TWO-WHEELING TO FREEDOM

GET OUT TO Progressively wilder points east of Los Angeles: Palm Springs and Joshua Tree, California; Oatman, Arizona; Las Vegas.

GEAR UP FOR Motorcycle touring with EagleRider.

PERFECT FOR Leather-jacket-loving iron-horse enthusiasts.

Los Angeles is not the West. Cool, but not the West. So I’m going to ride, head east to go west, out of L.A. on a short motorcycle jaunt. The ride will take me and my EagleRider tour companions from ocean to mountain to desert in a day. We’ll catch Joshua Tree National Park in full bloom, roll into Palm Springs in style, pull up in historic Oatman, and roar into Las Vegas, fusing earth, sky, and water and clashing historical artifact and contemporary culture in unexpected ways.

Freedom. A total disconnect with the everyday—your job, your past, your obligations. People who ride motorcycles talk about the joy of being out in the open, free of the cage of a car, every sense alive. The sense of being limitless.

Leaving Los Angeles, I see billboards that challenge me to double down on adrenaline (a casino). The wall of a coffee shop in a shopping mall has a painting of Bob Marley with the advice “Love the life you live/Live the life you love.” The flat-screen TV on the opposite wall shows an ad for Forest Lawn. A fellow rider yells, “Anything under $2 is on me.” A glance at the menu and I get the joke.

The urban sprawl tugs at