When I was young, I felt a little cheated. At the end of every summer, I’d go back to school, and the other kids had invariably gone to Disneyland at some point. Me? I’d just spent a couple of weeks camping with my parents and grandparents up on the Mendocino or Humboldt coasts. That was the big vacation, aside from a trip to Ireland every three or four years to visit my mother’s family. My parents would say, “But you’ve been to Ireland.” I didn’t care. There was no Tomorrowland in Belfast. There was, however, ice cream in Mendocino, and whenever we’d camp north of Fort Bragg, we’d meander the 10 miles or so down the coast for a cone.
My parents did eventually take me to Disneyland, and I enjoyed myself immensely. I haven’t visited the Magic Kingdom since 1993, and, frankly, I don’t care if I ever go again. But a motorcycle trip with friends last April cast the Mendocino area in a whole new light. And from where I live, the way to get there is California State Route 128. From its southeastern terminus in Winters at the western edge of the Sacramento Valley to its end at Highway 1 just south of the town of Mendocino, 128 is comprised of three basic stretches. The first bit winds around Lake Berryessa, through the hills, and drops down into Rutherford in the Napa Valley. The second stretch meanders through Napa and Sonoma Counties until it hits US 101. Running concurrently with the north/south freeway, it breaks off again at Cloverdale and up over the hills and into the Anderson Valley, then follows the Navarro River through the redwoods to Highway 1.
As is par for the course, I managed to sleep through my alarm. It was just shy of 8 a.m., and I’d told Bentley’s U.S. communications manager, Erin Bronner, that I’d be in Saint Helena by 11. I threw the bags on my Moto Guzzi V7 and blasted out I-80, across the Yolo County line and into Winters, caning the 744-cc longitudinal V-twin through the recently burned hills. The hills on the south side of the highway were freshly blackened courtesy of the recent Wragg fire, while those on the north retained their late-summer golden hue. Blessedly free of SUVs lugging boat trailers this Friday morning, I made it over to Rutherford and up to St. Helena with time to spare, nabbing an omelet at the Meadowood resort before we were to be introduced to the 2016 Continentals.
Bentley had arranged two cars for us to drive, a 626-hp W-12 Speed convertible in apple green and a Monaco Yellow V8 S coupe. Since the V8 S was the reputed handler of the pair, and the route home took us over Skaggs Springs Road, one of Northern California’s great ribbons of asphalt, we grabbed the Speed for the trip out to Stewart’s Point. Stuck on an outcropping on the west side of Highway 1 about a hundred miles north of San Francisco, Stewart’s Point consists of little more than a store, a couple of gas pumps, an outhouse, and a bar.
I’d done Skaggs Springs in cars before. Last April, I bombed it on a bike for the first time, which was absolutely revelatory. There are moments on the fast second section where the corners are so perfectly banked, you feel as if your outside footpeg might actually be above your head. I was a little concerned about the size of the Bentley on the tight first section, which is roughly 1.5 lanes wide. I shouldn’t have been. The V8 S Conti drives about 1500 pounds lighter than it actually is. The AWD system absolutely mauls the uneven pavement through the forest, and when Skaggs unkinks itself and smooths out about halfway to Geyserville, the car hurled itself through bends with stupendous assurance.
The next morning, I motored out to Sears Point, the racetrack also known as Infineon and Sonoma, to catch the Pirelli World Challenge race with the Bentley folks. Kevin Estre’s K-PAX McLaren won the round. Guy Smith’s Continental GT3 was the highest-finishing entrant from Crewe. But I found myself most intrigued by Frank Montecalvo’s tenacious climb from the back of the pack to 14th in his AMG GT3. The two best sounds on the track during the session were the big Bentleys and the evil AMGs, the former sounding like ripping bolts of fabric, while the latter brought to mind John Greenwood’s killer Corvettes of the 1970s.
With the sun falling over the Sonoma Hills, I zipped up US 101 to Cloverdale, wolfed down some pasta, and slept the sleep of the sunbaked dead. On our trips to Fort Bragg, my dad always announced the next section. “It’s the BOON-ville Road!” We’d all grimace. The Boonville Road meant no air conditioning due to the ambient heat and weight of the trailer. Due to its winding nature, it also meant carsickness. As an adult, with a fun bike underneath me, it only means joy. The climb up and over to the Anderson Valley, home of the strange and wonderful Boontling jargon, is an absolute peach of a ride.
I stopped and grabbed breakfast at a local café. The town has become a favorite with San Francisco refugees, as well as wine and beer aficionados, which means there’s good eatin’ and a strong cup of coffee. Or, as they’d call it in Boonville, a “horn of zeese.” Zeese was a Boonville resident who really liked his coffee. A horn, naturally, is a cup.
Thus fed and caffeinated, I tackled the final stretch of 128, through Philo (don’t call it “filo”) and Navarro and out through the redwoods. If you grew up on Star Wars and have never ridden a motorcycle through a redwood forest, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to California and feel like you’re five years old again. The river meets the Pacific just after 128 ends at Highway 1. At times, the fog is bitter, spitting, dismal stuff from the edge of the forest out to the sea. The weather was on my side on that late August day, all sunshine and gentle breeze.
I popped into Frankie’s Pizza and Ice Cream for a scoop of ginger on a waffle cone before I turned around and rode home. It was necessary, it was the end of summer, and above all, it was Mendocino.
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