Motorcyclists gear up for the full Angeles Crest Highway experience

It's 9 a.m., and the toilet seat is, predictably, up at the Shell station in La Cañada Flintridge. It is Sunday, sunny, warm. Perfect riding weather for the (predominantly male) motorcyclists making their pilgrimage up Angeles Crest Highway, where they will power through scores of turns over several miles at ever-increasing altitudes.

The Shell station is their last-chance pit stop -- for Pop-Tarts, Starbucks and other high-octane fuels that will propel them east along one of the most beloved stretches of asphalt in Southern California -- and manager Sabir Enabi is ringing up customer after leather-clad customer. A bottle of Mountain Dew goes to a man in a Ducati jacket. A pack of Camels is sold to another in a back protector and jeans.