My parents visited this area in the 1972. Some 40 years later, the Joshua Tree Inn, where they stayed, is still open for business. It's well known amongst country rock aficionados as the motel in which Gram Parsons passed away, and is popular with visiting musicians.

Gram-morabelia.

Gram's room, no 8, available to sleep in - for those don't believe in spirits... It's complete with some of the original furniture from 1973, the year of his death.

Built in the '50s, the Joshua Tree Inn is a quiet, beautifully kept motel. We treat ourselves to a room for a night, after its kind, chilled-out manager Marcu - sporting impressive, waist-length dreadlocks - offers us a mid-week special. In fact, we're even upgraded, ending up in the timewarped John Barrymore suite, so named for its popularity with the 30s actor - grandfather of Drew Barrymore. Even cooler, it's the room in which John Wayne always stayed when he was in the area.

Sadly, the highway must have bloated in size over the ensuing years - there's no shoulder for cyclists and it's thick with traffic. Backroads offer far more enticing riding and camping opportunities. Once the storm has past and the Californian sun is shining once more, we detour up to Pioneer Town.

This characterful place began its life as a Wild West film set, back in the 1940s. Now it's just as known now for Patty and Harriet's bar, a small venue that draws top musicians, who are often recording in nearby studios.

Good to know: wheelmen will find chocolate tablets very beneficial.

Then it's back on the road again, ever searching for ways to avoid the 29 Palms Highway. Little Morongo Canyon Road soon becomes sand, as we enter a valley shared with a last few, lingering Joshua Trees.

Cyclists take note. This whole desert traverse has been something of a goathead medley - a particularly tenacious, vindictive thorn that preys on inner tubes. Tyre sealant is a must - you can see where two puncture wounds have been successfully plugged, keeping us rolling.

The Powerline Road descends for several miles, looping through the steep-sided Morongo Canyon. A lengthy push through sand slows our progress to tortoise-pace, so we opt to camp for the night.

Deep in the canyon, the winds are gusting up again, throwing tumbleweeds in our path. After struggling to get the tarp up, we pillage the canyon for every available rock in the hope of keeping it down, and stop it sailing back off into the desert.

Finally, we're ejected out of our sandy wash into well-to-do suburbia. Tucked away amongst the luxury complexes in Desert Hot Springs, our budget noses sniff out a retro spa, where the rich, swooning voice of Engelbert Humperdinck pipes out of the loudspeaker. $7 gets us the use of a series of hot springs, an icy-cold plunge pool, a massive outdoor swimming pool, as much mineral water as we can drink, and some truly surreal conversation. 'You can live to 130 these days, as long as keep on swapping out body parts,' says one, prune-like old timer we share a soak with.

How many? It's no wonder our campspot was a little windy. This area is well known for its gusty conditions, thanks to cool coastal and hot desert airs mixing. Stork-like wind turbines are everywhere.

Google Maps guides us on a dirt road that wends its way right between the blades of this enormous wind farm.

Finally, we pop us out parallel to the monstrous Interstate 10, linking San Diego with Florida. Pushing on past sunset, we camp out for the night on high ground, mesmerised by the endless stream of headlights that flicker by throughout the night.

Come morning, our alternative route is a little scraggly round the edges, but a whole lot quieter.

In fact, sometimes it feels like real backcountry riding - even though we're just a few hundred feet from such a seething mass of cars and trucks.

We stop for a snack under a diplodocus - it's not often you can say that. In fact, this dinosaur-themed cafe was one of the locations for 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure', a zany film that recounts Pee-wee Herman's search for his stolen bicycle.

We make our way through Banning to Hemit, a low lying valley that's bountiful with produce. Sold by the roadside, buckwheat honey, dates, sweet potatoes and persimmons - sweet fruit masquerading as rotting tomatoes - all take our fancy.

The grapefruits here are particularly tasty and remind me of my time riding through the Copper Canyon, North Mexico. That night we stay with Sue and Keith, our Warm Showers hosts, two teachers who battle daily against the car-centric tide on their bicycles.

A few miles out of town we turn off onto the Old Control Road. It snakes its way up into the San Jancinto Mountains, climbing steeply for 10 miles to Idyllwild, almost 4000 feet above Hemet.

There, we arrive in a world of giant boulders, mangrove-like manzanitas and towering sugar pines - known to grow to a couple of hundred feet - and their babyhead-sized cones.

It's a beautiful, often overlooked swathe of forest home to the Pacific Crest Trail - one of the US' long distance hiking routes - that abounds in folksy wooden cottages and cabins, tucked away amongst the pines. In fact, our first night is spent with Karen, a PCT hiker herself, who puts us up, feeds us, and sends us packing with all manner of tasty, lightweight hiking food.

Idyllwild: the place where the pine needles gather.

Most known for its climbing, Idyllwild also boasts great mountain biking trails. We head over to the local framebuilder, Siren Cycles, to check out his wares. Amongst a collection of racey aluminium softtails, this steel, long-distance 29er catches my eye.

It features an elegant, curved top tube and internal framerouting.

Brendan, Siren's framebuilder and ownver of the Hub Cyclery - a goodies-packed bike shop with a roaring log fire - recommends enough local singletrack to keep us busy for a couple of afternoons.

The trails around May Valley Road weave their way between pines and manzanitas, squeezing between boulders, twisting and turning every which way.

There's no finer manner to round off a ride in Idyllwild than a trip to the arty, eclectic Honey Bunns and Joe cafe. Should you be passing by, we can heartily recommend the toasty-warm, generously-proportioned cinnamon roles...