Back eastward to Mike's Sky Rancho! Mecca for dirt-bikers and Baja racers, but Salvadori warns "it can be a rough 22 miles," and indeed it was. Dirt, sand, rocks, stones, streams, ruts, and all that. But, he assures you, "a well-ridden Gold Wing [heavy luxury-touring bike] can make it, much to the disgust of the dirt riders," and sure enough, when I finally pulled in (after having a good, long look at the last 20-foot-wide stream crossing, full of sand and stones) a bunch of guys were standing there beside their one-cylinder, unladen dirt bikes, and one of them started shouting, "How did you do that?
"How did you do that?"
I just said, "With great fear”. They all gathered around, and he said, "You came up the same road we did?" I said, "I guess so," and he blurted out, "But you're not even dirty!" True, I did look quite smashing: the mechanic at Hollywood BMW had shined up the bike; I had on my relatively new Vansons [summer leathers] for the first time, and I'd even had my boots cleaned up nice in L.A. "Well," I said, "I guess it's 'cause I wasn't following anybody."
Ghost Rider Neil Peart p189-190