blown-down trees. In other words,…
Originally published on Motorcycle.com. Photos by Randy Wilder. In the pantheon of vintage motorcycle shows, the Quail Motorcycle Gathering is a little like your neighborhood block party. Part Concours d’Elegance, part custom show and part biker bash, it’s a place where a hardtail chopper with springer forks sits happily alongside an impeccable Manx Norton. Vincents, Velocettes,…
Originally published in Motorcyclist Magazine. For a someone restoring an old motorcycle, it was the most egregious sin: there, affixed to the down tubes of my lovingly reconditioned 1969 Triumph Tiger, were four, black plastic zip ties. To the cognoscenti, it was as if I had spit in Edward Turner’s eye. To the ghosts of the…
Originally appeared on Motorcycle.com. The scene repeats itself dozens of times each day. My passenger, a professional photographer named Mjrka, yells into my helmet. “Stop here, on the right!” I pull over, and he scrambles up the adjacent slope to get a better view of the oncoming Tour du Rwanda bicycle race. I wait. At first,…