Table of contents
Henniges
13th pictures
Henniges
1/13
Always on site: Agents from Russ Brown insurance and lawyers especially for bikers.
Henniges
2/13
Spring-loaded special chair, lightning bolt mounted on the helmet: photographer Paul Herold in action.
Henniges
3/13
John is in “Rock store” a kind of girl for everything and likes to tell about the stars who like to stop by again and again. More information at www.rock-store.com
Henniges
4/13
In front of the Rock Store Cafe, amazement is the order of the day.
Henniges
5/13
Photographer Paul Herold recognizes the vehicles by their sound.
Henniges
6/13
Police officer John’s Ducati Hypermotard.
Henniges
7/13
Police officer John drives a BMW R 1200 RT on business and a Ducati privately.
Henniges
8/13
Julieta and her CBR:”Knees on the ground? no problem!”.
Henniges
9/13
This sign clearly conveys: This is the way to go.
Henniges
10/13
Cult meeting “Rock Store Cafe”: Mecca for people with petrol in their blood and a meeting place for the stars.
Henniges
11/13
Seen from above, a five-kilometer stretch of the Mulholland Highway winds like a snake through the hills of southern California.
Henniges
12/13
Best weather, fantastic curves. No wonder there are so many photographers waiting on the Mulholland Highway.
Henniges
13/13
Videographer Ken Snyder: “a really good business”.
to travel
Mulholland Highway – America’s most dangerous corner
Life: America’s Most Dangerous Turn
The snake
Seen from above, a five-kilometer stretch of the Mulholland Highway winds like a snake through the hills of southern California. It ends with a curve in which countless bikers fall. Why actually?
Rolf Henniges
04/11/2013
Ken Snyder lies in wait. His hand is like a funnel to his ear and he looks through the lenses of his film camera. He smiles. Batteries full, full of sun. The rumble of large-volume Vau-Achts and the screeching of high-revving motorcycle engines float in the air. A promise. With a little luck, the 55-year-old will manage another spectacular video today that will guarantee him a lot of advertising income. Snyder, who has already published countless videos on Youtube under the synonym “Rnickeymouse” and which have been viewed over 100 million times, is, as always, on the weekend in the so-called Edwards Corner, the last corner of a route that extends from the cult meeting place “Rock Store Cafe” meanders to the top of a small mountain range. A curve in which countless motorcyclists fall.
Buy complete article
Life: America’s Most Dangerous Turn
The snake
6 pages) as PDF
€ 2.00
Buy now
He is not alone. On the other side of the street, photographer Paul Herold lies in wait with his cameras. While Ken Snyder puts his fall videos online as a sideline, Paul can even make a living from his weekend photo sessions. The 55-year-old professionally photographs everyone who drives through the curve and posts the images on the web. 18,000 shots on the weekend are not uncommon.
His online catalog now includes 550,000 photos – that’s 6.5 terabytes! From Tuesday the photos – protected against illegal access with watermarks – can be seen on the website www.flickr.com. Anyone who has always wanted a tilted photo of themselves can buy the original in very good quality from Paul. Cost: between twelve and 24 euros per photo.
Henniges
Spring-loaded special chair, lightning bolt mounted on the helmet: photographer Paul Herold in action.
So what’s left? Try out! The Fireblade, organized at short notice, is exactly the right vehicle for this. Into the leather, up on the tarred snake, which gets off to a relatively unspectacular start. Dense bush and forest make the first bends and bends hidden from view, you turn blindly in first gear. The asphalt is easy to grip, the route can be seen, the curves wider. Second, third gear. In no time at all, the speed limit is far exceeded, so brake again. But please not like in a video by Snyder that has been clicked over 5.5 million times: You see a Kawasaki ZX driver scurrying through an alternating curve. He also overtakes a cyclist. Then the camera zooms back and stops at a police car parked on the edge. The Kawa-Biker rushes around the corner, sees the cops, brakes hard, smears over the front wheel and practically slides the cops in front of the car.
The whole haunt is over in less than four minutes. Edwards Corner is approaching from a right-hand slant. Here they fell by the hundreds. Palpitations. Gas on in a slight incline. View of the guardrails growing out of the ground on the right. One thinks involuntarily of the video in which the pilot of a Triumph Street Triple arrives here at tour pace, is probably frightened because he sees Paul with his camera and a few onlookers, and instead of turning in, brakes and slides straight on into the guardrails. The motorcycle comes to a halt, the driver rolls down the embankment. Spectacular. Thank God nothing happened to him.
Now it begins, the allegedly most dangerous curve in America. Start inside, just do not touch the two solid yellow lines, because there is zero grip on a large lean. At first you don’t see much, because bushes block the view of the further course of the curve. The radius is perfect, as drawn with a compass. The guardrail ends in the middle of the curve. Stay on the gas, second gear and look up. View of the parking lot. Lots of people, lots of machines and Paul, too, with the camera ready to shoot. Maybe you are scared. Or maybe you want to prove it to everyone who is standing there and gawking. However. Here, in the last third of the curve, 80 percent of all falls happen. And that has nothing to do with insufficient grip. Because you are still in an inclined position, but you can see the straight line that points to the pass. You are blinded by the sun. The curve closes a little in the last quarter. And it tilts inward slightly. Ultimately, the inexperienced only sees the straight line, thinks: great – and accelerates. Too much gas.
In an inclined position. Highsider. Lowsider. Slowsider. No matter what you call the falls there, they produce scrap, abrasions and ugly noises. And again a new video for Ken Snyder, which can be marketed very well.
A Kawasaki ZX rider flits through an alternating curve. He overtook a cyclist, smeared it away and slid practically right in front of the cops’ car.
\ n<div class = \&# 34; v-A_-custom-html v-A_-custom-html – video \ “>\ n<iframe width = \&# 34; 578 \&# 34; height = \&# 34; 325 \&# 34; src = \&# 34; https: //www.youtube.com/embed/oBTGgT_V5F8 \&# 34; frameborder = \&# 34; 0 \&# 34; allowfullscreen></ iframe>\ n</ div>\ n</ div>\ n&# 34;,&# 34; consentGroup&# 34;: null}”>
With his Street Tripple, a pilot rushes into the Leiplanke at touring pace and crashes down the embankment. The machine stays up and surprisingly nothing happens to him.
\ n<div class = \&# 34; v-A_-custom-html v-A_-custom-html – video \ “>\ n<iframe width = \&# 34; 578 \&# 34; height = \&# 34; 325 \&# 34; src = \&# 34; https: //www.youtube.com/embed/Up2UvuRLdTE \&# 34; frameborder = \&# 34; 0 \&# 34; allowfullscreen></ iframe>\ n \ n \ n</ div>\ n</ div>\ n&# 34;,&# 34; consentGroup&# 34;: null}”>
Rock Store Cafe
Henniges
John is in “Rock store” some kind of girl for everything.
The “Rock Store Cafe” is the address for all those who have always wanted to have an uncomplicated coffee with stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt or John Travolta. Here, on the Mulholland Highway, at the foot of the route that the locals only call “The Snake”, the motor-loving stars meet. No wonder, because the “Rock Store” is only half an hour’s drive from Hollywood. Founded as a gas station in the 1940s, the station advanced to a kind of American corner shop in 1961. In 1963 the couple Ed and Vern Savko took over the shop. The warmth of Ed and Vern, who had a few nice words for everyone, soon attracted many car and motorcycle freaks who walked their vehicles on the Mulholland Highway at the weekend and liked to stop for a coffee or burger. Today, the “Rock Store Cafe” is one of the oldest motorcycle meeting places in the USA and, according to the “Los Angeles Times”, is considered the “Mecca for motorcyclists”. If you are in LA at the weekend, you should definitely stop by the “Rock Store”, because the bear is usually going on here. It doesn’t matter whether on two or four wheels. The rustic charm of the old store has been retained, the burgers are great, the waitress is always joking, and coffee is refilled for free. A huge room serves as a kind of museum. The walls are papered with hundreds of photos showing celebrities walking in and out of the “Rock Store”. And outside in the parking lot there are often vehicles that you would normally only expect to find in museums, on racetracks around the world or in well-guarded high-security garages of wealthy sheikhs or film stars. The good thing about it: Only people with gasoline in their blood meet here. There are no social hurdles. No matter whether Jay Leno drops by with his turbine bike or Steve McQueen’s son Chad with his Triumph – you can not only experience the stars up close, but also pat them on the back in a friendly way.
Henniges
Seen from above, a five-kilometer stretch of the Mulholland Highway winds like a snake through the hills of southern California.
Paul and Ken are not alone in Edwards Corner, which is adjoined by a parking lot with a great view of the Santa Monica Mountains. Often a few dozen bikers hang around here to see which colleague takes Edwards Corner most elegantly or fastest. However, the German expression applause curve is not justified. Nobody claps their hands here. At most on the asphalt. “I’ve seen and photographed the craziest falls,” says Paul. “It bangs here every weekend.” The fact that not much happens is due, on the one hand, to the speed limit of 45 mph (73 km / h), which is strictly monitored by the police, and on the other hand, most drivers wear good leather suits with protectors. “In the 1980s we even closed the Snake to the public for a short time,” grumbles John Young, a county sheriff from LA. He drives a BMW R 1200 RT for work and drives a Ducati Hypermotard in his spare time: “Back then Illegal races were constantly being driven here, and there were many deaths. You had to react. “
Despite the many falls, the cops are calm about the hustle and bustle on the snake curve. “When the boys thunder around here, they can’t do any mischief anywhere else,” says Ken Dunkwell, a driver who has been driving the Snake for more than 20 years and has precise facts about it ready: four kilometers in length, 21 bends. Values that initially sound very unspectacular. “Many of the people who eat dust or polish the asphalt are inexperienced,” says Ken, referring to a nearby military base. “After two or three years, many young boys end up there on the front lines in Iraq. These boys had to be careful in everything they did for years. Those who survived get some kind of bonus from the US government. Many buy thousands of them and are completely disrespectful to them. They just think: Hey, finally back home – nothing can happen to me here. ”A man with a broken leg stands next to Ken and shakes his head. No, that’s only half the story: “The snake is extremely dangerous, especially Edwards Corner.”
Related articles
-
Photo Pichler to travel South America, part 2 South America, part 2 Dust, storm and gravel After around 14,000 kilometers through five countries in…
-
to travel South America ?? Antarctic South America ?? Antarctic 42 degrees of latitude On two enduros through the Andes ?? from the Chilean Atacama…
-
Henle to travel My most absurd tour: Turkey My most absurd tour: Turkey With a child and a kebab Traffic jam in a crammed station wagon or vacation on…
-
IDM run in Most 2019: record and change in leadership
Dino Eisele Sports & scene Motorsport IDM run in Most 2019: record and change in leadership IDM run in Most Record and leadership change After twelve…
-
The most beautiful motorcycles
motorcycles The most beautiful motorcycles The most beautiful motorcycles Ideal lines It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Nevertheless,…
-
to travel Central America Central America At the limit Drive once from Mexico to Panama, over that almost ridiculously small land bridge between the…
-
With a dog through South America
to travel With a dog through South America With a dog through South America Tinka’s journey Eight months in South America. From Buenos Aires via Tierra…
-
Pogo to travel Scene: My most absurd tour Scene: My most absurd tour My most absurd tour How a family trip to Ireland’s dream beach becomes a near-fiasco…
-
Pichler to travel South America, part 1 South America, part 1 Call of the Andes Adventure South America: Venezuela, Colombia, Equador, Peru and Bolivia…
-
to travel South America South America Patagonia Express Patagonia. Vastness. Huge glaciers. Bizarre mountains. And dusty slopes on which hardly anyone is…