By BLAKE CONNER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF BMW
I've lived in Southern Californ ia for over
14 years , mere hours from Death Valley,
and for some strange reason I've never visited the eerie and yet some how stunning
place. I think that part of the problem has
been that the ideal time of year to visit the
park is in the winter, and tha t's when I
would usually blow right by the turn-off,
headed for Mammoth Mountain with my
snowboard.
When the opportunity to go on this
BMW-sponsored (read, swank) trip came
up, Iwas all over it. When I discovered that
the Furnace Creek Inn, a hotel that I had
heard wonderful things about, was to be
our home base, I was committed.
Our tour was actually a scouting to ur of
sorts - customers won 't be able to do the
tour until next fall - but with the help of
BMW Motorcycles, a group of journa lists
were invited to be Del Bondio's guinea pigs
for three days and to get a taste of w hat
the compa ny has planned for its inaugural
U.S. tour.
Del Bondio uses BMW motorcycles
exclusively, and for the second time th is
year I had the opportunity to log some
serious miles on BMW's new 2005 R 1200
GS. The bike s were outfitted with
Continental 's knobby tires, due to the
nature of the roads that we would be riding on . Despite the fact that there was a lot
of asphalt on our trip, it was merely a
means to access the fun stuff.
Our first day intentionally included a fair
amount of easier off-highway riding so that
the riders with a limited amount of offroad experience could be weaned in gently. The ride took us up the 395 through
www.cyclen
Trona (no t somewhere yo u
want to hang out) and then into
Deat h Valley. If you've never
been to the park, it's a fascinating place , and riding a
motorcycle like the GS
opens up a lot more terrai n
and views than most peo ple would ever get the
chance to see in a car.
Death Valley is full of
pecu liar location names
like Dante 's View, Furnace
Creek, Stovepipe ~lIs ilnd
Teakettle Junction. The o ne
thing t hat all a these names
have in common is that the )'a11
convey a messa,ge of fire and
brimstone, and at times-athat
co uldn't lle are acc t
had a co upie of str etch es on the
S.c
•
CYCLE NEWS • JULY 21, 2004
39
