I did not like Mullholland Highway, or, "The snake." "The snake is a 21 mile stretch just before getting to Malibu, while the whole highway goes about 50 miles or so and starts in Calabasas.
Getting there is quick. Calabasas is only 90 minutes away from my apartment. Traffic today was light; but, coming up on 101, I needed to do a bit of lane splitting as things got slow for several miles. While splitting lanes, a CHP motor officer came up behind me. His lights weren't on and there were another 4 CHP motor officers behind him, all of us were splitting the lane, with me leading the pack. It didn't take long before I didn't like that idea and pulled in so they could all go by. Every single one of them gave me a courtesy wave as they went by. Who knows where 5 CHP motor officers are going at the same time; but, they were splitting the lane about 5 mph faster than I really wanted to and definitely more than 10mph over existing traffic. That said, I was only too happy to get out behind them, let them open up traffic for me and sail through.
Back to Mullholland. Right at the start in Calabasas, I noted that this was a highly used road. To start with, there are cars parked on both sides. I have no idea what those folks were doing; but, there were a lot of cars and not too far into the ride, I noted lots of bicycles...really, lots of them. They were going in both directions - coming up the mountain, and going down it. Some of them weren't exactly staying to the inside of the travel lane either. More than once, I came around a corner only to find a bicyclist in the middle of the road. This is not a place where motorcyclists, car enthusiasts and bicyclists can co-exist. It's flat out dangerous.
I have to say that between the bicyclists, the cars coming at me in the opposite direction and the massive amounts of debris that was all over the road from the cliffs above, it was not the most enjoyable ride I've been on. In fact, I think it officially rates dead last. There is no doubt that if you want to ride canyons on a motorcycle, you can be much safer doing it far from Los Angeles. I suspect that our crotch rocket wielding friends have no desire to drive that far out of town to enjoy those treasures, and, for that matter, neither do the bicyclists. There were only a couple stretches where I pushed it, even a little. It just wasn't worth, well, this for example:
One could say that they have better skills than this guy, who was surprised to find bicyclists there, fixated on them and for lack of focusing on making the turn, hit them. I have better skills than this; but, I also know that in a situation just like this one, with a car coming in the opposite direction, there is precious little room for error...like, maybe 6 feet of the lane. Take away some of that so your head can fit snuggly on the correct side of the double yellow, imagining that the car on the other side isn't "cheating the line" or, over it altogether, and that 6 feet narrows quickly. If you don't have the skills for the speed you're riding, accident potential is high on this road. Did I mention the debris in the road. It's everywhere. The cliffs are constantly in some state of erosion and small rocks and sand are on the roadway. You may never even see it until you're in the turn since many turns are blind.
My advice on this one is that if you're going to do it, just to say you've done Mullholland Highway, do it. Enjoy the scenery, ride the speed limit heed the curve speed warnings and be vigilant looking for all the nasty things that can upset your ride!
Here's a video of the last part of Mullholland Drive at 90 mph.
Here are the maps:
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