Izmir is where Turkey faces west. It sprawls around a deep bay on the Aegean, with hills behind it and a seafront promenade, the Kordon, along which people stroll, eat and argue until late. The city is ancient Smyrna, claimed by Homer's admirers as his birthplace, and it carries a layered, cosmopolitan past of Greek, Ottoman, Levantine and Jewish communities that still shows in the old bazaar quarter of Kemeraltı.
As a starting point for a ride, Izmir is both generous and demanding. Generous because within an hour you are out of the metropolis and among vineyards, olive groves and the cotton plains of the Gediz and Küçük Menderes valleys. Demanding because the first twenty minutes involve a very large city with fast, assertive traffic, sudden lane changes, scooters and taxis, so it pays to leave early on a weekend morning, when the ring roads are quiet. Summer is hot, with an afternoon sea breeze called the imbat that cools the coast. Spring and autumn are better for the legs and the helmet.
The old agora of Smyrna sits on the hillside above the bazaar and is worth a quiet half hour, with its vaulted arcades and Roman columns. Kadifekale, the hill fortress, has a view that explains why a city was founded here at all, over the harbour and the whole bay. Food is a pleasure. Look for boyoz, the flaky pastry of Sephardic origin eaten with a boiled egg and strong tea at breakfast, and for kumru, a toasted sandwich eaten on the seafront. Figs, fresh fish and salty cheese show up everywhere.
There is no shortage of anything practical in a city of two and a half million people. Fuel stations are everywhere, including on the ring road out towards Çeşme and the Manisa highway, and repairs, parts and tyres are easy to find. Parking in the centre is trickier, so look for an enclosed car park near the waterfront and leave your gear in a secure place. If you need to rest, the park around the Alsancak district is full of tea gardens, and the evening light across the bay, when the ferries slide past, is what the day was built for.