Destination anywhere

Minutes earlier and a few miles south, the Pacific had been blue and placid. Now, waves smash it into gray soup. I’m a sailor. I know wind. Which may be why I’m getting such a kick out of the blasts that whip those waves and fight me for control of the motorcycle on which I sail up the Big Sur coast.

My brother Michael and I have been doing an annual California ride for eight years now. After 16,000 miles, we’re still eager to repeat some parts of a route -- mainly stretches of Highway 1 through Big Sur and along Northern California’s roller-coaster coast. But we always throw in variations, exploring unridden lines on the map. The goal of the ride, after all, isn’t to get somewhere (although one year we did ride to Portland, Ore., to visit my daughter for four hours). The goal is the ride.

On our stiffly sprung sport bikes, four-lane highways are no fun -- every joint in the concrete hammering right to the arms. So we favor twisty, two-lane routes, on which passing with elegance is its own reward and sloppy riding punishes with stomach-wrenching intimations of mortality.

To stay in the saddle eight or more hours a day, we stop every 90 minutes or so to relieve the muscles that let us hunch over in our riding stances.

Our ballistic nylon riding pants and jackets padded at the shoulders, backs and elbows, plus full-coverage helmets, make us ageless. Only when we yank off the headgear will anyone guess that I’m 62 and Michael is 56.

The New Jersey plate on his red Ducati never fails to draw comment as we fill our gas tanks. “Did you ride that here?” people ask. Michael explains that he ships the bike to California every summer. This year, it cost him about $1,200 -- about what it would cost to rent a motorcycle, but he couldn’t rent one like his, or one like my black and gray Suzuki Hayabusa.

We ride sport bikes which sacrifice amenities to gain performance and handling. Both have low-cut wind screens, not windshields. The handlebars are low, and we ride in a permanent crouch. There is no radio or CD player, and the luggage is a set of nylon bags fastened with straps and magnets.

There is a paradox to motorcycling. There is no time to daydream. Sightseeing is done instant by instant, a series of images burned into my memory. The fragrances of pine and wildflowers fill nostrils, and skin instantly records every variation in the weather, as muscles tense and relax and the wind batters my chest and head.

Anticipation is everything. The foreseeable future is about 10 seconds, and even good pavement is littered with debris, gouges and holes for me to dodge. Yet no matter how tired I am at the end of the day, I’m also relaxed.

Time on these trips seems to stretch out endlessly and simultaneously compress into a flash. Midway through the 10-day ride, about 45 miles north of Fort Bragg. the road turns inland for a 22-mile whipsaw through dense forest and along ridges. The pavement this year is impeccable, unmarred by so much as a chunk of bark fallen from the logging trucks. We ride single file and fairly far apart. We each want to carve a line through the curves.

Sport bikers recognize a meritocracy. When the curves get serious, we tend to separate ourselves by pace. Speed through the turns generally is a function of skill. The more a rider is willing to lean through turns, the faster the pace. Experienced riders have found their pace. The inexperienced learn to ride within their ability level or they crash.

We arrive unbattered in Eureka, after a day that started just north of San Francisco. Eureka wasn’t even our destination. We didn’t have a destination. We just rode until it was time to stop, a decision reached by mutual consent.

So what if most of the motels are sold out -- that’s one of the less serious hazards of spontaneous riding.

The next day, we do pick a target: Redding.

There’s an easy way to get there, following Highway 299. But there are all these other squiggly lines on the map that we’ve not ridden before. So, we find ourselves on a one-lane road carved along a cliff above the Salmon River. It’s slow and beautiful and eventually brings us to the community of Etna, where we restore ourselves with thick chocolate malts.

Michael talks about that 30-mile section of single-lane road: “There were only two ways to ride it. Slow enough to avoid oncoming cars or fast and not think about it.”

“There was a third way,” I point out. “Let you go first.”

That’s how these trips go. Even off the bikes, the miles keep whipping by, the last few and those from days back -- plumes of fog rushing up Big Sur’s cliffs and over our heads as we ride, gusts strong enough to lean our bikes into unwanted turns. A perfect ride continues long after it’s over.