Up here on the California and Oregon border the land looks burnt, and in a sense it is. Beneath your tyres the ground is honeycombed with lava tubes, hundreds of them, formed when the outer skin of a flow cooled and the molten rock inside drained away.
Lava Beds National Monument protects the best of it, and it is worth the detour off the byway. Some of the caves are open to visitors with a torch, a helmet and a jacket, because even in July it is cold underground and a few hold ice all year. The other story here is human and grim. In 1872 and 1873 a band of Modoc people under the man the army called Captain Jack held off a far larger US force for months from a natural fortress of lava trenches at the edge of the old lake bed, now called Captain Jack's Stronghold. You can walk the trail through it, and it is hard not to feel the weight of the place.
The riding is wide open rather than twisty. Long straights cross farmland reclaimed from the drained lake, where onions, potatoes and barley grow, then the road lifts onto the lava plateau with gentle bends and big skies. Wind is the main enemy, and it can blow hard across the flats in the afternoon. Watch for deer at dusk and for loose gravel on the shoulders. Spring brings huge flocks of migrating birds to the wildlife refuges at Tule Lake and Lower Klamath, which were among the first refuges set up for waterfowl in the country, and the sight of thousands of geese lifting at once is something to stop for.
Services are thin. The little farming town of Tulelake, a short ride north, has the basics, and Klamath Falls, about sixty kilometres away, is the place for a full tank, tyres and a proper meal. Carry water if you plan to walk the trails, because the shade out here is mostly the shadow of your own bike.