Riding ‘The Crest’ : Bikers Love the Winding Angeles Crest Highway for Its Challenging Curves. And for Others in Pursuit of a More Leisurely Pace, the Scenic Route Can Make You Lose Track of Being in Los Angeles : CITY SMART / How to thrive in the urban environment of Southern California

At Newcomb’s Ranch, a gathering place for the more than 200 motorcyclists who roar down Angeles Crest Highway on a pleasant Sunday, a glass jar stuffed with money sits on the counter.

A sign says what it is for: “When you crash!”

Bikers drop money into the jar to help pay for emergency personnel who treat motorcyclists injured on the winding highway, where riders go 100 m.p.h. or more on straightaways.

Although only about a 30-minute drive from Downtown, Angeles Crest Highway has never been traveled by many residents, even though it is Los Angeles County’s only state scenic road--in a class with elegant California 1 through Big Sur.

But “the Crest” is well-known among bikers who are attracted to the challenging curves the same way surfers are drawn to big waves and skiers to steep slopes.

To their displeasure, this bikers’ paradise is also well known to the Highway Patrol.

Rising above La Canada Flintridge, the twisting 60-mile, two-lane road winds through Angeles National Forest--which covers more than one-fourth of the land in Los Angeles County. It passes by the mile-high Mt. Wilson, with its forest of radio and TV towers and ski areas before ending just past Wrightwood, on the edge of the desert.

The usual stinky L.A. road smell is replaced with the sweet scent of fresh pine. The highway offers spectacular views of the city and mountaintops. On a clear day, you can see Santa Catalina Island on one side and the Tehachapis on the other.

If you want to impress out-of-town visitors, go for a drive on the Crest.

From the highway, drivers see a “a world of spectacular vistas, swiftly changing views, mountainsides smoking in mist or shimmering in the sun, valleys of dark shadow or hilltops tapestried in green,” noted historian W.W. Robinson wrote five decades ago in “The Story of Angeles National Forest.”

“It passes completely through four different ecosystems: chaparral, big cone Douglas fir/canyon oak forest, Coulter pine forest and mixed conifer forest like that found in Sierra Nevada,” said Richard Hawkins, district fire management officer for Angeles National Forest. “You lose track of being in L.A.”

Deer can be seen, and at times, bighorn sheep. Don’t be surprised to spot a hunter in camouflage walking along the highway with a rifle slung over his shoulder; deer hunting is legal in season.

The highway’s history is as interesting as its vistas.

When the highway was proposed early in the century, public works officials had difficulty winning public support to build a road into a recreational area--albeit the nation’s second-oldest national forest, established in 1892 by President Benjamin Harrison.

But a series of big forest fires broke out--two in 1919 that consumed 151,680 acres and destroyed Cecil B. DeMille’s $100,000 home in Little Tujunga Canyon, and another one in 1924 that burned 50,000 acres and lasted a month before it was controlled.

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Joseph Barlow Lippincott, an Auto Club engineer, said it took firefighters days to reach the fires in Angeles National Forest, Abraham Hoffman wrote in the Historical Society of Southern California quarterly.

“When a forest fire starts in the interior,” Lippincott said, “it is necessary to pack firefighting equipment and supplies by pack trains or on the backs of firefighters. It takes from one to three days to reach the scene of the fire over steep mountain trails.”

Construction of the highway began in 1929, but the highway was not completed until 1956--and only after prison labor was enlisted.

“Just put a man on a jackhammer for about a week if you want to see the meanness leave him,” one supervisor told the Los Angeles Mirror-News in 1956.

In 1990, the road was designated a state scenic highway.

Although Los Angeles has many other roads with scenic views--Mulholland Drive and Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu, for example--no others have been designated state scenic highways. Officials say that local governments have never applied for the designation or have been reluctant to adopt the kind of strict controls over development and signage required.

Still, the Crest--also known as California 2--is not far enough away from urban problems.

Traffic jams can be encountered on weekends. Bodies are periodically dumped over the side and found by police. Cars careen off the road.

And there are a few problems unique to the highway--such as cars that have been dented by grumpy bears.

During the winter, the road is closed past the ski areas because of heavy snow and landslides. You can ski portions of the closed highway, but beware, Hawkins warned. “We strongly recommend that you not ski under the mouth of Avalanche Canyon.”

The highway’s biggest admirers are the motorcyclists.

Bikers love the road because it offers a fast, scenic ride with plenty of curves--and it’s close to home.

“The real skill and the real thrill is going through the corners,” said Nick Ienatsch, editor of Sport Rider magazine, who rides his motorcycle on the highway almost every weekend.

Bikers have become so familiar with the highway that they have names for the curves--carousel, for example, for a long, circular curve.

They have signals for alerting fellow bikers to the presence of the Highway Patrol officers on the other side: a double honk for clear; a long, single blare for “kill” or drop speed.

Many of the bikes are equipped with radar detectors.

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Some motorcyclists were reluctant to talk about the highway for fear it would draw attention to the accidents and lead to stepped-up law enforcement and weekend road closures.

A sign on the highway imploring “Please Drive Safely” keeps a tally of the accidents this year: Fatal 9. Nonfatal 53. No breakdown was available on how many accidents were caused by or involved cars or motorcycles.

Forest Service personnel call the road “Blood Alley.”

“It’s a minority that’s spoiling it for the majority of riders,” said Sgt. Greg Harris of the CHP’s Altadena station.

On a pleasant Sunday, 200 or more bikers can be found at Newcomb’s Ranch, a restaurant about 25 miles up the highway from Foothill Boulevard.

They dress in $2,000 worth of leather and other protective clothing for their pleasure ride.

“The road is a challenge for a motorcyclist,” said Chris Worsham, a cement mixer driver from San Gabriel who parked his motorcycle at Newcomb’s. “It’s more fun than riding on a straight freeway. . . . It makes you feel like you’re riding the machine a little bit more.”

“It’s, I guess, the speed,” said Michael Anthony, a Kansas resident who rides the Crest whenever he returns to his former home of Los Angeles. He also likes the danger.

“I’ve had a lot of friends die up here,” Anthony said. “If I die, I either die on a track or hope I die up here.”

“Do you ride?” said Tom Acito when asked what draws him to the Crest. “I don’t speed like some of the guys up here,” he added, saying riders need to know their limits.

“It’s very exhilarating,” said Acito, of Atwater. “It clears your mind.”

Bikers blame the accidents on a small contingent of motorcyclists who ride beyond their skill level. Indeed, rescue personnel say they find that many of the downed motorcycles have low mileage, suggesting inexperienced riders.

“People don’t ride with their head,” Acito said. “They ruin it for guys like me who love to ride.”

“If people don’t know the road, it can be extremely dangerous,” said another motorcyclist. “Even people with experience can have problems.”

“When people are making mistakes and killing themselves . . . it’s really upsetting to us because this is a big part of our life,” Ienatsch said.

“It’s not a minority that’s breaking the speed limit,” Hawkins said, noting that the Forest Service recommends a maximum 35-m.p.h. speed on the highway.

Bikers can also be seen routinely crossing double yellow lines to speed by cars. The motorcyclists say they pass cars so quickly that it isn’t dangerous. CHP officers disagree.

Officials trace the highway’s popularity among motorcyclists back to a 1980s article in a biker magazine. “It talked about the freedom of riding the Crest highway versus the confines of Mulholland,” Hawkins said.

CHP Officer Mike Clarke said some judges did not believe the speeds for which he was writing tickets. Clarke said he took some judges out for a fast ride. “I did show them how quickly you could get up to 55.”

Said Hawkins: “I just wish people would slow down and enjoy the scenery.”