LA TO ARIZONA ON A HARLEY
It is 447 miles to Scottsdale, Arizona. We got a full tank of gas half-eaten energy bar. It’s blistering hot, and we’re wearing full riding gear – gloves, helmet, jacket, and boots. Let’s hit it!
Riding with the King
I’ve flown all the way to Los Angeles to launch our newest Cardo communicator – the Packtalk Edge. When the press ride is over, and the successful event is behind us, it’s time to set the scope on a new target – the Arizona Bike Week. This annual rite is a festival of Harley and Harley-like (colloquially referred to as “V-Twins” for their engine configuration) riders. I’ve heard about the event from one of our Brand Managers based in Long Beach, California, and decided to check it out myself. And what a better way to attend a “Hells Angeles” gathering than on the back of a large, Heavy Road King.
The first step is getting a bike. We head straight to the nearest Eagle Riders bike rental shop Near LAX – Los Angeles International Airport. Joining me on the ride is one of our Product Managers who picks up a Yamaha Tenere. While I understand his excellent choice of a bike, I go full traditional and bag myself a fully loaded Harley Road King.
V-Twin explained (sort of)
This massive 360kg behemoth is powered by a mammoth 1.7L (107 Cubic Inches) engine. The day before, I rode a manic psycho-killer in the shape of a 208hp, 998cc, 186kg naked (naked!!!) MV Augusta Brutale. The Burgundy motorcycle that’s now in front of me, however, is the complete antithesis to everything the crazy daemon from Italy represents. Its two large, 450 V-Mounted pistons produce a meager 89hp, but those come at a very low 5,500rpm. Yes, an ordinary car has a more impressive output.
But the Road King is not about output but about low-down torque. And that torque, 150Nm of it to be exact, comes at a very low 3,200rpm. These figures should ring a bell if you are a “petrol-head” like me. These are what 1.6L compact family sedans made back in the 80s. Like the Royale Enfield Bullet I road back in India, this Road King is a technology relic. It’s not shy nor apologetic about it. With its water-cooled massive V-Twin engine, and push-rod cam-shafts (it only recently got 4 valves per cylinder), the Road King is a proud American truck on two wheels. And not just any truck; this shiny chrome machine is the motherload Semitrailer of motorcycles. Time to take on the road.
Headin’ out on the highway
I mount the low-slung leather saddle. It feels almost like a comfy sofa. Soft, but not too soft for comfort. What isn’t comfortable is the weight of this “hog”. I wrestle quite a bit, just backing it away from the parking space. A bit worried by the excruciating effort, I press the ignition key and wake the engine into life. It burbles and shakes like a good Harley should. I wonder what it would be like to take it to Arizona as I release the clutch and launch the Road King into the 405 expressway.
The late morning traffic out of LA is light, as the urban concrete scenery gradually fades away as we had out of the San Bernardino Valley towards the San Gorgonio Pass. Eric Clapton is Jamming with B.B.King inside my Arai helmet thanks to our brand-new top-of-the-line Packtalk Edge communicator and a pair of 40mm JBL speakers. Chatting via our DMC intercom, my riding buddy and I are amazed at how vast Los Angeles is. We left the Pacific Ocean over an hour ago, riding the freeway at somewhat illegal speeds, and are only now just about to leave the mega-metropolis behind us.
The valley between the Sans
Ahead the 3,000-meter-high, snow-capped peaks of San Jacinto and San Gorgonio mountains dominate the horizon. The Harley motor burbles in front of the low-slung saddle – its engine pulls the rig effortlessly at speeds of 80mph (around 130kph). The massive windshield does a great job of keeping the wind (and bugs) away, and the cushy seat tackles the surprisingly broken road with ease. This bike was made for Americana road trips such as this. As long as they keep it to a road that’s straight and wide, I see no reason to choose any other two-wheeler.
But of course, it doesn’t last long. Soon we will find out for ourselves.
After clearing the San Gorgonio Pass, we stop for a rest and a sip of cold water. The two great mountains now serve as our grand backdrop. Around us, the bone-dry California central desert stretches monotonously into the horizon. A sign says, “Turn Right to Palms Springs”. We close our water canisters and stash them in one of the large side cases, check our fuel levels (half-full), and continue straight towards Joshua Tree National Park.
This King’s not for turning
There’s a small line outside the park entrance. Being the law-abiding citizens we are, we waited patiently behind a white sedan of some ubiquitous brand for our turn. Being cooked inside my gear and enjoying the extra grilling effect coming from the Harley’s air-cooled engine made me wish I was inside one of those characterless vehicles enjoying their lackluster but effective climate control systems.
At last, our turn comes up. I swipe the card and grab the complimentary brochure. I hit the gear pedal twist the throttle, and speed away while trying to find an empty pocket to shove the useless papers into.
The road cutting through the park is full of twists, turns, peaks, and crevices. “This road was designed by a motorcyclist,” the voice of my riding buddy blares over the Packtalk’s DMC intercom. Unlike me, he’s riding the much nimbler Yamaha Tenere. I, on the other hand, am now battling with a bike that was clearly NOT designed for the twisties. It’s not that the Road King can’t turn. It’s just that it would rather not. The frame is not communicative, and you’re never really sure what’s going on with the front wheel. Would it be able to tackle the next sharp turn that this slalom of a road throws our way? You just have to hold on tight and see what happens.
A tree called Joshua
All for the better, as the view surrounding us now is unworldly. The shaggy-looking Joshua Tree is native to this high desert area. I remember it mainly from that famous U2 Album that bears its name. For better or worse, that odd-looking yet unimpressive plant is a big thing in the US (Hey, you don’t call a National Park for nothing, do you?). So, with that said, I pull my camera and snap a photo of the Joshua carpet that stretches across the broad plains, framed by rock boulder formations that look straight out of the Road Runner vs. Coyote cartoon.
We ride through a moonlike scenery of rounded caramel-colored formations outlining swaths of the signature cacti as far as the eye can see. We stop at Scull Rock which resembles a fake Disneyland set from Frontierland, to absorb the view and to reflect on the simple fact that this could have been just another day at the office. Clearly, working in the motorcycle accessory business includes some unique advantages.
Out of cellphone reception and almost out of gas, we find our way out of the park’s southern gate and reconnect with highway 10. A quick stop for gas, a can of cold soda, and a brief rest at the station’s restroom, and we’re back on the saddle heading to Arizona. I drop the Harley as I back it off the parking spot. Damn! This thing is heavy when stationary. My buddy helps me push the beast back on its two legs. We’re back on the Interstate two minutes later, heading East to the California/Arizona Stateline.
Arizona, here we come!
Once on the go, the 360kg of shiny chrome and iron feels light, almost agile. I rest my legs on the two front footwells – “Easy Rider”-style, wondering how a bit of velocity and the laws of physics can turn a mean Bear into a gentle Gazelle. An hour later, we pass the state line and cross into Arizona. I reminisce on the advice I received the day before from the well-traveled group of riders from 2LaneLife. “Remember”, they told me when I met them at the Roland Sands Design shop in Long Beach, “Arizona got a good thing and a bad thing going for it. The Bad thing is no “lane splitting” (the art of riding in between lanes of cars) allowed. The good thing is you can ride without a helmet”.
As I’m not keen on the latter (that’s what a wife, three kids, and an average common sense tend to do to a person), I guess it’s only bad news for me. At least the max speed here is 75 miles (120kpm). I twist the throttle a bit more, and the Harley wafts effortlessly to 95mph.
The land of the straight
About 20 minutes after passing into Arizona, there’s an empty stretch of road with no turns or curves. It’s as if someone at the road construction department had gone lazy and just decided to take a ruler and draw a line. The #10 Interstate goes on and on without nudging or veering even a little bit for 80 miles straight!
It took me a while to realize that I going straight forever. After all, it’s not something you get to ride on in a densely populated country like my own, nor anywhere else I ever got to ride in. The sun sets at the western horizon as I let the sound of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band playing “The Streets of Philadelphia” carry the Road King and me into a semi-conscious trance. Only the occasional full trailer truck keeps me alert as the monotonous emptiness around me slowly disappears into the darkness.
We get to our hotel in Scottsdale, Northeast of Phoenix, just after 9pm, having ridden for almost 10 hours straight. I feel like diving into a bathtub, but the hunger and early shutdown of nearly every restaurant in the area force us back onto the saddle in search of chow. I finally hit the bed at around eleven for a full eight hours of dreamless coma.
Time for Tortilla
We wake up the following morning afresh after a good night’s sleep. My shoulders ache, the result of spending the last three days on the saddles of motorcycles of all shapes and sizes. I suspect the aching upper-back muscles are more the result of riding that murderous MV Augusta through LA’s traffic jams two days ago than the long haul on yesterday’s heavy yet soft Harley. In any case, the Arizona Bike Week rally doesn’t really start heating up before early afternoon. We got an entire morning to burn.
We take another recommendation from our influencers and check out Tortilla Flat, some 50 miles east of Scottsdale. Located on the foothills of the Superstition Mountian range, Tortilla Flat (aren’t all Tortillas flat?) is the last surviving stagecoach stop along the Apache Trail. With a population of 6, and buildings primarily constructed in the 1980s after a fire consumed the 19th-century originals, this tiny hamlet is every “wild-west” cliché crammed into a single row of rugged wooden buildings – complete with Public Gallows, a Saloon, and an outside Latrine.
Surprisingly, the whole thing doesn’t implode on its own self-significance. Perhaps it is the self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek attitude it carries. Maybe it’s the drop-dead magnificent tall Saguaroses that line Tortilla’s main road. We dismount our bikes and regret having no leash to tie them to the empty hitching post. We take photos of the skeleton tied to the end of the hanging rope, check the outhouse, and move on, skipping the Saloon this time.
Route 66 is for “posers”
Tortilla Flat is nice and surely beats a morning at Starbucks. The road there and back, however, is the true attraction. Lined with endless giant Saguaros cactus and remarkable views of the Salt River and Theodor Roosevelt Lake, route 88 to Tortilla is simply staggering. It’s a great ride, too, with an endless string of twists and turns that goes on for 15km each way. The Harley 107 Road King tries its best to cope with this untaught piece of tarmac, but clearly, it was not designed for Arizona’s route 88. Its front wheel struggles to keep the line during the turn, and the chassis aches as I swing the heavy beast from one turn to the other. For the first time, I kinda regret not riding something lighter and nimbler. An MV Augusta Brutale, perhaps?
Love motorcycles? Be sure to check these posts:
* Scouting Malibu on an Indian
* Steeper than ‘Frisco, zanier than NYC
* 6 essential rules must know before doing Nepal off-road
* The complete survival guide to riding a motorcycle in India
* Carzy, pointless, irresistable
* You only die twice
Arizona Bike Week
We get to the sunbaked rally grounds at around 3pm. You can spot it from a distance by the sheer volume of v-twins of all shapes and sizes. You have your choppers, bobbers, rigids, crazy radicals, and occasionally you could even see plain-vanilla unmodified originals. Excluding some rare offbeats, we’re the only ones wearing helmets. I guess the others think their bandana will just be good enough. The Arizona Bike Week takes place inside a massive parking lot on the northeast fringes of Scottsdale, right next to the – not less massive – Westworld Arena. Although it’s the first week of April, the afternoon sun is relentless, and the heat bordering the unbearable. We park our rigs not too far off the main entrance, pay the moderately-priced admission and enter the gated compound.
The event really comes to life in the evening as the sun goes down and outside temperatures drop to more reasonable levels, but we need to return the bikes and catch a flight. Besides, an excellent rally should be fun also, not in full-blown rush-hour mode, shouldn’t it? Well, it’s not. Rows of sunbaked tee-shirt stands, makeshift tattoo parlors, and sleazy Soul-Godman-Esque traffic law firms occupy most of the tents. Nothing to see here. Every few tents, a larger tent hosts a bar packed with bikers hiding from the elements while guzzling “a cold one”. Few of them got no-name slasher rock bands whose tattoos are way more remarkable than their tunes. I hate myself for saying this, but it all looks like an over-boiled redneck-fest, minus the energies.
Time to say goodbye
We drop off the bikes in a vast Harley dealership and take the time to browse inside. It is way more impressive than the nearby rally. Hell, it’s impressive under any standard. Should you venture out to Phoenix, be sure to visit it.
Looking back at the 1,000km we did over the last 36 hours, I have come to better understand the 107 Road King. Its heaviness, conservatism, and softness are making sense now. It was created with “road trip” in mind, and it does it very well… as long as your road trip is made of very long strait highways. As I walk away, I find myself humming an old chopper tune:
“Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way”
For more US adventures read these posts
* X markes the spot
* Bling, Bling!
* The road to Zion
* Yosemity at its best
* Deserted on Desert Rock
* Big Sir!