Photo Gallery: LB In Los Angeles

Description

LB's Jay (Me) and Foxy were in Los Angeles, California for the New Year break and whilst out there we hired a couple of sports bikes from sportbikerental.com so we could go explore the city in the best way we knew how. We were lucky enough to be given an introduction to the roads by a friend as there are quite a few differences that make riding in LA daunting.

LA riders don't wear much gear, so we had to do a bit of ringing around to find a place that sold some boots and gloves that we would need on top of the Joe Rocket textile jacket and Shoei helmet we got from the rental shop. An afternoon later and we found a couple of shops that sold gloves and some funky half-boots which would have to do. As part of this we came across MotoClub in Santa Monica where we met long-time GDC member, Lukas Barracus. Small world as I'd we'd shared posts a number of times over there years and now we meet randomly in LA!

After some cruising around Hollywood and other places in town, we planned on a day out for ourselves. Foxy had always wanted to visit Malibu so we followed Sunset Boulevard for a number of miles as it twisted and turned back on itself a number of times, before hitting the coast for a few snaps and a refresher. Then along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) to take in the brilliant view of the sea and houses that dot the coastline.

After a good ride down there we stopped and ate at a seafood bar and headed back to Malibu where we turned off into Malibu Canyon Road, which was the start of something very different for us Brits. This road was unlike anything we'd been privledged to ride before, the landscape that surrounded us was amazing, like something from Mars. After a ride down here you turn off into a single-track road which winds up the canyon to a mountain-top. The ride here is 100% twisties. We've never ridden something like this before, with most corners requiring first or second gear, with very steep positive cambers that were a riot to ride. You need to keep yourself in check though as if you were to overshoot a corner, you would plummet a thousand feet pretty much to your doom.

At the top you can take in the views and appreciate the brilliant roads. They're like a free trackday. I'd love to attack the canyon on a supermoto, I think that would be the fastest way to the top and bottom again as you descend down the other-side. We learnt after-wards though that it's dangerous to stop up there as there's mountain lions, big-cats that have been known to attack bikers. Whoops!

At the end of the day I fell sick for a few days which put paid to any more riding unfortunately, but the hire-shop was only too happy to come out to us and collect the bikes in what was quite possibly the biggest truck in known history. This Chevy was HUGE. It would never fit on a UK road.

Overall, LA is an amazing place to ride, but the road quality is very sub-standard and hard for bikes, and the drivers are incredibly bad and not trained to look out for bikers, so you have to have your wits about you. We can't wait to go back and attack more mountain roads and perhaps some trackdays we were invited to...

Thanks to sportbikerental.com for the rental of the bikes.