Northern California

04 April 2024

My bike is ready as promised and looking pristine at the top of the ramp. Despite not offering a valet service, the service advisor has decided to clean it anyway. I offer something by way of appreciation but he pats my hand and pushes it away.

He’s old-school, served as a San Francisco fireman since moving from Scotland thirty-years ago, and just believes in doing the best job he can. A faint Glaswegian burr is still detectable, adding a bit of grit to that effortlessly cool, Californian accent.

Fighting my way out of the city takes over an hour. I can’t be arsed to stop and take a picture of my now shiny bike from Fort Point, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I immediately regret it as I pass the point of no return, over the bridge and into Marin County.

My fellow diner from Chez Panisse was not wrong: I’m familiar with the super-twisty stretch of Route 1 to Stinson Beach and on to Bodega Bay (older readers may remember this is the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Bird’) but beyond this is unknown territory for me. Further north, the road opens up and the surface improves immeasurably.

I divert for fuel and a coffee to Sebastopol. The Russian names in this, the Russian River region, date from when Russia actually owned part of California that only ended, relatively recently, in 1842. I wonder if anyone has told that keen history buff, Vladimir Putin, so he can add that to his endless list of ancient wrongs to right. That would indeed be an interesting diplomatic situation.

In Sebastopol, I visit the Mobile Fidelity Sound Laboratory (MFSL). This is a firm of obsessive, audio engineers who licence master tapes of revered albums and produce a version that they believe is more faithful to the original than the standard release. These things are limited editions, serial numbered and highly sought after by us collectors, who may understand the Law of Diminishing Returns but choose to ignore it anyway.

MFSL vinyl albums and CDs are very difficult to get in the UK and HM Customs & Excise charge a comedic level of duty if you buy online. So I called in to see if they sell them from their HQ, thinking they might have a shop onsite.

Wrong. Their offices resemble a teenager’s bedroom after a meltdown. There is ‘stuff’ on every available surface with more stuff piled ontop of stuff: cables, electronic components, tools, unopened Amazon parcels, magazines, merch… Everything. The way Straight Man would live if he’d never met Straight Woman. And John, who opens the door, is exactly as you might expect: long-hair, beard, T-Shirt and is freewheelingly enthusiastic. He thanks me for “swinging by” and insists on giving me the “dime-tour”…

The master tapes are all kept in a safe designed to withstand a nuclear-blast. The photo below is me holding the masters for Alannis Morisette’s “Jagged Little Pill”, a forthcoming release.

And below, I’m sat at the console of one of the studios where they work their magic. John’s explanations are animated and comprehensive and I understand about 20% of what he is saying. What it boils down to is Time: a standard album release will take a day, two at most, to convert the master into a format to make CDs or records from but MFSL spend “as long as it takes”.

This is rarely less than ten days and often over thirty. Whereas the standard process is to optimise technical settings for each track, the MFSL guru will adjust various, knobs, azimuths and God knows what else, dozens of times within each track, so the CD or record sounds as close to the master tape as it can.

Of all middle-aged man’s obsessions, audiophilia is possibly the least rational. The ‘pusher’ I go to - his description, not mine - says most of his customers can’t play or sing a note. Spending ungodly sums on playback equipment is just a substitute for getting close to the transcendental experience that those with musical ability enjoy.

Maybe. I’m almost glad I have never had an affinity for learning to play anything. If the end of that rainbow is being cooped up in some airless, daylight-less dungeon for months on end, trying to find elusive, sonic perfection, I’m glad I’ve dodged it but I do love listening to the results.

I also have a soft-spot for people and companies who just refuse to compromise, for whom the quality of what they do is of paramount importance, who bloody-mindedly carry on regardless, ignoring conventional and commercial wisdom. Like the BMW service advisor earlier in the day, MFSL work on the principle that excellence has its own reward. It has ploughed a lonely furrow since 1976, surviving a few collapses and ownership changes along the way.

I apologise for interrupting John’s day; he thanks me for coming as they don’t meet too many of their customers and insists on giving me a goody bag of about $250 of CDs. Sometimes it pays just to show up…

Assuming anybody is still reading this, the remaining route takes me back to the wild, Pacific coast and an exhilarating hour or so that is only compromised five miles from Fort Bragg.

I think I’ve dodged the weather but, as the first few drops splot onto my visor,  I have underestimated the intensity of North Western rain. Within ten minutes, my suit is soaked to the point that as I check in the motel, water is draining from it onto the floor and the receptionist looks at me as if I have a severe incontinence problem. I soak the desk in the time it takes to sign my name, utter my apologies, make my excuses and get the key.

05 April 2024

It’s literally bright and breezy the next morning and after an hour, the road swings inland and away from the desolate beauty of the coast. As it climbs, the temperature drops to 4-degrees and the trees grow taller and taller. I’ve entered Redwood Country.

So narrow is the road, the trees all but obliterate the light. Bright shards of sunlight make it through but the extreme contrast makes it difficult to read the road as it twists and turns for nearly 30 miles. A check with my boot confirms what I thought I felt through the tyres and suspension: no traction. The surface is broken and gritty and like riding on marbles.

As I approach US101 at Leggett, there is a sign to the ‘Drive-Through Tree’. Yes, the one you’ve seen the Rockwellian picture of, with families waving gaily as they pass through it in a ’59 Chevy convertible.

Secreted down a dirty little side road and subject to a $10 entrance fee, I take a look anyway. It’s much less impressive than that image led you to believe. The opening is no larger than the door to the pokey little garage I rent from Epping Forest District Council. Some cars can’t make it through and I’d be amazed if a 59’ Chevy ever did. Leaving aside the egregious misrepresentation, through contemporary eyes, it looks more like an act of wanton vandalism than the wonder of the world the 315’ high, 22’ wide Chandelier Tree is.

The section of US10 north, is named the Redwood Highway and it’s quite magnificent in every respect. It’s only from a slight distance that the scale of these extraordinary creations can be appreciated as they go vertically skywards. The road itself is wide, with bends that can be taken at the 65 MPH speed limit plus a bit, but only if you stay focussed on the task at hand. After the dreary city of Eureka, the road remains as good, with the scenery reverting back to coastline until Crescent City, the penultimate town before California becomes Oregon.

Mr Eight Motorbikes of Chez Panisse is correct. It’s a better overall ride than the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) south of San Francisco. However, two bright yellow stripes are running up the middle of 90% of it making overtaking difficult. In fairness to the traffic authorities, this is largely justifiable as there is not much visibility, not only around corners but over crests and into the various hollows.

For a first tour, the southern section of PCH is still the one to do, assuming it reopens after a section tumbled into the sea a few weeks ago. Not for the road itself, but for the round trip of which it is part as this can include Yosemite and Death Valley, comfortably within ten days. It remains one of the very special motorcycle journeys everyone who rides needs to do once.