Not a bird in the sky. Not a plant in the ground. No trees rustling in the breeze. In fact, no breeze. Just silence. Absolute silence. But soon to be disturbed by the cackling exhausts of a dozen or so raucous motorcycles shattering the quiet and bringing you to earth with a bump. Back on earth but in a biking heaven. You are sitting in the middle of Death Valley, California and you can’t quite take in the heat or the atmosphere. You are just a few days into our West Coast, Mountains and Canyons Tour, USA with so much to do and so little time to do it in.

We (normally) start in San Francisco, the city with an atmosphere you can lean on, collect our bikes and head North East towards Lake Tahoe, prettiness personified. The weather tends to be just about right. Hot enough to melt your ice cream but not hot enough to melt your helmet.

The 10,000 feet High Sierra Mountain Range, Bryce Canyon, like a cave full of stalagmites, but without a roof. Zion with arguably the most spectacular view in the world, the Grand Canyon, one mile deep, twenty miles across (thats Dover to Calais to compare, and two hundred miles long) – awesome – Monument Valley, eerie and spiritual, Las Vegas, bright, vulgar and brilliant. Too much to take in but a must visit for your bucket list. And I think we can say we have found the very best biking road in the world at Capital Reef, Utah. Never heard of it? Nor us either and to be honest, it’s the biking world’s best kept secret and that’s how it should stay. A hundred miles through spectacular scenery and absolutely no traffic. And at the end of the canyon is Hanksville, the home of planet Mars Research training facility.

West Coast Mountains and Canyons, USA. Phew !!

Immortalised in the song by Tony Bennett, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” the words personify what is arguably the most cosmopolitan city in the world. So prepare for it to be immortalised in your memory and in your heart. You can never go to San Francisco just once. You go the first time for an adventure. And when you leave, you will leave a broken heart. But you can always go back and collect it.

Our website “living your dreams” isn’t called that for nothing.