Road Trip: Lake Elsinore and the Ortega Highway

The legendary Ortega Highway connects the coastal freeways near San Juan Capistrano to the desert highlands of the the city of Palm Desert, passing through the inland resort community of Lake Elsinore. Exit from the infamous Interstate 5 freeway and head away from the California coasts into a barren landscape, dotted with random bits of vegetation. Before long, you find yourself climbing and the greenery begins to get denser, until you are high up enough that the temperature has gotten a few degrees cooler, and the air is just a bit crisper. Having only ever taken this road at the helm of our family MDX during a detour on our way down to San Diego, I endeavored to return, preferably on two wheels, to make full use of its ample curves. Luckily, my time spent reviewing the BMW R1200GS presented me with the perfect opportunity, if not quite the perfect bike.

Test Ride: 2012 BMW R1200GS

Image courtesy of Motoquest.com

Adventure bikes are not usually my thing. The weight does not bother me so much as the rather high center of gravity relative to a sport, or even a standard, bike. However, during my most recent trip back to the West Coast, I had the occasion to slip away from work for a day and take the gold standard of the adventure bike class, BMW's venerable R1200GS, for a full day test ride. I used the opportunity to cover a road that is popular with all sorts of riders, Southern California's famed Ortega Highway, but also spent plenty of time on it traversing the crowded suburban sprawl of LA as well as slicing through traffic as I split lanes between cars on the parking lot that is the 405 freeway during rush hour. MotoQuest, which provided the bike for the review, was extremely helpful and made sure that I had plenty of time to get acquainted and appreciate the genius that is this motorcycle.