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Posted April 22, 2005
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Commutes to envyRoads to the stars' homes Most days, I am happy to take the usual quick ride on my purple Honda Shadow VLX from my Hollywood apartment to my office in Century City, California. It's actually a nice ride straight down Santa Monica Boulevard, past the little restaurants and bakeries adding their warm breakfast aromas to the smell of grass cuttings and freshly hosed sidewalks. Even the people in the cars I pass with open windows smell good. The ride always takes 18 minutes, no matter how heavy the traffic. Ah, the beauty of lane sharing in California. But sometimes, maybe I'm up a little earlier or ready to go sooner than usual, or just bored and wanting something different for the morning. For those times, there's Mulholland Drive. Mulholland Drive is a 50-mile curvaceous route along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains from Hollywood to the coast north of Malibu. I can get on right where it starts, a 270-degree turn off Cahuenga Boulevard to a bridge over the heavily trafficked Hollywood Freeway and onto the rising pavement curving above the Hollywood Bowl. I ride past the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy's scenic pullout overlooking Hollywood with a clear view of downtown Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the south. I follow the two-laner along the ridge and pass the entrance to Runyon Canyon Park and drive on past the glass home used in the Lethal Weapon movie, over to the stop sign and the road leading up to Quentin Tarantino's hilltop home. Mullholland continues, now along the northern crest, so my views are of the San Fernando Valley and the Burbank studios. On my left are Justin Timberlake's estate and the John Lautner "flying saucer" home used in the Charlie's Angel film. The ride is hypnotic and I am totally into the nearly
empty roadway and enjoying the curves, the cool air in my face, no
thought of the workday ahead of me. The first canyon road and major
intersection is Laurel Canyon, where I often have to stop at the traffic
light long enough to get a good stretch in, do some motorcycle ab and
neck exercises, and The segment of the drive between Laurel Canyon and
Coldwater Canyon has some great, tiny S-turns with nary a straightaway
in between and then some terrific, tight, cliffside turns with a view up
the valley. It's here that I often encounter local wildlife—deer,
racoons and coyotes—heading for their daytime hangouts. They seem to
know that Mulholland Drive is not contiguous at Coldwater Canyon and I must merge with the traffic heading into the valley for about a mile before arriving at the intersection where Mulholland continues to my left. But there's a forest preserve and a large eucalyptus grove creating a shady darkness and cough drop aroma to mark my return to a more solitary roadway. Now cruising on the third and last leg of my Mulholland Drive commute, I have to decide whether or not to take Benedict Canyon into Beverly Hills, down tight, bumpy, steep turns past Rudolph Valentino's Falcon's Lair hideway, as well as the former location of Pickfair, the estate of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and past El Cielo Road, where the Manson murders occurred, winding down toward Sunset Boulevard and the large pink Beverly Hills Hotel, or continue along the crest roadway to Beverly Glen Boulevard, which offers a simpler route down to Sunset Boulevard and into Holmby Hills. Either way, I end up riding along Holmby Hills park overlooked by the giant and stately Aaron Spelling mansion, where the home of Bing Crosby once stood, across Wilshire Boulevard and finally down to Olympic Boulevard where I can turn west and head back along the back of 20th Century Fox Studios and finally into Century City. I park underground in my building about 25 minutes later than if I had taken the direct route. And, as good as I feel any day having ridden my motorcycle to work, I am still better after the long and scenic and oh-so-sweet ride along Mulholland Drive. Ridge Tolbert Great commute lost From the summer of 1985 until September of 2003, my commute to work was an 85-mile round trip through some of the prettiest roads in middle Tennessee. With the exception of about two miles, my commute was all two-lane, backroad riding. I ride all year long, and ride consistently from mid-March until mid-November. I was downsized from that job after 17 years with the company, and now it takes me exactly five minutes from my driveway at home to the driveway at work. I miss my old commute. Patrick Bowen Continued: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Next>> © 2005, American Motorcyclist Association |
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